The original Pacific Fibre project failed technically because of lack of funding, but just as much from international politicking. International infrastructure (intrastructure?) attracts these sorts of issues it would seem. The US didn't want China funding it and really didn't want them providing technology.

And of course theres's already speculation the US would take the same attitude to Kim Dotcom's involvement given they are trying to prosecute him for teh internet crimez.

A cynic might see this as a cynical PR move on his part. He offers The People of NZ goodies and the US government takes them away. He gets to look like the good guy again and it ultimately costs him nothing.

I read once (I think in a post on slashdot a couple of years back) that many hardware manufacturers keep their device drivers proprietary in order to hide the details of the hardware implementation.
And that this is not so much to maintain, "a competitive edge," as to protect themselves from patent lawsuits from their competitors.

So my reference is possibly not the most reliable, but my point is that they might not be hiding stuff just to screw over consumers. There are many other possible reasons.

A closely related bug has kept me on on stuck Kubuntu 10.04. If I try to run an external monitor on my latptop with any variant of *ubuntu from 11.x on - or recent versions of Fedora for that matter - it freezes up.

Every time I log on it asks me to upgrade to 12.04 now. I would dearly love to, but it would render my laptop effectively unusable.

Please watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc

That's not the scary thing. That's the only thing that is at all positive. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. And given that, the most empowering thing you can do for people is to make the same powers of observation available to everybody.

*Bullshit.*

Watch the news clip. He states was holding his hands up empty when he entered the room, and the police do not dispute this. There was, according to some reports I have read, a loaded gun in the room.

The fact that you embellished this part of the story makes me suspect that some of your other statements also might be less than the unvarnished truth.

People have been trying to measure intelligence for well over a hundred years now, but I have yet to see anybody precisely and fully define exactly what it is they are measuring.

And don't say IQ - the only thing IQ tests measure is the ability to do IQ tests. Read up on their history. There is nothing scientific about their origin.

If I can sit in my car and work at my laptop, or read, or phone the first client of the day I'll care a lot less about how fast I get there. Much like people today who take the bus or train to work.

Often people speed because they are driving and that' all they are doing. Most of the time they aren't even late, they just like going a bit faster and it's fun. You don't usually tell your taxi driver to put his foot down unless you really are late for that very important meeting.

GP's point is still valid though. Given similar materials and tools it's not unreasonable to theorise that two geographically separate cultures simply came up with the same general solution to the same problem.

Actually it's the Crown Law Office in NZ that is first in line to be sued. It is the entity that took action against him. And that would be a criminal case (unlawful arrest and seizure of property) although parties in the US might be liable for civil damages.

  Of course IANAL.

Actually the pirates are the products of the destruction of the Somali fishing industry from illegal over-fishing by foreign vessels.

Reference.

Reference.

Although I grant you that the lack of a functional government in Somalia was a contributing factor.

You don't see what's actually there, even with no artificial augmentation whatsoever. Your brain does a vast amount of subconscious processing of the light that comes to your eyes so that you can see all those three dimensional things.

Check out some funky optical illusions.

And use anacron or cron to run it