Given that 8 was the "Just because it's called 'Windows' doesn't mean it needs a functional windowing system!" release, It's pretty hard to argue with them.

Maybe some of that works on touchscreen laptops; but 'metro' is a tragicomedy on any monitor configuration worth using.

"It's not enough getting a free ride off of developers building great software, we want to shove our roadmap down their throats and get them to work harder for us â" without having to pay for it, of course."

Looks more like "We want to figure out how best to coordinate and share that portion of the work that the people whom we pay to develop software for us, do on free software." (Though they're not using that dangerous word "free", of course.)

"Free" or "open source" doesn't mean no one is getting paid to develop it.

In addition, Tesla(whether or not you see this as an improvement is a distinct issue, it simply is so) sells cars much more like an enterprise IT hardware vendor sells hardware: at least within the warranty period, there is very much an ongoing interaction between the hardware and the vendor. System health information gets sent directly back, on site techs with specialized parts and firmware get sent out and so on. More traditional car companies are closer to buying a PC: the dealer will offer (often absurdly priced; but available) maintenance; and the vendor may become involved with certain warranty or recall cases; but they are otherwise largely out of the loop, with third parties handling the ongoing interaction with the hardware.

Something has to provide coordination and theatre-level intelligence for all deployed Highlander batteries, no?

Actually, when people say googling, they really do mean "look it up using Google."

Actually, no, they don't. They mean "look it up with whatever search engine you usually use". As in, google it with Bing".

We will, of course, run all your errands for you without gathering the data for marketing and other purposes; because doing that would be just too easy...

The assorted 'laws of war' are heavily leavened by what their framers suspect that they can actually get at least some people to agree to; but the overall theoretical foundation always seems to be an attempt to steer weapons in the direction of "Kills outright, or leaves a wound that, if treated, will heal with comparatively limited permanent damage."

It's not an easy standard to maintain(both in terms of convenience, mass-maiming is a hell of a shock to morale and logistics, and engineering, something that will kill if it hits you as designed will likely cause serious tissue damage and/or amputation if it scores a sub-par hit); but it's not really a terribly strange shared desire, from the perspective of the warring European powers of the 20th century that wrote most of them.

I'm fairly out of my depth with this stuff, so this is an honest inquiry: how do the magnetic nanoparticles fit into the equation?

I realize that, once coated with a suitably tailored binding protein, the particles will collect whatever target the binding protein was specified for (presumably this could even be tailored, for any target where a suitably tame binding compound is available), and probably fairly efficiently because of the absurd surface area of nanoparticles.

What I don't understand is the necessity of using the nanoparticles. It was my understanding that, outside of seriously immunocompromised victims, T-cells(and possibly other flavors of phagocytes, I'm fuzzy on the details) are extremely adept at engulfing and destroying foreign bodies, including 'clumps' produced by targets bound to the antigens produced by B-cells. This technique appears to be using a synthetic/introduced antigen(which makes sense if the immune system isn't producing the necessary antigen, or not ramping up production fast enough); but it also introduces the nanoparticles so that the antigen clumps can be magnetically scrubbed from the bloodstream, rather than cleaned up by the T Cells.

What is the peculiarity here that would make introducing the novel clump-scrubbing mechanism necessary and worthwhile?

The Protocol contains a loophole large enough to drive a truck through, never mind some photons:

"Article 3 Blinding as an incidental or collateral effect of the legitimate military employment of laser systems, including laser systems used against optical equipment, is not covered by the prohibition of this Protocol."

As long as the blinding is a side effect (mitigated by "all feasible precautions to avoid the incidence of permanent blindness to unenhanced vision") of a non-blinding purpose(setting things on fire, destroying machine vision/optical sensor gear, 'dazzling', and basically anything else you might feel like using a laser for, it's all legal. That is not exactly fertile ground for any sort of serious arms control, even if lasers weren't comparatively cheap and trivial to build, especially at the modest powers that will really boil your eyeballs but aren't subject to the engineering challenges of aspirational air-defense and antimissile systems.

It gives me no pleasure to say so; blinding is a pretty ugly thing to do; but the Protocol as written is about as effective as forbidding murder; but making it legal to put a bullet through any hat you see, regardless of whether it contains a head or not.

If gun ownership were more tightly controlled, those 14000-19000 nonfatal injuries and the hundreds of fatal injuries from accidental shootings would be reduced by at least an order of magnitude - lives would be saved.

The number of firearms accidents is statistical noise. Anyone making a great hue and cry about them is clearly not actually concerned with gun accidents, but is trying to use them to veil a prohibitionist agenda.

If gun ownership were more tightly controlled, the 60,000 to 2,500,000 annual incidents of firearms self-defense (yes, huge error bars) would be reduced -- more people would be murdered, raped, and robbed from. Lives would be lost.

Also, of course, enforcing a prohibition law ipso facto means locking people in cages for acts that do not credibly threaten the rights of others. Liberty would be lost.

Here in the civilised world...murder rates and prison populations are proportionally tiny compared to the USA.

Folks in Mexico, Philippines, and Brazil might take exception to being called "uncivilized".

Yes, we have more violence than other wealthy nations. We also have more of a problem with an unaddressed legacy of slavery and segregation, ongoing racism, ongoing economic injustice, and lack of access to useful mental health care than those nations do. Those factors have far more to do with our violence problem than access to firearms does.

According to CDC's WISQARS, there are about 14,000-19,000 nonfatal injuries stemming from accidental shootings per year in the U.S.

And according to that same source, for 2012, there were 8,974,762 non-fatal accidental injuries from falls. Floors are dangerous. 2,145,927 from cutting or piercing objects, 972,923 from poisoning, 423,138 from fire, 357,629 from dog bites...

Heck, there were 58,363 from "nature/environment", which includes "exposure to adverse natural and environmental conditions (such as severe heat, severe cold, lightning, sunstroke, large storms, and natural disasters) as well as lack of food or water." Nature will hurt you with more probability than guns will.

But yours is a common mistake people make when talking about guns, because they just don't know (or care) about the actual numbers.

Pot. Kettle. Black. Numbers are meaningless without context for comparison. By any rational comparison with other things that can hurt you, firearms accidents are rare.

I had an idea that might not be so dangerous and pulled out my fone. âoeComputer,â I said, âoewhat's the best way to knock that bitch out?â
        The fone said âoeParse error, there are no female dogs on board and âknockâ(TM) is not in context. Please rephrase.â
        Who programs these God damned stupid things, anyway? Back when computers were new, science fiction movies had computers that could think. These stupid computers sure can't. God damn it, I was going to have to talk like I went to college... only I ain't went to college, damn it.

It's also an overcomplicated solution. OBD can get pretty nasty if you want access to esoteric stuff or manufacturer proprietary crap; but a basic, bluetooth-capable, OBD dongle that'll report the rough outlines of how a vehicle is being used is quite cheap indeed and not especially complex. I wouldn't necessarily want to try dead-reconing with nothing but that output; but answering "Am I driving right now?" is considerably less demanding.

Evolutionary selection pressures never stop.

It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any long-term evolutionary advantage for a species. Horseshoe crabs have been rocking along on tiny brains for about three orders of magnitude longer than Homo sapiens has been around.

It's not really polite to say so that bluntly; but the difference is that measles deaths are basically optional(1st world anti-vaxxers) or just another bad thing that happens to poor people in poor and unpleasant places. By contrast, Ebola is currently just another bad thing that happens to poor people in poor and unpleasant places; but we've got basically nothing available to do about it if it spreads beyond the usual outbreak sites(yes, unlike the usual outbreak sites, we have limited supplies of high grade medical isolation gear and some interesting experimental drugs; but nobody has enough of the cool tech to deal with an outbreak of nontrivial size, especially if they want their medical and logistical systems to continue handling routine functions and care at the same time).

There are loads of places far less poor and squalid than Liberia and the other oubreak sites; but without any good options on the table it wouldn't take long to run through your supply of isolation wards and fancy positive-pressure protective suits even in the most upmarket first world locations with well regarded research hospitals and such, were the population to be affected.