Huh? PGP Desktop has long supported using a token or smart card to authenticate to an encrypted disk at boot. Yes, it supports the "file on a flash drive" approach as well but also supports cryptographic tokens from a lot of different manufacturers.

"In September 1896, he passed the Swiss Matura with mostly good grades, including a top grade of 6 in physics and mathematical subjects, on a scale of 1-6, and, though only seventeen, enrolled in the four-year mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Zurich Polytechnic." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

Yeah, Einstein sure sounds like a mediocre teen.

Just because you seem to recall that doesn't mean it is true. Einstein did very in school, particularly in his mathematics and physics classes. From Wikipedia:
"In September 1896, he passed the Swiss Matura with mostly good grades, including a top grade of 6 in physics and mathematical subjects, on a scale of 1-6"

When he took the job at the patent office he was looking for a teaching position, having already graduated from school. Many people point to Einstein and say "See? Doing poorly in school doesn't mean I am stupid, even Einstein didn't do well in school!" when the actual reason they do poorly in school is because they don't have the same level of intellect as the other students. Sure, it is possible to be a genius and still get bad grades but it is far more likely one's bad grades and test scores are due to their incompetence rather than their genius.

I didn't see your farm example but you did give the example of a father wanting to pass on a Taco Hut business to his heirs. Wikipedia says unless the Taco Hut is worth more than $5,340,000 your heirs would have to pay nothing. You act like every poor dirt farmer is getting burned by this tax but in reality it is only estates that are worth many millions of dollars that are subject to this tax and even then, they are only taxed on the amount of the estate in excess of the exemption.

Absolutely. The plural of anecdote is not data, actual data is much more useful than your anecdote. Plus, this story and the parent post to which you are replying have nothing to do with the number of women at your company, they have to do with how much women in the tech field get paid relative to men.

So women spend money on themselves, and men spend money on women. Not to mention the fact that for 2 of the 3 categories you listed (hair maintenance and clothes) men also have costs. I don't know why anyone would have a problem with this, seems perfectly equitable.

My request wasn't to get the numbers as I did a similar search and know the numbers, it was to help you realize that welfare is a small portion of the budget. I obviously failed in this as rather than looking at the number and saying "gee, that isn't that much money in the context we are talking about" you attempted to insult my intelligence. When I ask for fact to substantiate your nebulous assertions you return with insults and no facts. I assume this is because the facts don't support your specious argument.

Can you provide some numbers that back up that assertion? What percentage of the federal budget is spent on welfare? On pensions?

Well, if they have a WiFi option to connect rather than a cellular network connection you could only set it up for your home WiFi so it couldn't get an update unless you were at home. As long as manufacturers let the end-user have some control over this process I don't see anything wrong with delivering updates directly to the car rather than the dealer.

Yes, but that salary structure wasn't because of some nebulous "belief in the company" it was structured that way to avoid taxes and for public relations purposes. link

Sure, and it would be easier to solve crimes if every citizen had a chip implanted that would track all their movements and record everything they do. To some people, freedom is a lot more important than solving every crime or "feeling safe" from terrorists. Unfortunately, the American people as a whole do not feel that way. They welcome more government survellience, take a look at polls conducted after the Snowden revelations - the majority doesn't see a problem with it because they think the NSA is making them safe from terrorism. One's chances of being injured or killed in a terrorist attack are very low but we spend billions and billions of dollars to fight this near non-existent threat. For the price we are paying for DHS we could do things that would actually make people safer instead of just making them feel safer.

That solution only works if the goal of gathering license plates is to find outdated registrations. Since that is not the (primary) goal, the solution won't work for the government's needs.

Anybody who thinks they really decided not to pursue this program is naive. Because of the public outcry, they pulled the public proposal but they will simply have to find the contractor and hire him in secret now. They are not going to abandon this program, they are just going to hide it better.

That's fine, those of us who don't work for cash are glad to pay your taxes. Freeloaders are always a welcome addition to any system.

Why don't we stick to what happens in reality instead of imagining what might happen. There has never been such a thing proposed. It would be much harder legally for a government to implement such censorship since the government is bound by many laws that a private company is not. Since private companies and the existing government-owned networks are not doing this now, why do you fear it happening?

I don't have to imagine what the internet service on this network would be like because I have been using it for years. It has been much faster, much more reliable and much cheaper than what I was getting from Comcast. The levels of service have continually increased (there is nothing like being told "We kicked you up to 50MB/50MB! Nope, no increase it is still $36 - have a nice day!").

I don't need competing networks in the same way that I don't need competing road systems. The network is like a road system, maintained for the good of all, and both FedEx and UPS are free to use it to compete. There is robust competition on the network because more companies are able to provide services they could never provide before because other companies had been granted the monopoly. Before the network was built we had two monopoly providers (Qwest for phone and Comcast for cable). Service on both were atrocious and prices were high. Since they had monopoly positions there was no incentive to provide quality service.

Back when dial-up internet was the norm there were a lot of local and regional ISPs. If you didn't like your ISP you could switch to a different one. The advent of broadband killed off most of these ISPs since the existing monopoly providers of phone and cable had the only route to the customer. Municipal networks bring back the ability for the small guys to compete with the big guys. It increases competition and diversifies the marketplace. How can someone who sees the value of competition and can see the current state of phone and cable monopolies be against it?

Whoooosh