It makes 6TB WD Green way overpriced. Will be fun to watch price action on newegg.

These drives are targeting more or less the same market. And judging by the number of complains, WD's 4 and 6TB drives are not much better in reliability department (although I might be wrong in that regard)

The real reason is that google has failed to penetrate russian market.

They are cutting their losses, that's all. And considering that there are no prospects for business, there are no reasons to invest into infrastructure.

We're not talking about evolutionary change but revolutionary. Drop in parts number is so drastic that it allows for more competitors to sprung up (hence Tesla). The risk for established players is in going from oligopoly and into a commoditized market. And that hurts. Badly.

I'm fully aware that particular situation with NSA would not be resolved by republicans.

The point was: how to remind democrats that they have to actually listen to us. Or else...

for non-techie types

Basically, if democrats refuse to listen to us - this is what they'll get.

I'm as liberal as people get, but that NSA thing pissed me off so bad that I consider voting Republican.

For those, who say that Republicans will not act on NSA either, I say this: Listen, elections is what in game theory considered a repeat game. In such situations it's often advantageous to enforce beneficial cooperation by employing fear of retaliation. And we're not bluffing this time...

"No Country for Old Men" tactics if you wish.

Where is that "Strong AI" notion is coming from?

You do not need an AI capable to operate in the real/physical world to wreak havoc in it. All you need is some super smart out of control worm capable of penetrating a highly automated military defense system (e.g. "dead hand")

for western companies operating in Russia is to hire "logistics consultants" among locals who do all the actual bribing. It provides a degree of separation - a plausible deniability.

I would recommend explicit checksumming in data backup scenario. Main advantage is that this way your data is "multi-modal" (in shipping industry lingo). I.e. you can move your data between different computers, different filesystems and all the checksums move along. So when it's time to move your data to a newer disk you just copy it and you're not tied up with the choice of file system you made before. Scrubbing is easy too.

Plus you will not lose any files without noticing the fact - even when file is deleted it's still in your md5 file.

And you don't even need any scripts to handle your data - all decent filemanagers (e.g. "Total Commander" / "Double Commander" etc.) can do md5/sha/whatever on selected files on the click of a button.

Moron does not know what's he talking about. There are plenty of places in government where proper geeks work. Examples: NSA and NIH. All what it takes is the ability of the agency in question to pay market rates, e.g. "title 42" and such (both big Ns can do that).

...on a web cam you secretly installed in her bedroom?

That's bullshit. There were no bread lines in 80's (lines, indeed, were everywhere, but not for basic stuff). And Gulag for dissidents was practically over too (for casual rumblings anyway). Sure, it was a shitty place to live, but not for reasons you stated. Stop trivializing.

I'm in a scientific field, so here is my anecdotal take on it. Yes, I use Mac. No, I don't give a shit that it's a unix. No actual development happening with Mac as a target - everything is running on Linux servers (desktops are too puny). The only reason - Mac has better xserver comparing to what we have for windows. And IT guys refuse to support any kind of Linux on desktops.

Ha!

Happened to me too! Had to call Comcast several times until got through drones to a supervisor. He confirmed that account was properly closed, said "what's the fuck?" and faxed me a letter to send to collectors. Also, it seems, he did something on his side too - issue got resolved without any blemishes to my credit history.

Actually ( and surprisingly) Swiss have bad reputation when it comes to all things crypto. Google "Crypto AG"...

Technically, the fact that a signal is below noise level does not forbid it's reception. GPS, for example, is below noise floor.