If this same question came from a group in, say, Afghanistan or Iraq, would you be for or against some government taking a supervisory interest in their missle-building activities?

Have the Ubuntu releases wrapped around, then? I thought we were at "Teething Tapir" or some such thing.

FTFA: "Crucial to that is getting to the point, scheduled for 2027, when the first nuclear fuel would be injected into the reactor. "

So... the first *actual attempt at fusion* is some FOURTEEN YEARS AWAY, but the scientists are confident they're on track...

Yeah, I don't think I'll get excited quite yet., Check back in fourteen years and we'll see.

Why should the law care about whether or not there has been a romantic relationship, or even if there's nudity?

How about, if you have pictures of another person, given with reasonable expectations that it was for your private use (i.e. you do not have any signed permission to the contrary), why not just make it illegal to make these public with intent to bully, defame, humiliate, or shame?

Celebrities and other people in the public eye excepted, as always, or half the entertainment industry would crash overnight.

...how do you replicate this to an offsite hot standby, so that you don't look stupid when the power goes out? Or whatever other disaster occurs, because you just KNOW a single basket full of this many eggs is going to attract tornadoes, Cat 5 hurricanes, earthquakes, and meteors. Also coffee spills, hungry rodents, and burst pipes.

Also I believe OTLP == Oracle Typical Ludicrous Pricing

Slapping a 'mass hysteria' label on a phenomenon you cannot explain might make you feel more comfortable in your little corner of the universe, but it should not be confused with actually determining a provable cause. Mass hysteria isn't any more provable than demonic possession or alien mind control. It's a catchall for 'I give up'.

5) All of the above.

1) we need solid encryption, with decently secure keys, BY DEFAULT, on EVERY box, BEFORE it leaves the box. If it hits a network, it's encrypted first. Period. Even if you're running Windows. Even on your Grandmother's Windows computer. Email, IMs, and Web browsing, file sharing, voice, the works. If I choose to encrypt my transmitted data, I don't want to accrue suspicion because I stand out, because EVERYTHING is encrypted. If the government wants to know what I'm sending or receiving, they can ask for my encryption keys. Depending on the law, maybe they'll get them. But then a) I'll KNOW they're watching me, and b) watching me doesn't automatically let them watch my neighbors. Decrypting one computer at a time doesn't scale well.

This is really, really, hard, and won't happen overnight. But we've learned a lot since the Internet was young, I think it's workable from a technical standpoint. It's the social part that will be hardest, convincing companies that the additional expense is justified and convincing people that a little extra complexity (hopefully none at all -- except maybe when you set up your computer for the first time) is worth it.

2) we need REALLY secure interfaces. Part of this is accomplished by part 1) but not all. We need to work towards fewer viruses, fewer zero-day exploits, and we need them fixed faster and with less manual intervention. Why are botnets STILL possible? This is also really hard. But the government should want this, too. Every time we hear about how vulnerable our power grids, or automobiles, or pacemakers, or telecom might be to cyber warfare, we should be shouting about this. Instead the government wants to exploit the zero-days for themselves, because they are dependent on them for their own cyberwar offensives. Yes, Microsoft might own some of the heat for this, (but not all, by any stretch of the imagination) but by their omnipresence they are in the best position to make a serious dent in the problem, too. IF it was worthwhile for them to do so. I might be interested in Windows 9 or 10 if security -- REAL security, designed in from the ground up, not marketecture -- was the goal. But again, motivating software companies is a social problem, not a technical one.

I'm sure there are other things we need, but these are the ones that seem most important to me.

This sort of thing is exactly why I started my own ANTIsocial network. I'd invite you to join, but hey, antisocial.

It's dateline is 2023. It's fiction. NOT news.

Coffee drinkers studied by Mayo Clinic scientists have a greater chance of dying than NIH coffee drinkers.

It's easier just to use the juicer.

well, yeah, because... SCIENCE!

What kind of hail do you have that would damage the small end of a plastic bottle?
I'm trying to imagine how much force it would take to damage one.

THIS.

Also, perhaps this reflects a plateau in the number of people willing to invest in tablets or ebook readers? Do these numbers correspond to tablet sales, for example?