... the top 10 books/articles/whatever that every human being should read.

Now if only we could get some kind of agreement on what those "top 10" are.

Gack wrong title.

I wish I'd read Roger Kaufman's book before I started programming. It would've helped a lot.

Here's a few pages to get a taste of the style: http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~wagner...

By "offensive" do you mean "going on the offense" in the military/sports sense or do you mean "I am most offended by?"

I'm guessing the latter by the first sentence came across as the former.

Who is the worst offender here (excluding "reasonable/expected" things like employers monitoring employees, parents monitoring their own kids, K-12 schools monitoring their own networks, etc.)?
* The United States government (NSA, etc.)
* The United States corporations (ISPs etc)
* China's government
* China's corporations (we'll pretend these aren't the government)
* Russia's government
* Russia's corporations (ditto)
* North Korea's government (it's all government there!)
* CowboyNeal, er, I mean Unknown Lamer**

**Notice: if you click here, well, you've been warned :)

You forgot The Book of Mormon and a few others.

This is not the "Worst" e-Reader ever.

Why do I say that?

Because it is working as designed.

Frankly, for certain high-security situations this kind of "immutable" device is the only kind of device that would be allowed in. So it's either something like this, or books-on-tape/CD/paper/something else.

For slightly less-but-still-very-secure situations you could allow some type of external read-only, no-processor-chip-onboard "expansion pack" memory so that the book content could be switched out without getting a whole new device. I wouldn't use USB though, as that requires a processor on the stick itself.

Also, I'd make very sure the data format was really "data only" not something that could, in theory, be a vector for "code." This would rule out PDF and PostScript. In other words, it would be pretty limited.

The things you absolutely do not want for this type of device in a high-security environment are:
* Any ability to "run code"
* Any wireless
* Any ability to export data other than through the screen (you can't stop someone from photographing the screen)
* Any ability to "hack" the device without physical access and accessing it in a non-standard way (e.g. with a screwdriver). This means the software must be proven to never do anything "bad" other than "just die, requiring a reboot" if the operator is tricked into giving it even carefully-crafted/designed-to-do-bad-things bad data.

In some cases, you do not want it displaying anything other than what is "whitelisted." This can be done by either only displaying properly-digitally-signed files or, as in this case, by only providing a limited set of files and "sealing" the device.

If this catches on, expect it to 1) be declared illegal and 2) parking meters or similar devices to be placed in each spot that prominently mark it as a "no parking zone" for some short, random, un-announced time after the spot is vacated.

In other words, when you leave, a red "no parking here for the next few minutes" light flashes. The light will go off at some random time between 2 and 10 minutes later and there will be no indication of when it will go off.

If you are caught parking there or sitting there waiting for the light to change, you will be ticketed.

1) Whole seasons of television on fewer than half the number of disks as DVD.

2) When the burners get faster and cheaper, convenient backups. But realistically, Blu-Ray is too small for geeks - you want a backup medium that's at least 10% if not 20% of the size of your data set so a full backup won't be a huge stack of disks. You also want the differential backup from several weeks or months ago vs. today to fit on one disk.

... would be the potential threat of terrorists to take over the blockchain or make people think they could.

Of course I meant to say Comics Code Authority.

Memo to self: Preview THEN post.

It is effect, this is to banks what the [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comics_Code_Authority&oldid=604210348 Comics Code Authority] was to comic-book stores.

Then: "If you don't want trouble, only sell pre-approved comic books"

Now: "If you don't want trouble, only deal with businesses in pre-approved lines of business."

I think they did a patch for Windows 2000 the month after the last patch was supposed to come out.

Some of the regulations you mentioned are probably unconstitutional on 10th-ammendment grounds.

Let's take regulation of waterways, for instance. There are many grounds for the feds to be able to regulate these, but I find it hard to believe that there isn't at least one waterway in America that is "outside the scope of federal regulation" under our constitution. In fact, I would expect many waterways would be found exempt if a lawyer who knows what he's doing took it to court.

For those outside the USA, the US constitution give the federal government many enumerated powers and it also gives the federal government the power to do other things that are necessary and proper to carry out the listed powers.

Here is an incomplete list of justifications for federal regulation of a waterway:
* It is a navigable waterway - that is, a boat can go from it to the ocean without having to go on dry land.
* It can be used in interstate commerce, that is, a boat can go from a point in one state to a point in another state without having to go on dry land.
* It affects a postal road.
* It affects federal government property, such as passing through a national park.
* It is used in interstate commerce
* It is used by plants are animals whose protection or regulation is regulated by the federal government (and where those regulations themselves are constitutional)

A hypothetical example of a waterway that is probably exempt from federal regulation:
* Private landowners and state and local governments own all the land that contains and surrounds an "inland sea" (think: mini-version of the "Great Salt Lake" in Utah) as well as the land under and around all tributaries of this inland sea. There are no protected species and no pollution issues that would bring any legitimate federal interest. There are no interstate commerce issues. It is not used as a water supply, so there is no regulate-able health issue. The water doesn't seep into an aquifer but just sits there until it evaporates.

Why?

Even today, many for-profit enterprises that "go more than one inch off the ground" do not fall under FAA jurisdiction.

For example, a hobby store which does a model-rocket or radio-controlled-toy-aircraft demo in the shopping mall's remote (far from buildings, power lines, etc.) parking lot in a town far from an airport, using only low-flying rockets or planes is no more subject to FAA rules than if the same demo were done by one of its customers.