Alarms simply tell you you've been robbed.

A far more effective strategy is to ensure that anyone entering your house uninvited will find it impossible to stay long enough to steal your stuff.

To do this, you want lots of *internal* sirens that run at 120dB+.

If the intruders ears start bleeding as soon as they enter the building, they will retreat at a very hasty pace.

That's how my alarms are configured. They ring me over the cellular network and generate an internal sould level that is intollerably loud (as I have discovered on the two occasions I forgot to disarm the system myself) :-)

If he's going to get your iPad he might as well take some life-long hearing damage with him :-)

Fortunately I still have some of those old Kodak Gold CDRs that were guaranteed to last 100 years!

How do I claim on that guarantee now I wonder? :-(

Don't believe it... just understand that in NZ, the authorities are much better at hiding it.

Corruption, hypocrisy and graft remains rife in this country it's just that we're a nation of 4.4 million sheeple who really don't give a damn.

The great Kiwi saying "she'll be right" is killing this nation because nobody is prepared to stand up and speak out when they see people in power doing bad things and abusing that power.

"a very unique milestone in space exploration"

WTF?

"unique" is not a relative adjective. There are no degrees of "unique". Something is either unique or it's not.

Aaargh!

That's why there are no such words as uniquer or uniquest

</rant>

And my Cassio FX-115, going strong since the very early 1980s and it has *never* needed a replacement battery (perhaps because it's totally solar powered).

Why is it that the ads in mags like Byte were a key part of the reason I bought the magazine -- but banners and online ads have become little more than annoyance and irritation?

The old print-media ads were informative and didn't slow down my reading in anyway so I guess they were excellent "secondary" content.

There's no way I'll patronize any site that uses full-page interstitial advertising -- yet the full-page ads in Byte and other printed mags were things I often read from start to finish.

Is it just me or have others had the same experience?

Modern 2.4GHz RC gear requires a significant level of tech-expertise to "hijack" in the manner suggested.

Occam's Razor has the answer...

Simple mechanical, electrical or operator failure -- nothing more, nothing less.

Too many would-be "drone" operators have scant understanding of the need for a maintenance schedule and proper planning before deploying even the smallest and most lightweight of craft.

The problem is that far to many people buy these things and then treat them as if they'll just keep working forever -- simply charge the battery and fly!

Unfortunately, props fatigue, motor bearings wear, ESCs can overheat and flight controllers can fail.

There's a hell of a lot more to safely deploying one of these craft than flipping a few switches and wiggling some sticks.

I'm not a commercial operator -- I fly for fun but even *I* am very much aware of the importance of good housekeeping and planning when it comes to using these things safely.

"You wouldn't steal a handbag...

"You wouldn't steal a car...

"You wouldn't download a movie...

"But it's okay to claim someone else's IP as your own... if you're Sony!

Go buy yourself a Raspbery Pi, download the boot-image for Rasbmc, boot it up, go have a coffee and a sandwich.

When you get back -- you'll have all the TV and movies you could want -- for the cost of your monthly internet connection.

If Netflix was available here, I'd pay for it -- but since it's not (legally) available to NZers, I figure that the movie/TV producers don't want my money and use XBMC instead. I'm not going to force them to take my cash if they don't want it -- but they better not complain about the fact that I'm watching their stuff for free in the meantime.

This isn't a problem that is limited to the USA.

I live in New Zealand and have a workshop on the local airfield.

Of the 9 hangars at the airfield, only two now have airworthy aircraft in them -- and most of those are home-built or microlite types rather than GA craft (like Cessnas).

Just about the only (semi) regular users of the runway are flight schools which train pilots for overseas airlines such as EasyJeet and JetStar.

The skyrocketing cost of maintaining a PPL combined with hikes in just about every other cost associated with flying has really seen the amount of activity plummet.

Even the local CAA (our equivalent of the FAA) field officer told me he's not going to renew his pilot's license because of the costs.

On the up-side.... the whole issue of drones being integrated into the national airspace may soon be made a lot easier -- since there'll be far fewer full-sized craft in that airspace anyway :-)

Oh come on... we all know that the mission controllers got bored and told the rover to do a few donuts when nobody was looking!

Hell, you're hundreds of millions of miles from home -- there are no police -- who's going to give you a ticket for a bit of "sustained loss of traction" in the company's rover? :-)

Then.... bugger! Forgot about the camera! Duh!

Oh I wish I had mod points today.

Spat my coffee all over my screen when I read that.

ROTFFL

Reminds me of my favorite part of Iron Sky where the North Korean delegate stands up and ascribes credit for the approaching fleet of space ships to his glorous leader Kim Yong Ill.

Love that movie!

Given that the NSA is busy tapping the phones and email conversations of the leaders with which the USA is "negotiating" this TPPA, it's hard to believe that this isn't just a one-sided deal.

How can other nations "negotiate" when the USA knows exactly what their bottom lines are (given that they've likely exchanged such information with their fellow politicians within their own country by phone or email)?

What's more -- why does this all need to be done in secret -- hidden away from the eyes and ears of those who these politicians are elected to REPRESENT and SERVE?

This is a huge con-job on the peoples of the non-US nations involved.

I strongly suspect there will be a great deal of "post-political career" employment on offer for those foreign politicians who agree to the US-dictated terms of the TPPA.

Outrageous!

Can you still leave comments on YouTube videos though -- after you've deleted your G+ account?