The summary is a bit broad. TFA is good, but is limited to cases where you can exploit a weakness to get a page mapped at address 0 and then exploit another kernel bug to get it to call to address 0 (not simply read or write). IF you can manage that and IF you know exactly where things are in the running kernel, THEN you have a root exploit. That's not to say it isn't a problem, just that it's far from ANY NULL pointer dereference.

That depends on your thoughts towards applied science versus straight research. When you are developing technology to meet a specific goal then the science is directed towards that goal and then more importantly, applied to actually accomplish the goal.

That is where NASA was, they are not there anymore for a myriad of reasons, one of which is funding, but most importantly there's a lack of a specific goal.

This has already come to pass.

Who would have thought that giving the Russians a monopoly would give them more leverage in setting the price we pay? Maybe we should have a Congressional committee study this phenomenon and produce a report explaining how such a price increase could possibly have happened. Unfathomable mysteries, indeed.

If, or when, they sue - they'll have some evidence to show. "Of course we allow competition, see this".

If you haven't already, Try reading "why people believe weird things" by michael shermer. Since reading this i'm convinced that there are no such things as ghosts, and that aliens aren't visiting the earth, whereas before i think i just adopted the attitude that the huge body of anecdotal evidence for both of them must indicate something, no smoke without fire, etc.

If you are interested in skepticism in general I can recommend the podcasts skeptoid, skepticality and the skeptics guide to the universe

The betty and barney hill episode of skeptoid is quite enlightening. There are quite a few UFO episodes.

The shermer book is essential reading.

Al Sharpton on The Colbert Report just yesterday noted that he was one of thousands in the same conditions, and that even though he was able to rise above it, the majority of the people he knew growing up are dead or in prison.

Just because you have an example of 1% that make it through, or make it out, does not mean that they did anything special necessarily even, and the average for all of them is that life sucks, and it is not entirely their fault. In a society where 99 out of every 100 that are in their situation fail to have an opportunity to succeed, that makes it 1% their fault.

Look at the Worlds Strongest Man competition... look at everything they can accomplish. The fact that you cannot is an indication that you're lazy, and incapable. ... That logic doesn't sound right, and neither should "look, this one person got out of the ghetto, so the fact that you're still here means you're lazy and incapable."

Some people can push harder than others.

As much as I initially hated their methods, I can't say I'm completely against it now, having used it a bit.

It's a small glimpse of what a sane copyright policy might allow. Yes, it's a fucked up walled garden, but even the equivalent of a Disney park ride take on what reasonable copyright policy might look like is exciting. It's possible it's the only time I'll see something like that in my lifetime, if it gets shut down and the idea doesn't spread.

"Will" is such a strong word.. the law means diddly squat unless you can enforce it effectively.

Colorfully?

You can't say that any significant number of people will pay for software if they can't pirate it. Some will, some won't.

Yes, I'm fine with the statement that majority of pirates wouldn't have bought the game. However, when piracy numbers are as high as they are (Stardock / Demigod claimed 85% of the people trying to connect to their servers were pirates; 2dBoy said 90% of the people playing their game pirated it), you don't need a large percentage to get a big boost in sales numbers. If we said 90% of those pirates wouldn't have bought, that sounds like a strong argument. But, if 10% of the Demigod pirates or 10% of the World of Goo players bought instead of pirating, Demigod sales numbers would have increased by 56% and World of Goo sales would've increased by 90%. (Would you like to get paid 56% or 90% more money for whatever job you currently work at?) Sales increases of 56% or 90% are hard to ignore -- and that's based on the idea that only 1 out of 10 pirates equals a lost sale.

"Same device but bigger" is the ignorant's reply. Do you run your PC using 640x480 resolution? Why not? Do you feel the bigger area of e.g. 1280x1024 lets you do more? Why shouldn't the same hold for the iPad?

Bigger screen for a touch interface gives more options, and more screen "pixel real estate" opens the way for other applications as well.

Now go and laugh at people who bought HD TVs or cars that can go faster than the speed limit.

I've always wondered why modern OS's don't use RAM more, if they do then it sure doesn't feel like it. Sitting with 6GB at the moment, 1.2GB used, I could essentially have a RAM disk with the entire XP or Ubuntu install just sat there ready to run...

Seconded. Mod parent and the prior reply up.

And don't forget the cops who joined in the looting. Some of them on national TV (e.g., the two female cops caught on camera looting a Wal-Mart).

The only DEMONSTRATED usefulness for something like a kill switch is to prevent citizen protests and calls for help (Iran). Such a measure would be next to worthless for actual "security".

You know what happens with those signs? I do. Took our neighborhood several months to get the city to remove the one from in front of my house and prevent them from putting it up somewhere else so the kids in my neighborhood didn't get killed.

What happens is this:

Safe drivers are already safe and the sign is retarded and nothing more than a pointless blinking visual distraction.

Unsafe drivers see the sign as a challenge and speed up so they can see how fast they can drive by the sign, meanwhile ignoring the children playing in the neighborhood so they can watch the sign to see their speed blink.

The theoretical psychology behind these systems maybe interesting, however theory isn't reality and these signs are most definitely far more dangerous than not having them as anyone who's actually been around them is aware.

In Portugal I saw a cute system - if you pass a sensor driving faster than the speed limit, then a traffic signal 200yards/metres down the road turns red for 10 seconds, making you (and again anyone behind you) stop.

Absolutely fucking retarded. Creating congestion never raises safety levels. Ever. What happens is people just go faster to run the light or run it anyway. You may think its cute, sounds pretty fucking dangerous to me. Its always a good idea to make speeders suddenly stop unexpectedly and have to hit the brakes hard ... especially with other people speeding behind them ... brilliant idea ... really ... who comes up with this stuff? How many accidents suddenly start happening right around that red light? Hmm? There are less speeding accidents, and twice as many accidents involving the red light being ran or people getting rear ended at it.

I love how someone invents a theory sitting behind a desk somewhere and without actually looking at what happens in the real world, they ignore all the other contributions to the equation and lose sight of reality resulting in a more dangerous situation that you started with.

You want safer driving? Require drivers have more of a clue. Don't let any random moron drive (Here in America if you can breath you can drive, and there are exceptions for non-breathers) and you won't have as many issues. Punish those who drive unsafe stiffer, take away their drivers license. Its not a right, its a privilege.

What you don't do is introduce more distractions and changes to throw unexpected things at the driver. They do this in video games to raise the difficultly level ... perhaps these scientists and others who think this is a good idea should play a few video games and get a clue.

Your argument is reasonable for criminal charges, but in those cases the prosecutor is generally paid by the state. For civil charges a lawyer has the choice of whether to take the case and should have some responsibility to not take cases that are frivolous.