Reminds me of France (and any occupied country) under the Germans circa WW2.

First hundred or so responses to the OP don't seem to like his lamenting that there's no satellite data showing the forest situation in the US, are busy asserting that there are more trees than ever before (with nary a citation or link in sight to reinforce this claim, but I guess that's because there's no comparative satellite data available...?), and I get the overall impression they really don't appreciate Google putting out this capability either, or the OP reporting it. Clampdown in effect, in other words.

...a la Youtube. Weren't the Russians experimenting with a type of wobbly missile with an unpredictable trajectory? And wouldn't a perfect spherical explosion like that mean it took place in zero gravity? Otherwise, must be nice living next to the wormhole. Your pagh is strong, my son.

As sure as I'm sitting here, nothing will kill these annoying publishers deader than dead than google turning off access to news items on paywalled sites. NOBODY wants to pay for news and nobody wants advertising on their news sites. Get over it, already.

Good riddance, that Murdoch. What an asswipe he was.

When people (and corporations are people) do their patriotic duty for their countries? Your duty and loyalty should be to humanity instead.

It's interesting how suddenly search has become political. On our left, Google, the good, information wants to be free, standing for freedom and liberty, taking on the big evil conglomerates, exploiting their own weaknesses and beating them at their own game. On the right, Murdoch, ultra-orthodox neo-con, wanting to destroy Google and control the world via controlling the media. Microsoft now aligning itself with Murdoch against Google. Therefore, Microsoft now aligning itself with the same right-wing viewpoint of the world, coming to his assistance, helping him conquer.

It's like Star Wars or something, Murdoch as Emperor Palpatine, Balmer as Darth Vader, Google as the resistance...

Yeah, from where I sit up here in Canada, the whole of the US seems like a natural disaster-prone area and I often wonder why people live there. Nothing ever happens here, just forest fires in BC and the occasional tornado in the prairies.

The link entitled "burned a hole in a car's hood" links to a video where the laser does no such thing, it merely burns the paint, leaving a black mark, not a hole.

Can someone provide a link to a vid or something showing a laser doing real damage, as opposed to being a glorified flame-thrower? Because this whole thing smacks of propaganda to me.

Take a moment to think what will happen to you when/if the oil runs out.

No reason to panic, aside from the obvious losing your car, you'll start riding your bike and also go back to a mode of existence that most of our ancestors took for granted and which is much more in tune with nature, hopefully, due to lessons learned in retrospect. You'll have to make do without your plasma TV, go back to using cotton and rubber insulated cords, everything on store shelves will start appearing without the insane packaging and in glass jars instead of plastic. It'll be locally made stuff or local and organically grown. Hey, most advertising billboards will disappear, nice! It will no longer make any sense to live in the suburbs, so cities become towns and everyone moves back to the towns or countryside. The best jobs will be in the trades - carpentry, masonry, etc. In general, it'll be back to the simpler and less wasteful life, which I'd argue was better anyway.

OH, no laptops, no PC's, thus no slashdot either. OH GOD, kill yourself now!!!

As an environmentalist I WELCOME the day we run out of oil. And I'm ready, already most of the way to reducing my dependence on oil. Regardless of the oil question, I choose not to continue the wasteful inefficient lifestyle.

I use my own brain. I continue to surprise myself at how many passwords I can remember, even years later. If I counted I'm sure it would be in the hundreds. And I don't have any a special memory powers...

Also, it helps if the passwords you create follow some pattern that only you know but still pass the usual test of being more than 9 characters and both alpha and numeric. It might even help to go further than 9 chars.

Maybe when they meet resistance they just forward a request to the NSA?

Former generals and admirals receive their talking points from the Pentagon and White House.

If you believe McConnell, you're a first class sucker of the message machine

I used to hang out with a bunch of seriously hardcore criminals and "bad types". I strongly suspect, from firsthand experience, that anyone who believes in "fear associated with criminal activity" hasn't known very many criminals and doesn't really understand the "criminal mind", especially the sort of criminal who is deranged.