NO! This is the most ridiculous thing I have seen in this thread, and there are some doozies here.

This is a distribution that collects numerous security monitoring packages, as well as packages that are typically used for active network and computer penetration testing. The distro makers chose the name "Kali" to draw on the "sinister and powerful" imagery. (not bashing Hindu beliefs, but that is the perception of "Kali" to most western people)

I think perhaps your definition of "just another OLD guy" might not match that of people who are, in fact, old guys. I really can't imagine someone with a 7 digit Slashdot number thinking they are "old".

True, it wouldn't have cost the editors anything to include a simple parenthetical mention - something like "Kali Linux (the security and penetration testing distro)".

HOWEVER, it isn't completely unreasonable thing for a Slashdot editor to assume someone who has read Slashdot for a while (say, maybe 10 years) might have heard of Kali (and its predecessor Backtrack). Kali is rather well known to anyone who has anything to do with computer and network security. Which, is a rather large swath of the Slashdot community.

Right or wrong, the Slashdot editors have always tended to editing for non-casual readers. If you truly had been reading Slashdot for 10 years, you might have seen the three other articles that included it since it launched in 2013. Or the eight articles that mentioned Backtrack Linux since 2010. Or the four articles that occurred since 2005.

The surface of your "moderately shiny" metal will not stay shiny when subjected to the energy level we are talking about here. Just Google for videos of small-scale cutting lasers. This is FAR from the energy level of sunlight reflecting off a shiny car hood.
Or watch this video of a 500W laser cutting into a sheet "moderately shiny" metal.

More than one small-town police chief explained that a "free" MRAP was taking the place of him buying a $200,000 "bullet-proof" plain-Jane SWAT van, a month or so back during the first newspaper articles that were critical of the DOD equipment program. MRAPS aren't just protected from mines. It would be kind of silly to have a truck protect the soldiers inside from mines but not bullets.
Whether he needed a bullet-proof truck is a question for another forum, but the fact that he just avoided paying $200K for something is actually a "good thing".

I'm sure the $10 light is as resistant to impacts and weather, and has a switch rated for thousands of cycles. Yes, four digit flashlights sound crazy, until you consider the economies of scale for specialized equipment that "needs" to always work. How you define "always" and "needs" is what adds zeros on the right side of the cost. The US military writes crazy tough "requirements" that cost money just to prove how reliable your hardware is.

How did companies do things 20 years ago?
They racked up lots of frequent flyer miles, spent hours on long distance calls, and made FedEx a household name (and very profitable). Did I mention the conference calls where people on the East coast had to stay at work late to talk to people on the West Coast?

Because people have converted tracked vehicles to fight forest fires.
See this for an example: M548/M1015 Full Tracked Vehicle

I was just going to mention the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Please, someone throw some MOD POINTS!

Perhaps the "each" for those items is a CASE. A SMALL case of cups, for example, is often a "gross" of cups. (12 dozen = 144).
Work in food service or a warehouse, you will learn that LOGISTICS is what makes a large organization work.

Air gaps work great and are cheap when they are only 3 feet wide- everywhere along the circumference of the inner "island".
When your "island" has to cover multiple states and time zones at the same time, it becomes very unwieldy to strictly maintain that air-gap. Why do you think the DOD classified networks cost so much and have so many regulations concerning them? Have you ever priced what REAL hardware encryptors cost?

Does the Bible actually say you will be always be rewarded (increased player health) for killing all sinners (NPC prostitutes)?

I suppose it might be somewhere in the Old Testament, but half of the Old Testament is contradicted in the New Testament, so it's a wash. I know it's a game, but try to understand that it is a pervasive part of the game that they are actually complaining about, not "the whole criminal thing". Perhaps if killing male NPCs and prostitutes for health was another game mechanic, the complaints would be the same, but at least things would be more "balanced".

Another point - have you ever READ the original reports and release from the CDC? Pretty dry stuff.
It is THE PRESS that adds the hyperbole.

AAANND, if they said nothing, and some thing horrible happens, some untrained commenter/reporter/radio host would say "the CDC doesn't know anything, they did not warn us this might happen".

Pick what you want, a medical community that tells you what CAN happen, or that tells you what you want to hear. The doctors I deal with (numerous specialties, pediatric and adult, in America), are in the "list everything that CAN happen" mindset. They try to add the probabilities of an outcome, and point out what the most likely outcome is. They have to, or some ambulance chaser lawyer will "help" a patient sue them for "not warning them" of a potential outcome. If you talk with the doctor, and they are candid, they readily admit it can be hard to predict medical outcomes, because human beings and medical facilities have so many variables it is amazing we survive at all.
My wife hates that, because she is a pessimist, and dwells on the low probability "worst case".

Did you read the entire article at consortiumnews.com? It rather effectively calls out the extreme left AND the extreme right for distorting the Constitution, and says that it should be looked at as a whole, not cherry-picked. . Did you just look at the headline as click-bait from some right-wing web site?

direct quote:
"The best path to firmer ground would seem to be, twofold: a serious effort to reclaim the real history of the Constitution from the charlatans on the Right and a recognition that the Constitution, as amended, creates an imperfect but still workable framework for democratic change, a rebuff to some on the Left."

When did you "try" a Chromebook at BestBuy? Was it in the last 3 months? Because the number of models available has changed in the last 3 months. Did it occur to you that the Chromebook sitting in BestBuy for a year or more might be beaten to death by the typical BestBuy knuckle-draggers? Did you notice that BestBuy doesn't routinely changeout their floor display models? Also, BestBuy doesn't sell every model ChromeBook. Give specific models and date ranges to fully qualify your "crap hardware" review. Seriously tired of generalizations based on 2 minutes of playing with something in the store instead of actually logging in and using something.