the absence of facebook won't make those problems go away.

I missed addressing that; responded a bit too quickly, sorry.

I consider this assertion to be flawed; here's why. FB has a very high public profile. Any visitor to the US that is exposed to social media is likely to be aware of both the institution and its reach. They can also learn that the reason "they can't have nice things" is because their government has stepped in the way of their citizens using religion as an excuse. Likewise, US family members who cannot connect with Turkish family members are likely to hold strong opinions, and share them.

If anything is going to make things change, I think that's far more likely than a FB presence that is repression-compliant.

Of course, this would require Zuckerberg and crew to operate using a metric quite different from the "maximize users as ad viewers" model, and that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

Yay, you are unique. but that doesn't add anything to the conversation. Most professional photographers will tell you "the best camera there is, is the one you have with you." The camera on the phone is popular because it's always with you. That's the "value" in the phone. It's so small and convenient that you *always* have it with you.

You must not have kids. Or friends. Most tablets can survive a drop from 3 feet onto unpadded outdoor carpet (the standard cheap office carpet, glued to hard concrete, with no padding). However, I've never seen a laptop survive that. Maybe the special ruggedized ones could, but they are always much more expensive and much slower.

There is an issue of State here, the Turkish State, requiring Facebook to filter and or creating at least the implied thread[sic] they will be blocked if they do not filter.

Yes. But it is, in fact, the Turkish state. Not the US state.

I agree with you that I don't like FB's policy here (nor Turkey's) and I would be much happier if FB operated with a lean towards freedom of speech, but that's never been who they were -- they mute, restrict and ban US posters on a regular and constant basis WRT written material and photographs, and they have inflicted their "Real Name" policy on members without regard for the numerous negative consequences.

The objective of FB is to sell ads they can put in the faces of their members. Those who describe members as FB's "product" seem to me to be very close to the mark. How they treat membership, then, can be expected to be the fruits of a policy to maximize the size of the group. And frankly, that's what I see when I look at their policies. Not care for quality, safety or freedom of speech -- just a place to farm ad consumers.

I suspect we're in a similar position to someone trying to tell a happy dictator that "absolute power is bad." It wastes our time and annoys the pig. Er, Zuckerman, I mean. But I repeat myself.

Laptops are also cheaper than smart phones. A low-priced touchscreen laptop will be about half the price of a large-screen phone. A dumb phone and a laptop gives you the most computing and screen size for the $$$. But just because you assert that to be the target doesn't mean anyone else sees it that way. The "real" benefit of the iPad is the walled garden. You can tether one to a desk. Put on a corporate app (perhaps for a reception/guest notification) and it's reasonably durable (vs a PC tablet, few of which will survive a worst-case drop 2-feet onto unpadded carpet), and if you need more, it's easy to get another identical one. Actually working on a phone is hard. Much less so on a screen 4x the size (in area, not diagonal). http://www.computerworld.com/a... about $500 for a "decent" touch-screen laptop.

Which way? The US app store (locked down to US residents) is global, and the hollywood global receipts are domestic?

Part of the problem is comparing gross Hollywood with net Appstore. And just one appstore at that.

I agree that the comparison is bad, but your implication that it's skewed to make apps look large is the opposite of the actual skew.

Same as having all your 401(k) invested in the company you work for. If it goes under, you have no job and no retirement. But not a "good" asset doesn't make it not an asset.

That would only be the President and Congress. Those are the people that made it what it is. The actual SSA has no power to control where their "surplus" goes. I imagine they'd invest it in the DOW, if they had a free choice.

An insurance company does fund funds with its own funds. It's only cuffable when you under-fund in the first place, and try to fraudulently cover it with fake assets. That's not the case here.

Next you'll tell me you think the Subprime Crisis had anything to do with subprime borrowers, when it was 100% fraud by the banks, unrelated to the borrowers they lent to.

If gays were members in places with fundamentalist islam, as soon as they were discovered they would likely be killed.
Banning gays from facebook in those places actually protects them

Say I'm gay, I speak the language of Some Islamic State, and I live here in the US, and I have a FB page and otherwise post around FB. Facebook bans gays in Some Islamic State. They refuse to display my page or commentary in Islam.

Or just say I'm female, same set of circumstances otherwise.

This does not protect me, it only serves to eliminate gay/female voices. The consequences of that are fairly obviously negative to you, are they not?

This is also one of the consequences common to FB's "Real Name" policy. If you are a member of some forbidden or politically disadvantaged community, your speech is constrained. This simply serves to keep you down.

It sounds like you think a reasonable price is a negative point. Weird.

So all the retirement accounts that count bonds as assets should instead wipe them off the books, showing a massive loss?

Like most companies (see Ireland) you can keep books that have debts and assets from other companies under the same ownership.

The US government doesn't have an asset if it buys its own bonds. But the SS fund most certainly does. The problem is the people who fail basic accounting, asserting their misunderstanding is reality, when reality disagrees.

if the positive influence outweighs the negative

The problem here is who defines positive or negative. When you go with the majority or those who otherwise hold the most power, that rules out gays right out of the gate -- because gays are a minority and hold less power.

If you ask the minority/less-powerful what the positives and the negatives are, you're going to get a very different answer than if you ask the majority/powerful. Quite often, the minority/less-powerful answer will be the correct one.

a bastardized influence, in order to exist, is still an influence, and better than no influence at all... this is called realism

Actually, I think it is more accurately described as cowardice. YMMV, obviously.

I'm unaware of any religions that have planned obsolescence.

I take it you've not read the Christian bible's "Revelations", then? Mayan calendar might qualify too, depending on how you look at it.

The rest of us may gape in amazement at the fact that you're willing to shell out a premium for an inferior product, but that's fine as long as you believe it isn't inferior.

...and some of us will gape in amazement that you're willing to subject yourself on a permanent basis to a vastly inferior operating system just to save a few bucks on cheap hardware. Lotta gaping going on WRT both sides of the coin, apparently. :)

Nor was the new testament written and compiled over 2000 years.
More like 40 years max for both.

The NT has appeared in many distinctly different versions. Bishop's bible, King James, and so on. Because of the nature of the source material (Greek, Latin, Aramaic) the act of translation is prone to producing differences. The "modern" versions often read quite differently.

For instance, Matthew 5:18:

King James: For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

God's Word: I can guarantee this truth: Until the earth and the heavens disappear, neither a period nor a comma will disappear from Moses' Teachings before everything has come true.

New Living Translation: I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God's law will disappear until its purpose is achieved.

...and so on. And that's without the various doctrinal interpretations that vary over the years and the various people who further interpret the text to others.

Those differences can be huge. The context of the above is with regard to the continued relevance of the laws of the old testament. Jesus (the speaker) says that until heaven and earth pass away (which I think we can go with "hasn't happened yet"), the law remains in place. But that doesn't stop entire Christian sects from trying to claim that the OT has been superseded in its entirety by the NT.

You can get around this by using an array of lasers, each of which is individually rather harmless, but focused together would be enough to destroy such a target. The "danger area" would be restricted to the focal point. Anything outside/beyond/inside that point would receive much less laser power and likely escape damage.

Now if your drone is using active terrain masking, that makes it more difficult to hit at range. However, such a system would probably require a human remotely controlling it, making that susceptible to jamming. I don't think automated terrain avoidance (in real time) is practical just yet for anything a non-military entity could get its hands on. And in any event, such a terrain-avoidance system would likely need its own sensors (radar/lidar) which could be detected, jammed, or both.

Or you could have an array of relatively low-powered lasers that focus on a target point to collectively do their damage. Any misses would be harmless due to them being outside/beyond the focal point.