there were a method to codify books as electromagnetic signals, and a transport network to deliver such signals to devices capable of displaying the decodified content. Imagine the added benefit of not having to fly around 1 or 2 kilos of material, with all the energy savings that would imply. nahh, that's impossible

by the Android Manufacturers Association.

Fair enough; however, I don't expect a burglar to have the knowledge or tools to change the IMEI. The tech skills to change the IMEI probably involve more sophistication, someone who won't risk jail for selling stolen 2nd hand phones.

Tracking the SIM is ridiculous for detecting stolen phones. A thief that is not brain dead will turn it off immediately and discard the SIM, if they don't do so already. If you really want to stop mobiles from being stolen, the simple solution is IMEI blocking at phone company level. The IMEI cannot be changed since it is normally written in write-once memory, and it may even be illegal to change. The wikipedia article is super clear in the first lines: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mobile_Station_Equipment_Identity . A phone blocked at IMEI level is useless since it cannot be used even with a different SIM, so the sale value is almost nil, only valuable for parts. Tracking IMSIs can be used for other purposes, like tracking non-stolen phones or more interesting the owners. The article is quite scant on details, so not a lot can be assumed.

Where are the moderation points when you need them...

In a theoretical way, yes. However, machines enable products that would not be feasible otherwise; try to manufacture a computer chip manually. Movie cammeras may reduce the number of actors needed, but also make high-value-productions available to everyone, not just to a few kings and nobles.

How I wish the parent were wrong, but he is dead on the spot. Unfortunately, unless you can convince someone up the chain that quality matters, you are going to keep in state forever. Quality is not free, though the returns outweigh the costs. I can assume that the OP just gets a request get M features in N time, when it will certainly take 2N to create the features, and there is no way to either change M or N. So my advice is the same, just polish your resume.

Actually, the referee sees the low blows, but then the boxer can veto any decision from the referee and all the referee can do is make some annoyed noises. I still have to figure a way to insert Don King in this analogy.

Hunt the Wumpus and Zork are relics, and Super Mario Bros. and Gianna Sisters are scrollers. Now, get off my lawn!

Not possible; Atomic Theory would have triggered the Modern Age, and besides Riflemen are enough to kick Spearmen ass.

to make the analogy even better, the video feed should contain also what the neighbours do inside their houses because they may be the thieves. And also record just in case they are doing drugs or they are paedophiles. But pinky swear, we are going to be super-duper respectful of your privacy and never use the information we obtained for any other purposes.

No sorry, it is not comparable: 1. what happens in the street is public; SMS's are a private communication between 2 parties with an expectation of privacy 2. you are storing images that may be useful because there were crimes; that is the equivalent of someone being wiretapped because there is probable cause. It isn't the government forcing you to store every image in the county in the remote chance there is a crime. There isn't anything wrong with you installing a camera outside your house; there is something wrong with phone companies storing a log of every single SMS.

Considering this is Slashdot, I'll bet that more people understand Klingon than Icelandic.

This is a brilliant business move from Intel in every sense. This is what should go to the Harvard Business Review instead of Use Case Studies that can mostly be attributed to luck.

• It encourages people who know what they are doing to overclock already powerful CPUs, which means they can demonstrate machines that will hardly be surpassed by the competition.
• It is pretty low cost, because the user pays the protection AND their variable costs on new CPUs are low (most of their costs are fixed, in development, factory building, manufacturing line assembly, etc.).
• Generates good will.
• An overclocked processor will either fail soon or not fail at all... which means replacements will happen while the processor is still being manufactured.
• By the time the processor fails, is sent, comes back, etc. a lot of time is lost, and the processor value is likely to have gone down, which will likely discourage fraud by sellers trying to pass overclocked processors to unsuspecting clients.

Dublin is well known for its sunny weather and calm beaches. Oh wait, that is Dublin California. The Dublin Airport is about 5 miles from the sea, and the weather is usually windy and rainy. I cannot imagine what flying a 737 in those conditions must be like, certainly will require the full attention of a pilot. As if that weren't enough, the second hub is London Stansted which is around 30 miles from the sea, and even though the weather is slightly better, it is still not a calm Spanish summer. More likely this is yet another O'Leary publicity troll.