There have been several cases where the intentional killing of a gifted leader has been effective in diminishing the capability of a much more organized force than al-Qaeda. Shooting down Admiral Yammamoto's plane took out an irreplaceable leader. The IJN had no one as capable to replace him. The IJN did not "fall apart" after his death but it was much less efective.

I wish people who spew stuff like this "study" would hold up their argument to history and not just their cherry-picked canard.

Cheers,
Dave

Spyware such as FinFisher is a weapon and should be treated as such under the same export restrictions most western countries apply to guns, warplanes, ships, etc. The trick would be in differentiating the covert tracking, surveillance and reporting that something like FinFisher does for nefarious purposes from the "normal" covert tracking, surveillance and reporting that many smart phone apps do for commercial purposes.

Cheers,
Dave

RTFS: "A 16-year-old male from Ottawa, Canada..." Last I heard the U.S. hadn't annexed Canada.

Cheers,
Dave

I was thinking more along the lines of execution. Someone this stupid needs to be removed from the gene pool. And at 16 there's still a chance.

Cheers,
Dave

I see. It's better to have a human decide to bomb a Guernica, Rotterdam, Coventry, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc. than it is to have cold, soulless, purely analytical robot "decide" whether or not to release lethal force based on some programmed criteria. I'm glad you clarified that for me.

Cheers,
Dave

C Anthony "Tony" Hoare: "I don't know what the programming language of the year 2000 will look like, but I know it will be called FORTRAN."

He was conservative on the date.

Cheers,
Dave

I disagree. There are several "irregular" English verbs that have become regular but the irrgular use is not incorrect (burnt works as well as burned, dreamt instead of dreamed, etc.).

Cheers,
Dave

Could some of the people arguing for this ban please explain the difference between being on a ship during WWII that was hit by a kamikze and being on a ship during the Falklands war and being hit by an Exocet? Somehow being killed is being killed regardless of whether there was a human pilot or an autonomous robot flying the lethal projectile.

Public persona borrowed from TR but theory of government straight from Uncle Joe. Yikes.

Cheers,
Dave

I vaguely remember that Kermit had a prohibition on military use back in the 1980s; maybe longer. That seems to have gone away. No sure if it's because Kermit is no longer controlled by Columbia University.

Cheers,
Dave

I've been suspicious of the counts since the day they were announced. Either the participation claimed is way too high or a lot of ethnic Ukraineans and Tartars voted to join Russia which seems highly unlikely. Either way, it looks like the vote was about as fair as elections in Uncle Joe's time.

So, I have studied the facts on the ground and the leaked results sound more like what I expected given the population demographics of the Crimea. Not saying that they are accurate but they more closely match what would be expected than the official numbers.

Cheers,
Dave

“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”

  Joseph Stalin

Sounds like Putin has studied history.

I encrypt 100% of my on-line communications using the fiendishly difficult to crack ROT26 cypher.

Cheers,
Dave

Programmer: "It's not a bug. It works as designed."

Me: "So did the Titanic."

Cheers,
Dave

Brooks - "The Mythical Man-month"
Yourdon - "Death March"
DeMarco & Lister - "Peopleware"

Of course he may change majors after reading them.

Cheers,
Dave