Or possibly, and here's the scary part to me, it actually is possible to breed the concept of freedom out of people.

Still don't.

And McDonald's, where anybody who has bummed $3 a day can get at least a 1200 calorie meal, each and every day until they die of a massive coronary.

Discussing this as a "backdoor" conflates this with the usual hidden backdoor which is a bad thing. Putting in a backdoor that is freely accessible and leaves no trace of its accession is ill advised. But I fail to see why there are no technological means to secure keys for multiple parties. you can even have crypto so multiple parties must agree so for example like my safe deposit box the bank and I both have to agree that I am me.

Now that's a different question of whether
1) I might encrypt the data on my own or use a thrird party client that uses googles services but keeps things encrypted in passage. That defeats the abililty to side door googles encryption.

2) I might off shore my data to someplace outside such laws (do I trust them is another matter).

3) the dent this might cause in googles popularity outside the US--I actually doubt this since de facto it has been the case in the past that the NSA had free range of google and no one cared deeply. But Will china also demand that google also let it have side door access as a condition of doing bussiness there? Still while a mess it's not technologically difficult.

4) an even stickier issue might be who all has to agree to unlock the data. Google+NSA. Google+China. those are doable. but Google+NSA+China is a problem. China might not want the NSA peeking at chinese national accounts without it's permission. Nor perhaps North Korean or any number of disputed places the NSA is interested in.

So there's a political mess here and some ways consumers can defeat it, but I fail to see why someone like Bruce Schneir would say there's no technical means to do this at the level of google or apple or major sites when there plainly is.

I'm in a similar situation and it will surprise he hell out of you how little design choices or sudden small changes just wreck a senior persons ability to use a device. When Google moved the reply compose window from new page to an inline division at the bottom of the page seniors I know were unable to adjust. What seems to be lost is the cognitive clue of the new page load or Pop up window that one is changing context. The subtle sliding open of a new field at the end if the message window that you may need to scroll to proved almost unlearnable. Sure it's better Ajax than a new page load but it's not good for intuition. Things that are modal rather than expose on mouse over are much better for arthritic or less attentive mouse users. Likewise all those genie effects and skeimorphic interfaces and 3d pulsating buttons apple seems to be running away from are exactly the clues seniors need.

When it comes to physical appliances having rotary switches that change menus but have no absolute rotation position are death to people with macular degeneration or arthritis. The worst are the dials on washing machines which free rotate when pulled out loosing the correlation of clock positional orientation and function. You can't buy a washer with just one big red button that says just wish my fucking clothes instead you have to finely rotate a knob past the permeate press setting to the normal settings beginning of cycle. But don't go too far or you miss the wash portion and just skip to the spin cycle. Behold needs this control? Why does apple or dishwasher makers think it's a good idea to make all buttons the same size shape and in one row? These thing just don't work for partly sighted or people with atheist is or motor impairments. Stroke victims can just give up. Making buttons different and putting some space between them would help

The floating ad bars at the bottom of slash dot for mobile users are impossible for non nimble fingers to dismiss , they are deliberately misleading appearing to be controls, and make the real buttons on the page unreachable.

Why cant the sensors have their own memory, and record data, regardless of what the state of the main computer is.

Each sensor should have its own cpu/OS/storage/backup battery. Main computer can just access each sensors data via http, over internal ethernet (backup wifi), and repackage up to send to earth, while the sensors can keep recording at the same time.

Why not make the craft in such a way so that when it points in dish to earth, its camera can still point to pluto, heres a tip, how about install TWO cameras with 180deg fov, and then you will never miss your target.

Heres a clue, how about a motorized lens that can rotate the camera or lens or whatever.

Heres another clue, design an ultimate design thats fit for any planet/flyby, a generic all purpose best of all situations craft, with plugin addons for specific sensors.

Stop redesigning from scratch each craft for 700 million. NASA you need to learn from the PC industry, modular design. Reduce costs, send more probes, or always send up pairs, like the rovers.

Second, why are they still sending images in JPEG '94, they should use JPEG2000, to reduce the data by another 300% or send 3x more images.

JPEG'94 is junk.

You must be nude here.

Sure that's fine until you want to see how big your directories are - still epic fail on some thing Mac has done since forever. My hybrid dream OS: Linux kernal, MacOS UI modified by Win7.

How about we also remove all those oil subsidies, and see how cheap that car really is? Oh, and also the cost to the environment from burning fossil fuels - let's see, how much will it cost to move everyone out of Florida? Anf how about all the carcinogenic bullshit that comes along with it - all those health costs need to be wrapped into it as well. Oh gee - look! It's actually more expensive to run fossil fuel vehicles than some flimsy govt subsidy for an electric car.

I'd call you a troll, but that would overstating the case, and it's possible you're something stupider, like a republican.

The United States seems to have achieved it. Not that we don't have people suffering from malnutrition, but ours have a tendency to weigh > 300 lbs, so I can't describe them as starving.

I'm one such. I have really bad malnutrition. But I'm getting better- after a high of 350, I weighed in at 324 today.

There is a reason why the caste system was stable for 3000 years.

It's the general stupidity and vulgarity of the average American I'm counting on. And if Hillary and Carly are smart, they'll get their daughters to work as aides in the final debate. In swimsuits.

Borders are prison walls to serve a society that is predicated on starving people to motivate them.

And thus fail to serve a society that is incapable of starving people?