I was mentioning this yesterday as a good source of science fiction. Of course it would be pretty awesome to be able to colonize Mars, but we're not there yet and putting a human being there unless there is a real reason to do so is wasteful and a safety risk. Perhaps there is a reason to learn how to send a person to Mars, but it ultimately seems to be tied to the downward spiral the Earth has entered. Global warming, flooding, another potential ice age, wars... etc. Tesla wanted to try and reverse the situation by getting everyone driving electric cars instead of combustion engines that drive global warming further. The fact Musk is expanding into space travel should tell you something. He sees that Earth is in real jeopardy and he also appears to know when the shit hits the fan. To what extent is our fate reversible? What factors would be irreversible? Human greed? Corruption?

Cool science fiction opportunity here is that when we colonize Mars we get to have a Mars vs Earth civil war. My bet is on Mars winning. Time for a hollywood movie deal!!

Another multiverse version of Elon Musk develops a slew of super-viruses under his manufacturing plants in a deep-core Earth super lab. His 2020-ish journey to Mars assembles a team of top candidates for population of Mars now that he has perfected his global terraforming technology. Musk detonates super-virus technology as soon as his crew is safely on Mars. Earth is utterly destroyed and unable to support any life for 300yrs. Musk's new colony thrives in a totally Utopian society with their own laws where each citizen is given enough food and shelter to survive and they can earn the ability to undertake scientific projects that will benefit the colony.

Colonial Mars expands to other planets with the Utopian political system essentially consisting of a Technocracy. Greed and religion are outlawed punishable by death. No person is in charge. Robots are programmed to rule.

Twenty thousand years later Muskites are still populating the universe and expand into super beings. Eventually they are contacted by the Provost Utermina, a group of billion year old beings, evolved from non-carbon life forms, societally grouped into inhabiting several connected and infinite multiverses, also founded upon unwaivering Technocratic principles of kindness, alleviation of suffering and the expansion of consciousness, knowledge and wisdom.

The thing about corruption is that it will fester wherever it is allowed to fester. The only question we must answer is if we will tolerate a corrupt world or if we will cure the patient BEFORE the cure would KILL the patient. So far the big money is on keeping the world corrupt.

Why would mobile networks be any different than other networks? What possible intrinsic technical difference that applies to our privacy or traffic speed have to do with the difference between a computer plugged into the net or a cell phone connecting remotely? None? Okay at least we passed Grade 9 technology class.

The NDP is the official opposition in Canada federally. Bob Rae became an MP for the Liberals so your argument is invalid.

As for the rest of your astroturf, you should consider watching this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

The Liberals say the same thing every time because they are pretty corrupt and simply want to do the least amount of work. If we decide to elect them they don't have to do much at all because they were the party voted for not because of what they said they would do but rather because they were not the evil Conservatives. That's a huge cop-out and the political climate in Canada is shifting more towards what a party will do instead of what it says its rival will do.

I hear ya. Hopefully it will get better in Ontario, after this provincial election. I think the NDP has a real chance to win it this time. It's a perfect storm. Wynne's debate was awful... libs are losing support. Hudak seems like Mike Harris cloned as Stephen Harper.

NDP seems to be pulling ahead in a major way in Canada overall. I really think they could make a difference if they can get into office and hold office for a few terms minimum.

Canada doesn't do stupid shit like that. They probably will get an internship out of it and become security experts for the banking industry.

If the NSA does it, hey that's national security and they are allowed to do anything.

If you do it, you're going to be spending the rest of your life in a 10' cube for national security.

I didn't know that. If that's the case there is really no excuse not to apply the fix in Win7, unless MSFT wants Win7 to have the vulnerability. Why?

The bugs exist for a reason. If it's not broken now why buy the new version?

They might buy them to ensure they have enough plastic for more purchases.

This is a terrifically respectful response to a troll and I have to admit I always love it when I see this kind of thing on Slashdot. Definitely friending you because of this.

We do have all our eggs in one basket and meaningless acts like climbing a mountain won't save the human race from global warming, meteors, and the greed of our fellow human beings. Scuba diving and sailing and leisure activities in our global water supply are part in parcel of aquatic pollution as we litter huge continents of filth into the center of oceans under the premise of "unseen is okay".

The idiots, I mean the real idiots, are the people who encourage others to get the most of out life and really enjoy it to the fullest without any responsibility for helping our species to thrive. Because soon, and in contrast between the lifespan of Earth, we will not be able to sustain life on Earth. If you wanted to consider the timeline, we are actually within the last five minutes of Earth's life... like if Earth was your grandfather and he was lying down in his deathbed with cancer and he was really struggling to breathe... the way human beings are treating Earth right now is just as if we took a knife and drove it through his heart as he begged us to stop.

After you.

A scrap of funding for such a vital tool for human survival. Is it that our technology could never allow us to escape the confines of Earth, or is it that the government would rather lock horns with rivals on a pebble in a sea of pebbles? KUNG KUNG KUNG...

Oligarchies are a funny animal. If you are 99% of the people you do anything like NSA does and you die alone in a prison cell or you're shot point blank. 1% of NSA affiliated members can do any of it and it's "national security".

I am always ready to ascribe malicious intent to Microsoft, but this just smells like incompetence.

Flagrant incompetence is malicious. Systemic feigned incompetence a lesser form of evil. (When they release one good OS, then one bad one, then a good one... etc)

Maybe I wasn't being clear enough. If everyone is very happy with what their OS can do, they have no reason to buy another one (limiting MSFT's bottom line). Microsoft wants us to always be buying another OS from them. They won't simply perfect the OS and say "Done!", but it's even worse than that.

By increasing the hardware requirements they force us to buy new computers, which in turn means we will need to constantly be shelling out money to them every 2yrs, or every time a computer dies.

They break the OS each time intentionally so we will buy the NEXT one... if it's just as good as the one we have.

We're the dumb ones though. We buy the Vistas, the Win8s, the MEs... we BUY that crap. We're to blame!!