I'm holding out, myself, for the all-in-one tablet... powerful enough to manage as an IT/developer's tool (I figure they're close enough already, but to the point that I won't be crippled without a laptop nearby) and includes FULL telephony... I realize one isn't about to hold a tablet up to their ear, but with bluetooth one could have one of those in-ear things just as they do now with an iphone... I'm simply not willing to buy multiple devices that have so much overlap but one damn feature or two that is unique when there's really no good reason for it.

The system you mention would be just about the only thing that really should be able to have access to this kind of power; my concern is that that system is being pressured by the likes of monsanto and the NRA and walmart and you name whatever mutlinational corporation you like. Concentrated power attracts corruption even if it was originally created with the best on intentions. I'm all for constitutional requirements; I'm just not 100% convinced that they're holding sway anymore... and no, I'm not anti-obama. If drones are being abused, it's by the military-industrial complex we were warned about so many decades ago, and Obama can't stop that kind of thing alone... and support from the masses is not sufficient at this time to back him if there really were a contest of wills going on between corporations, the military, and civilian control of 'presure points' of power.

Look, the way we took down bin Laden was the RIGHT way to do it and it was the way it should have been done from the very beginning... if you have an enemy, decapitate him. But instead we treated (and treat) entire populations as if they were the enemy, which really only serves to make US the enemy instead. So I'm torn... on the one hand, if drones can do this, then good... on the other, what happens when our relatively lack of accountability in using them takes a darker turn? What happens when a peacenik (as suggested by Goering at the nuremburg trials) is denounced at a traitor and subject to 'droning,' too? Who decides who is a terrorist?

It is true to say that google is an app that extends the cabilities on the human mind; but this is not news and not new. The hoe was an extention of the human arm and hand that broadened out abilities. The abacus and the calculator enhanced our ability to do math. Telegraphs and phone wires and electromagnetic squeaks allow us to communicate far behind the physical limitations of our vocal chords. Google is simply the amalgamation of many minds into a common memory store. And this will progress as the scale of technology is further reduced and literally disappears inside our bodies through nanotech, without so much as a scar (yes, implants are essentially obsolete even before they've gained much traction.) We'll be dreaming together and having conversations in our heads with folk over the internet, witnessing events with our own eyes as they occur on the other side of the globe, et cetera, within just a couple decades, if not less. The point is; we have essentially been cyborging ourselves since the invention of technology itself. It is nothing new.

not exactly... asteroids from the inner system have some water in them... but the bodies in the outer system are primarily NOT asteroids, but in stead are comets and kuipers. Mostly water as opposed to Mostly rock/metal... kind of a huge difference, really, when one is trying to punch its way through your atmosphere.

I mean, look at what we see with other protostars forming out there; the compaction of gasses from nebulae... and with the building blocks of water being so extremely common out there (contrary to the plot of 'ice pirates') its only natural that water will condense into these protosystems as well... and water has a tendency to build up a static charge, which would probably influence its distribution, especially in 'warmer' parts of the forming system. I would resume that it would congregate easier closer in, and most of what is found in the outer system (oort and kuiper type structures) may be what was thrust out there by the 'ignition (for lack of a better term)' of the new star. It's all speculation, but based on observations.

I've no basis for arguing with that =3

The developers of EVE online adore agile and have noted a dramatic uptick in productivity, reliability, and content delivery since adopting it... and even went so far as to do a presentation about the whole thing. So I guess it CAN work... it just doesn't necessarily work by default

We need this; use your patent or lose it... period. I understand rewarding an inventor who has made the world a little better through invention by giving him or her (or it, as the case may be) the initial windfall of profit from it... but sitting on patents as a means of thwarting competition, et cetera... should be criminal for the damage it does the world.

Given the scale of space and the ease of refracting light, combat in space will probably resemble long-distance submarine warfare more than anything else. Silent light-refracting source-seeking missiles guided by spherical cameras with intensely high resolution looking for occlusions (i.e., the silhouettes of ships passing in front of the stellar background.) Since it's so easy to coast, and ships would have to be superiorly insulated ANYWAYS, looking for heat signatures would require extremely sensitive instruments... but would probably be viable in tandem with silhouette detectors. All in all, it would likely be a matter of extreme hiding, long distance (many many thousands of miles at the closest probably, and more typically hundreds of thousands.)

Assuming this technology pans out, why would you call it fake? Just like a lab-grown emerald, it is chemically identical to the natural source without all the damage to the landscape, infection(inclusion) exposure, or unnecessary cost. (sure it costs a lot now, it's an experiment. In a couple decades time, it'll clock in at a ten, maybe a hundredth of the cost of 'real-but-otherwise-inferior' meat off the killed organism.)

This is good progressive news; global demand for meat far outstrips the resources, which pushes producers not only to destroy wilderness to attempt to supply, but convert to factory farming, abject cruelty, increase contamination likelihood, et cetera. If you want meat in your future, and have no plans to breed a little bit less for a few generations to give the poor planet a break from the burden of trying to supply for our desires, then this is basically your only course of action. Frankly, I'd feel better eating a hunk of muscle cells that never to experience pain or required the flattening of the amazon or the draining of giant aquifers to provide.

I do actually want a reworked internets that requires a unique honest 'token' for all users; not to surveil them, but to help services believe you are a real person and have something to do to the authorities with if you commit a crime using their service. The police know where your house is (or can find it easily enough) and yet, this doesn't mean they're looking in your windows all day every day watching everything you do. I want all sites, services, providers, and users of the internet to be ACCOUNTABLE and demonstrably not a bot or a virus or what have you. My job writing code trying to safeguard my organization's site against these contingencies would be a lot easier if not for 'privacy,' spoofed IPs, etc. /rant

We're effectively talking about corrective adjustments made to the shape of the eye; should it be adjusted enough in such a way as a tighter bandwidth were better scattered in the eye, then it kinda follows that some of it may be picked up. The question is, do purples, indigos, and violets seem stronger to you then before?

I see the benefits, but... they're already unwilling to tell us about the toxic results (not to mention, cancer clusters among workers using them) surrounding the existing 'chertoff porno-scanners' as hartmann likes to call them.