I have long thought that such a device like a "space shade" could be a useful non-lethal weapon.

Some country not cooperating with you? Plunge them into darkness. Crops wither. Threat of famine.

I agree. My home PC is mostly an entertainment system, and that means gaming.

I'm not going to dual-boot just for the satisfaction of running my email, web browser, and open office in Linux.

FTA:

"Then they stuck a needle in the oil to make the Mach cone. Just outside the spot where the jet of oil hit the plate, the water parted around the needle at an angle of about 18 degrees. As the physicists move the needle outward, the angle smoothly increased to about 45 degrees, then rapidly opened up to reach 90 degrees near the ridge of the jump.

That implies that the speed of the waves inside the ring is equal to the speed of the waves outside the ring, "and hence constitutes a clear proof that the jump indeed represents a white hole horizon for surface waves," the team wrote. "The fact that the circular jump represents a white hole horizon illustrates that the concept of horizons is not limited to relativity.""

First of all, in the first paragraph it says "...the water parted...". No, as the article said earlier on, they used silicone oil, not water.

Secondly, the fact that the angle of the mach cone was less than 90 degrees inside the hydraulic jump implies that the speed of the waves inside the ring is GREATER than the speed of the waves outside the ring.

The fact that it goes to 90 degrees indicates, as the article also said earlier, that the speed of the interior waves is equal to the speed of the exterior waves AT THE HYDRAULIC JUMP.

The whole point of the experiment was to show that the waves are traveling faster inside the jump than outside.

>Until you can, somehow, make it contractually their problem.

You might, I suppose, make end users responsible for any security compromises the company deems them responsible for causing.

But I believe the system should be set up so that users can't cause those problems to begin with.

Want strong passwords? Enable a scheme that forces users to have passwords of a certain length, with a certain number of numbers and non-text characters, disallow repeating-pattern passwords and password reuse.

Want to prevent attachments from causing problems? Screen them at the server.

Want to prevent users from finding malware on the web? Put tools in place to limit their internet access.

In short, don't put a mission-critical piece of equipment on every employee's desk whereby if they don't use it right it can seriously compromise your business.

Nearly every business has some sort of process or equipment that must be used exactly right, every time, by highly-trained (and usually highly compensated) people, and yes, if they screw up the consequences for the company and that employee are dire.

But to expect this level of alertness for every computer user in the company is silly and unrealistic. Especially for staff positions, where they have neither the training nor financial motivation to really care.

>How about my garden hose?

I think your garden hose analogy is quite appropriate.

You are correct, that I should be able to walk onto your property and turn on your water and use your garden hose.

But what if you set up a sprinkler in your yard, and some of your water sprays over into my yard?

Should I be able to set out a bowl and collect the water that you are spraying into my yard? I think so.

Your hypothetical unsecured wireless router is broadcasting beyond the boundaries of your property, and by the protocol it is using, is announcing itself to the world as being available for anyone to use. Why shouldn't anyone be able to use it?

Users are careless with their workplace computers because it's not their data and they don't care what happens to it.

>Because you idiots don't think the consequences through.

Exactly. Wish I had mod points for you.

Social services are not provided just for, or even mainly for altruistic reasons. Social services are provided because society AS A WHOLE is better off when when these services are provided.

I do not understand how pets died. The news accounts say that 2 hours elapsed from the time the trash fire got out of control to the burning of the house.

Surely there was time to empty the house of animals and even significant amounts of property?

>My 1400 minute family plan is $80/mo.

Let me preface this by saying I am 40 years old. I have been involved with computers since they came out. My first gaming system was an Atari 2600, and my first computer was a TI99/4A. I also hold a B.S. in Computer Science. I am not a Luddite.

And yet, I do not understand the hype around cell phones these days. I have a work-provided cell phone (Blackberry Bold), and my wife has a cheap phone off of her father's family plan for an extra $10 a month.

If it were not for my work-provided phone, I would not own a cell phone. Or rather, I would not pay for a wireless plan - I'd keep the cell phones in the cars to make 911 calls in an emergency, which all cell phones are required by law to be able to do regardless as to whether or not they are on a plan.

Using these phones for internet access is atrociously painful to me. They are agonizingly slow, and remind me of dial-up BBS days. The only time I will use them is when I am out and about and absolutely have to obtain directions or a phone number for something. But certainly any kind of "pleasure" web browsing I just wait until I get home to a real computer with true high-speed (cable) internet access.

The idea of paying $80 a month for a telephone is just astounding to me. Especially when you consider some people pay $70 a month for cable television on top of that. We canceled the TV service, but cable internet still costs about $50 a month, and Netflix is another $10 a month on top of that, and MagicJack is another $2 a month on top of that.

If you signed up for the usual suite of communications/entertainment streams out there you could easily crest $100 a month, possibly even $200 a month.

This is ridiculous to me.

I've said the same thing. Of course, I always get poo-pooed. "Oh, but what about passengers in the car?" etc. etc.

Personally I think it would be just fine if cell phones stopped working if they sense they are moving at over 5 MPH. I could see special SIM cards for people who would need to be exempt from this requirement.

If you really, really need to talk to someone while you are on the road, pull over! It's still light-years more convenient that the old days of trying to find a pay phone.

I see security as the good-guy equivalent to DRM.

If DRM is a no-win proposition, and fortunately it appears it is, then security is probably a no-win proposition also.

I didn't even know this was occurring. Guess it hasn't bothered me so far.

I read stuff like this and it just seems like security is a hopeless undertaking.

The chips don't provide location.

The chip can only be detected and read by a wand that passes in close proximity of the chip.

Most likely the dog ended up with new owners, who took the dog to a vet who scanned for the chip, and reported the finding to the chip company.

Be best the chip company could tell you is the last place the chip was scanned.

I chipped my dogs so that if they got lost or stolen I could find them again.

What this article tells me is that, as you note, it's worthless.