How much it would cost the EPA to mandate the change? Nothing!

We humans already have engines capable of doing it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
And remember, the probes would be robots, so they could handle hard deltaV that would kill us.

Complete nonsense.
I keep reading about this attack, like it was magical...
Then there's an article on Slashdot today about programming being a superpower?
I'm starting to think this entire thing was designed to have this very affect.

So what's next? The government protects us? We need more electronic surveillance?

Hacks based on Zero-day exploits are hard to protect against. But they are smash and grabs, and once you see the data leaving, you shut things down until you can patch. But this Sony thing? They had basically complete control over their entire infrastructure. No hack would ever result in that kind of control unless Sony basically had no protection or planning at all. Which is what I think this was... Sony being completely irresponsible. The fault here is with Sony. Yea, the hackers are bad guys to... but there's absolutely no reason they should have gotten what they did. In particular the Executive that had the entires companies Salary in an XLS document on their hard-drive should be fired immediately.

No, some statisticians have actually done the math. Basically if you built such a thing and it could only do something like 25% of the speed of light, it would only take them 300,000 years to overrun the entire galaxy.

I think the answer will turn out to be that the universe is in fact crawling with life. But space fairing intelligent life is very rare.
Take for example, Mars. I think we will find life there... and heck, pretty much every planet. But it's going to be single celled... if it even has "Cells" at all.
Then lets assumed complex life did evolve on a planet... what if it's a ocean planet and they're aquatic? They're never going to figure out electricity, they can't even experiment with it. They're not even going to be able to do fire much less a rocket. What if they're terrestrial but the gravity is slightly stronger... rockets are nearly impossible as it is, imagine if we were at 2g!

And remember, we still have a very good chance at wiping ourselves out before we ever get to another star.

ooo... and I should add...
Soft disconnects are done frequently for people that plan to reconnect the phone.
"I'll be in Florida for the winter but I want my number back when I get back!"
The phone company charges you a small fee to hold them number, they disco the number in the switch so it doesn't lead to the line but they don't physically disconnect the line because that would involve work and they'd just have to reconnect it later anyways. So when you get back home they just reprogram the number and viola...

I suspect when your parents explained that you were away at college but would return, they likely did something like that for you to.

That's a soft disconnect.
They deleted your number in the switch software but didn't physically disconnect the wire.
It happens all the time, and, in fact, is required by law in some areas.
Some counties require the phone company to have a working phone with 911 access in every home, even if it's abandoned. So they have to send techs out with police escorts to install phones, just in case some hobos move in and have an emergency.

Anyone can tap your call from any point in the route between you and the CO. Someone could be half a mile away and still do it.
Though, if the plants been modernized, it's probobly MUX'd (turned digital) after before you hit 30,000 feet.

No they don't.
The switch has a modem that you can dial into... and yes, they are still connected and used a lot.
The call can be rerouted to any number on the planet.
Some switches only have 1 login that's shared by all the programmers ;-)
Remember, this hardwares from the 60's, 70s, 80s...

That theories been prove wrong hundreds of times now.
The simplest explanation of why it's wrong is that it's Deterministic. i.e. it's part of the "Clockwork universe" and if that's true, then you do not have free will and we should all just throw in the towel now... oh wait, that's right, we don't have a choice. Don't worry, I know it's not your fault that you posted this though, it wasn't up to you!

Determinism = fail

Either you were protected by state law, or the judge was just being nice.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court disagrees with you:
http://www.npr.org/2014/12/15/...

yea, I've been laughing about this story... If this scares you, never look up how landlines work, that'd terrify you. lol

You could take pretty much any speaker you wanted to, run a jumper to the switch and listen to any phone call you wanted. ANYONE in your neighborhood can walk over to any one of the hundreds of pedestals in your neighborhood and do the same. If you really want to get fancy you can go get a butt set off Amazon for $10 and dial out to. And all that's before we get to someone with switch access... they can issue commands to link your call to another number so they can listen in, etc...
You've absolutely no privacy on a land-line phone call.

You're neglecting the fact that the DEA doesn't have the resources to enforce that. The DEA relies on local law enforcement to do almost all of their work. They only become involved in very big cases. So yes, they could take out the stores and maybe the larger farms, but the real change is the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people growing it in their back yards. What I'm really surprised about is that the price hasn't really gone down yet. The prices you see at those dispensaries are still higher than street prices in states where it's illegal, which is baffling.

Yea, but now they also want a paycheck from Colorado. See how that works?

Hate to break it to you, but the US is way ahead of Australia in that regard.

If you ever get pulled over by a cop while carrying a large amount of cash on you, you'll find out the hard way.