I agree and would characterize the benefits that definitely have flowed from NASA as more of a "rebate," kind of a hidden reduction of the cost of the programs to reach stated objective. People who say the indirect acheivements make the main mission worth the money are not considering the benefits of actually investing in the goal straightaway in the first place. The manned space program, in particular, I think had been very wasteful. It is well documented that it sapped other important science projects of funding and NASA struggled to make everything a Shuttle mission. I'm not heartless: Apollo was also phenomenally expensive, but, well, I'm glad we did it! Reaching for the stars is not crazy, even if it's inefficient at generating real payoff.

Whether we would have been disciplined enough to pursue these goals if, say, space were impossible is another and no less important question (probably not! and that makes me sad). Go to the Moon or Mars gets the public interested. Probes surveying distant worlds or even space telescopes, not so much (but it helps a lot if they return gorgeous pictures of relatively little scientific value). This sounds elitist and maybe it is, but it's pragmatic, too. Many people like the space program for the same reason they like TV and sports -- entertainment, and that's not all bad.

Frankly the space program is mere pennies in comparison to other areas of the budget, one in particular. We could flood NSF with money, maybe cure cancer, and also build a (probably useless) Moon base.

Has anyone cited?: http://xkcd.com/538/ ("Security") It appleis to crime invesigations, too.

The geeky view is to ascribe much too much sophistication to criminals and decry logical failings. The brilliant "but I coudn't have been there" stories suggested just don't work in interrogation. In the real world 95% of crimes are really pretty simply and the perps don't plan things out very well. When I worked for an appeals court, very very few of the cases would have provided good material for a crime drama. Most of the time, it was a pretty simple matter of catching the guy and not that much investigative work went into it. The sawed-off shotgun was lying out in plain view on the bed and so on. It was depressing, really.

Yep. Evidence is pretty much all "circumstantial," some a lot less so, others more. Even a confession or video or whatever can have serious issues. ... and of course most criminals outside of TV shows and movies DON'T think things through meticulously. There are plenty of impulsive crimes and dumb criminals. It's one of the only silver linings on the correlation of bad education and bad acts. Plus most of us don't realize how much is being recorded all the time by cellphones, internal car computers, etc.

You miss my point! I was playing paranoid and mostly grumpy about the expansion of security cameras and hidden cameras "gotcha" stings. There will be little difficulty getting coverage, it's mostly there already, and then there are the little remote control airplanes etc. No NASA needed (and the project does sound cool).

So smile. :)

How long will that last, once the tech and infrastructure is in place? But it'll be to stop the terrorists, really.

I don't see how Apple fanboi == anti-Microsoft any more. Microsoft still gets heat as the "evil empire," blah blah blah, but I don't see it as Apple's archrival any longer. Frankly they won their point on quality over quantity.

As for hypocrisy, well, the Netgear hype sounds like wishful thinking. As the commenters here point out, you can't just say open platforms rule when Apple has so thoroughly proven that in some cases closed does very, very well. I don't like the iPhone/iPad monopoly on philosophical grounds, but I don't for a second doubt it can be successful if handled well. The iPod provides a very profitable example.

Apple's record speaks for itself; TFA is selectively ignoring it.

Amen. And so I referred to the "bias problem" and systemic warpage not any particular institutional bias. Saying bias will happen no matter what, well, we might as well be talking about auto accidents. Yes, it's inevitable, but safety counts tremendously.

I'm thinking also of that incident a couple years ago with the Wikipedia "editor" who was aggressive but had utterly bogus credentials. I'd like to know more how this is kept in check. (Part of the answer, btw, is to hire and retain good talent -- and that takes money. If they're going to fund that, kudos.)

I use Wikipedia all the time, but if I don't know much about something, presumably the most likely reason I'm looking it up, how likely am I to detect well-written nonsense?

Wikipedia's bias issues are deeply rooted in its structure, as noted elsewhere. I find it very hard to believe that being ad-free makes Wikipedia neutral; in fact, it's not neutral, especially with regard to controversial issues, and these political issues dwarf the potential ad ones.

Surely the sort of oversight and openness needed to correct the editorial problems could target ad revenue as well. I'm afraid a donation model -- which I call a "tax on the nice" -- penalizes people of good intentions (over the 99% who grab freebies and run) and doesn't provide reliable revenue. Wikipedia has proven its point that it can be a critical resource -- if one is researching ball bearings and not some politician. Wikipedia deserves our investment.

Now if Wikipedia is going to start tracking which articles I read, screw them. :) Again: Transparency, accountability. I don't think they're there yet, funding or no.

BTW, unanimous 12 is the federal criminal rule. State practice on size varies, as low as 6 iirc, though for criminal trials it's always a unanimous verdict. A mistrial is a bad thing, expensive and draws out the case.

But as I said, the extra info could not caused the outcome, and acquittal is usually binding anyway (double jeopardy).

I admit I was relieved to hear you acquitted the guy -- so it's moot whether you were prejudiced. But otherwise your independent research squarely violated the rules. It could have cut the other way, too: If you'd convicted the guy on the merits and your independent research come to light, it could have caused a mistrial.

Generally "bad acts," including prior convictions, are not admissible because they are so deeply prejudicial; so the prosecutor couldn't have brought them in, either. The ideal is that trial be about the present issue, not a probability calculation based on the defendant's "badness" -- although in some cases like yours it may seem pretty ridiculous. On the other hand, in some places getting arrested for no reason is pretty common.

I think you implicitly respect the rule because you say "of course [you] never told any of the other jurors." So you trusted yourelf but not them. No harm, no foul here, but not a good thing to be doing. (Concession: I'm an attorney who has *almost* served on several juries, so I don't quite know what it's like; but I think I would find the temptation to poke around very strong, especially if I thought counsel was doing a crappy job.)

(1) The military has to do their job perfectly to survive. Um....
(2) We're arrogant and I doubt would see it coming. The Stark is an example, or the low-tech Yemen bombing.
(3) I've heard the anti-missile systems sometimes target our helicopter and they prefer to leave them off most of the time.

It's just not a risk worth running, if there is an alternative. There have been many successful attacks. Now name just one that was successfully thwarted.

... that he was changing for the making of the tapes, as opposed to the software himself. I recall reading this on his site maybe ten years ago. This seemed weird to me, to charge for the menial task rather than the inspired one, and of course the costs of software distribution have now all but evaporated. Besides, what if the coder just can't be bothered with that stuff? It's not what they are valued for perhaps even as a genius (who doesn't eat much).

See: http://beust.com/stallman.html ("RMS was beginning to be successful with Emacs by that time, shipping more and more tapes. These tapes were sold $150 but, he insisted on that point, it was only the price of s&h. The software on it was both free from a pecuniary point of view, but more importantly, free of any intellectual rights. Fearing that these terms might change, RMS felt that he had to quit the MIT if he wanted to be sure that his subsequent works would belong to him completely. The Free Software Foundation was created and took over the distribution of tapes. RMS could now focus on his quest.")

So ... transient idealism?

It is interesting to now read the 1993 Wired view of Stallman's work: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/stallman.html

I respect the guy as much as anyone; amanzing contributions (I hadn't heard the EMACS angle, my ignorance). But his business model ... well, I'd still like to know more. The voluntary payment model seemed predominant now, and frankly that's a tax on the nice, people who feel a moral obligation and not necessarily the people profiting most ... and likely ignoring GNU obligations as well.

I'm not going to defend Microsoft. Aside from things they did that were incompetence, the malevolence summed up in Ballmer and arrogance in Gates -- well, enough.... I know MSFT is very popular around here. (Kidding.) The good news is they seem to be losing control.

I think people will get unhappy quick if/when Google starts pulling crap like Facebook has been trying to -- like dictating to us what the "new" privacy means for greedy data-mining reasons. Their sucking up to China (until China backstabbed?) is worrisome. Getting mad at having their email attacked and suddenly not liking censorship (in retaliation? or evolution?) is principled enough but could change. Heck, people change, companies are even less predictable as control shifts hands -- and wow, Google is getting its fingers into everything. Great monopoly opportunities if they start buying enemies like MSFT always has.

Google has been surprisingly benign and I tend to like them, and love their really competent tech work. The search engine alone has been an enormous contribution, and their pages still *aren't* littered with ads. But I think people should be more worried, and prevent MSFT II.

I agree they've been inept and they tend to "extinguish" things they get their hands on. I think they'll lose this largely on the merits - google does a good job. Also google has committed surprisingly few of the dick moves like happen with Facebook and msft; but can we count on that ?

What I want is a little(r) guy to have a shot at the title. Normal companies can't compete with cash firehoses and I think it stifles new stuff. Also I think at some point google will go evil or incompetent.

I agree. I'd like to see gizmodo take the hit, lose its profit from this, pay a fine and get on with life. Jail would be stupid. (ok, the guy who stole the thing can go to jail - that could have been MY phone). The arrogance pisses me off - they know they did something wrong and are trying to bluff their way out of it. That means they'll lie to readers, too - don't trust them!

I hope Apple doesnt fire Gray the engineer. I wouldn't give him any more prototypes, either.