Even given the half life, we may be able to resurrect dinosaurs. Remember that we are talking about information that is encoded, with billions of copies hanging around. Given we can find enough samples, even if they are all missing different portions, we may be able to piece together the complete sequence by combining the portions of each sample that survived. Throw in extremely cold temperatures like the article talks about, and some Jurassic-park style replacement of certain portions from modern animals, and it is still very possible. Maybe not today, but in 100 years I can see it being very possible.

"It's proven a busy month for mobile-device releases. Knowing Apple would be releasing the iPhone 5 to crazy acclaim from news organizations, and not wanting to be smothered, Nokia quickly shipped the Lumia 820 and 920 before they lost the lime light. The next day, Amazon, worrying over persistant rumors the Apple release could include a small form-factor iPad, quickly announced the Kindle Fire HD. Barnes & Noble, not to be outdone by Amazon, threw something out there to compete as well." It's all about marketing and timing, folks. Have you ever noticed how movie releases are carefully planned to compete for attention in the same way?

It's about intent. Law is all about intent, which is a very different concept for engineers sometimes (myself included). It's not about what you're doing, it's about what you are trying to accomplish. Take another example - purchasing 1,000 stamps and envelopes isn't illegal. But if you are conducting mail fraud of some kind, it's bound to be introduced by the prosecutor as evidence that you had the intent to commit mail fraud. Buying a gun isn't illegal. But if you buy a gun and then shoot someone the next day, the fact you bought the gun is going to be introduced to demonstrate that the shooting was premeditated. It's not about what you are doing. It's about the prosecutor making an argument for WHY you are doing it. In this case, to commit wire fraud and the other charges listed. Note none of the charges is for changing his MAC address. IANAL. IANAL!!!

Make sure you look carefully at how you are going to move money from your customers through your corporation to yourself, or you will really quickly understand what "double taxation" means, and it ain't pretty. Get a really good CPA who specializes in taxes if you're going to start a corp or any kind of business.

Replace "power users" with "99% of users" and I would say yes. Definitely yes. Computers are becoming (frankly, they are already) disposable consumer products.

Anything's possible, of course. But statistically, stories like this are always wild outliers. You could also win the lottery, and not have to work. But that's not a good way to plan your life.

From Bruce Schneier: Q: Do you know why I think you're so sexy? A: Probably because you're totally in love with me. Q: Need any weed? Grass? Kind bud? Shrooms? A: No thanks hippie, I'd just like to do some banking. Q: The Penis shoots Seeds, and makes new Life to poison the Earth with a plague of men. A: Go forth, and kill. Zardoz has spoken. Q: What the hell is your fucking problem, sir? A: This is completely inappropriate and I'd like to speak to your supervisor. Q: I've been embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from my employer, and I don't care who knows it. A: It's a good thing they're recording this call, because I'm going to have to report you. Q: Are you really who you say you are? A: No, I am a Russian identity thief.

Not possible. Blackberries are the most secure mobile devices on the planet. The reason people don't appreciate them is because they are only for highly secure corporations and governments. Right? Riiiiiiiight?

This is awesome.

But the key thing to remember is that people WILL judge you based on what you are wearing. So don't dress on how people should act, dress on how they will act, if you care how they act toward you.

I've worked with India-based development contracts where IP is involved. It's actually rather amazing how gestapo-like the control is on some of those. Firms in India are very aware of controlling IP, even more so than most companies based in the US.

Most of the western US uses natural gas for hot water, and most homes in my area use natural gas ranges for cooking as well. Kind of nice because the natural gas supply isn't disrupted by weather because it is all buried (now when an earthquake happens, that is a different story).

This will just mean they will be cut off from the world financial processing system. If they start accepting these payments, the VISA network, for example, will just drop them as a provider. The other networks will as well, and you can count the truly international ones on one hand. As someone said above, it's financial suicide for Valitor.

This property owner fellow needs to do more research on easements, encumbrances, and fee simple property titles. Property ownership is not as simple as most hillbillies think it is.

This is right on. The problem Cisco doesn't realize they have is that most of these cheap home routers are maintained by people that also make decisions for purchase on the enterprise side. When Grandma needs to buy a router, she doesn't buy one, she has her nephew (who is so cute and knows so much about computers!) to buy it for her. Her nephew also works in enterprise IT, in many cases. For a perfect example, read the Harvard business cases on Black & Decker, and how they tried to do the same thing and completely destroyed their brand name for professionals.