That's because you're calling the White House switchboard. Try the Country Club next time and you'll probably catch him. :)

The Civil War there has been ongoing for a little over three years. The American Revolutionary War took eight years to fully resolve itself. The Syrian Government only controls about 20% of the country if this map is any indication, so that would seem to dispel your notion that you can't effectively fight the police state.

The Syrian Government is doomed in the long term; it's basically a battle of attrition at this point and the cold mathematical reality is that al-Assad's followers have less males of military age than his opponents. Barring decisive intervention from the outside he is doomed; I leave it to the reader to decide if this is a good thing or not...

Such people generally use stolen firearms or (more rarely) legally purchased firearms via straw buyers (i.e., Here's $1,500, buy this $1,000 firearm for me and pocket the change)

Criminals don't need to build their own firearms when there are sufficient numbers of stolen ones in circulation.

It did no such thing, it simply reserved such matters to the States, per the 10th Amendment. The 14th and 19th Amendments changed that of course. The 14th was actually intended by its drafters to be interpreted more broadly than it has been, in theory it should have immediately applied the Bill of Rights against the States (including the 2nd Amendment) but SCOTUS neutered it and it has instead taken the better part of a century and a half to get most of the Bill of Rights applied against the States.

Incidentally, the established process of amending the Constitution (Article V) is available for gun control proponents to take advantage of if they think they can actually win a debate on the merits of the issue. All you need to do is convince 2/3rd's of Congress and 3/4ths of the State Legislatures to sign off on a repeal or amendment of the 2nd Amendment. Best of luck with that. :)

First, guns don't protect, never have, never will. That is not the function of a gun. So anyone on their high horse should look to see if they're suffering altitude sickness.

Second, the design of these specific rifles is a non-issue. The gun market is inherently grey, which means regulation is minimal to non-existent. There's no white hats in weaponry of any kind. And, yes, that includes the re-enactment stuff I work with. I know that, recognize that and accept it*. No shades, just a thick, pea-soup foggy grey.

*That is why I despise "goody two shoes" arguments from both extreme camps. This isn't black, this isn't white, this is murky grey. I own it for my part, I hold nobody to a higher standard than I hold myself, but I refuse to hold them to a lower one either. Own it.

Third, the design of any regular weapon is a non-issue, but nothing stops you from designing an irregular weapon. With modern cheap hardware, a 3D printer and suitable low-cost materials, a person is quite capable of designing a 3-5 mile range sniper rifle that can be controlled via telerobotics from the home. We already know that low-cost cruise missiles with ranges in excess of 100 miles can also be built at home. With 3D printing, the costs become lower. With advances in technology (remember, the $5000 100-mile cruise missile was designed over a decade ago and it wasn't even close to what budget efforts could do), you can expect far greater ranges, far greater precision and far greater payloads today.

This, again, goes back to this being grey hat technology. If a black hat wanted to use such devices, we'd know about. Or, rather, the survivors would. America still exists, so black hats either don't have the courage of their convictions or they don't have the skill. Either way, they're not worthy of consideration. Worthy of being dumped into a deep oceanic trench, bu not worthy of consideration.

White hats? If white hats were building actively guided systems capable of that sort of range, you'd be seeing miniature computer boards running Linux, Squid and Tor relays launched into stable orbits that crossed nations with restricted network access. We don't. We see "peace corps" infiltrators attempting to install such devices directly, along with who knows what malware, causing international incidents and seriously destabilizing international relations, as part of neocon stupidity. White hats putting in a passive alternative with no hostile software and no damage to other nations -- that's an OBVIOUS way to do good for everyone and to minimize harm. But, no, they either don't have the skill or the courage of their convictions.

So it's all grey. That's all there is. Thick, pea-soup fog.

If it's not an abacus, it can't count. Most of the rational people have quit fet due to database failures, update disasters, an incredibly primitive unthreaded discussion format and a contingent of highly abusive individuals. Abusiveness and primitiveness has done for tech forums, too, which is why Kuro5hin has been in death throes for some time.

A community is never stronger than the people who stand behind it and, in sadly far too many cases, the people standing behind the community are crouched down and in hiding.

The drones will also be used to bomb Polish towns and villages. I mean, deliver parcels.

Many researchers will now pretend they'd never agree to such conditions etc, but the reality is that:
1. Targeted grants ("we give you $X to work on Y") are common
2. Many scientists are not particularly concerned with ethics outside the narrow area of not being a fraudster. As history shows (e.g. Nazi weapons research) scientists will take money from anyone as long as it allows them to research their pet subject, paying little thought to how their discoveries will be used. That's why anyone treating scientists as some role model in ethical behaviour is seriously deluding themselves.

What they showed is that black holes cannot form in *their model*, which includes quite a few simplifications to make the problem tractable numerically.

It might yet turn out that in another setting, the black hole can form.

That's the job of consultants.

Go back to Windows. If you can't cope with people wanting to choose how to run their system, you don't deserve software that's all about choice. If insults are the best reason you have for living, do everyone a favour.

Doesn't matter. It's not tested or validated for every possibility. Hell, given how easily I can break Debian, I wonder if it's tested at all these days. There is no point in using unvalidated setups with a distro, if you're at that point then you should roll your own.

Software that is designed correctly separates out what it does, how it does it, and how it interacts with the outside world.

Ergo, software that is correctly designed is user-agnostic. If the user thinks in a particular way, whatever that way happens to be, it is the job of the software to accommodate that. If it does not, it is not software for users, it is software that has users. Possession is everything.

Software that is correctly designed is configuration-agnostic. If the configuration file states something is enabled, then that is enabled. It is not the job of the software to say the file really means something else. If the configuration is broken, state how and why. Clearly. If the configuration is old, import and update. But don't tell me, or anyone else, what Joe Bloggs thinks would look better. I don't care. And the more other people's preferences get shoved in my face, the less I will care.

Theo clearly has the right idea - the only way to get past the morons is with an attitude of utter contempt. Bugger all else matters, apparently.

It's definitely one of the cleanest. It needs a rewrite, though.

Linux-From-Scratch is easier to use, less user-hostile and less determined to tell me how to think.

ANY software that pretends to know better than me how I want things done is software that deserves to burn. And then sink into the swamp. It is that precise attitude that got me to kick the Windows habit and led me away from the early ix86 BSDs.

I not only think better than a mere machine, I think better than your average distro compiler. I can spec better, I can build better, I can test better. Debian had, up till now, been acceptable, the packages are convenient and it's no great pain to tune. Now, Debian ranks lower than Fedora. I'd recommend the MCC distribution before either and that was last updated during the Ice Age.