Is drug smuggling really such a big problem to require the use of military resources?

Yes. Hell yes.

Tyler Cowen wrote a very-readable study about handling flu pandemics. This was 2005 so avian flu was the predominant example, but his advice is still germain (as it was intended to be).

(Tyler Cowen is economist who co-writes Marginal Revolution, an economics blog (among other things).

Wash your hands.

and those are seldom mentioned

What media sources do you use? I see it mentioned in the news (NY Times and various online sources) probably at least once a week.

Which is strange, as change is news. 'People still dying of obesity, just like last week/month/year' is not.

So if you had a choice between saving a vat of frozen embryos from a fire or a single person of any age, you would pick the embryos? How about if the single person was your child; would you still pick the vat of embryos?

This isn't a choice between saving one or saving the other. It's killing one to save the other vs. not killing one, leaving the other to die. The vast majority of people consider killing very different from not saving.

(I, however, would kill the embryo. No mind (no mental activity) = no moral significance, as far as I'm concerned.)

The next stages include, "it's good for us"

They actually already tried that. Oil companies in the 1980s, I believe. But it's always ready for a revival. I hear it mentioned every time the temperature drops below 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

The follow-up article explains.

Wil Wheaton has evaluated the Author Guild's claim and found it stupid. Other wise authors concur.

The Authors Guild acts more like you'd expect from a Book Publishers Guild, though I'm sure a large number of authors are on their side on this.

Conyers is one of the most awesome congressmen out there. He made one mistake recently, but he has an excellent track record for demanding transparency and accountability in the government.

Except that we're not starving. We're getting obese on our power usage--or we would be if we used it all instead of wasting it with inefficient technologies (moving a 2000-pound vehicles to move a 150 pound person, for example.

Note that, according to the quote from Jimmy Wales in the linked article, this system would only be used "on a subset of articles, the boundaries of which can be adjusted over time to manage the backlog."

Wikipedia has had, for years, had 'protected' pages that could only be edited by admins. This was reserved for pages subjected to 'edit wars' and very frequently vandalised pages (e.g., the front page, Adolf Hitler, etc.)

Then, in 2005 they added semi-protection, which allowed only registered users to edit the page. This is used for frequently vandalised pages (e.g., Adolf Hilter) and was step toward more open editing, not less, and yet at that time many outlets, including Slashdot ran stories suggesting it was the opposite.

If this 'subset of articles, the boundaries of which can be adjusted over time to manage the backlog' is entirely (or very nearly entirely) limited to protected pages, or if it's limited to protected and semi-protected pages and trusted users consists of any registered user, it is once again making editing more open.

I doubt it's quite either of those, but it seems incredibly unlikely that this change will close editing of Wikipedia to any significant degree (and incredibly likely that reporters and commentators will decry this as the death of Wikipedia).

I suspect the article is misleading in saying 'Wikipedia'. It should probably say 'WikiMedia' (Wikipedia + Wiktionary + WikiBooks + WikiSources + WikiQuote + WikiMedia Commons (and this one is particularly relevant) + probably more).

Okay, important point people somehow miss: There is NO 'innocence until proven guilty'. There is PRESUMPTION of innocence until proven guilty. People always conflate knowledge with reality and it's just stupid.

But to move on: Presumption of innocents means you require proof to declare them guilty, not that people (and especially journalists) should declare them innocent. Slashdot clearly doesn't follow the journalistic neutral point of view, but they shouldn't baselessly make up facts when reporting on a lawsuit.

I think you need a desktop. Two-year-olds drop things. And throw things. With a desktop, he only needs to be able to reach the keyboard and mouse (and maybe the screen, so maybe get a CRT). That way, when he destroys it, you're only out twenty bucks, rather than several hundred. Plus, you could probably get a durable rubber-coated keyboard and latch it down somehow.

I guess you could give him an XO-1 and bolt it to the table. He might break off the ears, though. (The XO-1's 'don't' list says not for use by infants, but is silent on toddlers. :-)

Chrome's winning margin is huge, even though Firefox 3.04, Opera and Safari have incorporated V8.

Wait...what? Firefox 3.1 will have TraceMonkey, which is not V8 but is on par in terms of speed, but I've heard nothing about V8 being in 3.04. Seems extremely unlikely, as 3.04 is a minor update and adding a completely new scripting engine is a truly massive update.

I think Safari uses/will soon use SquirrelFish, a separate (but probably related, as it's WebKit) JIT compiler. I'm not sure what Opera's doing in the area.

I assume they'll start patenting in areas relevant to your company.

Lots of places apply for defensive patents for their technologies. This is simply a company you can hire to do that for you.