This reminds me of the system for translating Pravda:

Fraternal discussions - nobody got hurt
Friendly discussions - we're still at the talking phase
Frank and friendly discussions - we told you to stop doing that, now stop doing it.
Frank discussions - the tanks are rolling.

They have no experience of another system of government and most people are conservative. It's just like Americans being fearful of "socialised" medicine - unless they've spent enough time in Europe to get to know another system.

Didn't you get the memo? They've been written off almost as often as Apple has. Anyway, their new gesture based UI built on QNX isn't intuitive like the iOS that users have been learning for several years.

For 'people' read the bonkers Dionysius Lardner, a 19th century equivalent of a climate change denier.

In fact the human race as presently constituted is dependent on two pieces of technology: sharp edges and fire. Without those we are not going anywhere. With them we still nearly went extinct in the mesolithic ice age.

But also, as a self certified mystic, you do seem to write a lot of unverifiable tosh.

I don't think you understand how the moderation system is supposed to work. There is no 'disagree' moderation. And your opinion, Anonymous Coward, is no better than mine. (however, I would submit, having seen collegiality in action fighting an attempt to corporatise an academic institution, that you are wrong.)

I note I was down-nodded for an honest statement of opinion. It looks like a lot of people on /. approve of Big Brother. But you miss the point. Corporatism is giving rights to corporations that supersede what we in Europe call human rights. The existence of corporations does not imply corporatism if individual rights are protected.

As an example, the Netherlands has an army but is not militaristic. North Korea has an army, and it is.

Unique barcodes. Either the counterfeiter will duplicate an existing one - identified as dupe - or uses an invalid one -identified as invalid.

The point is whether, given the supposedly Enlightenment ideals of the Western idea of a university, they should have done. If they are just a corporation that educates people for money, that is one thing. If they are a university set up to stand for the possibility of a better society, that is another. Personally I prefer universities when they fight corporatism, not when they support it.

That would seem to be the new HP tablet that looks like a BlackBerry PlayBook but with a worse display and camera. What has that got to do with Harvard seeming to have forgotten the difference between a university and a corporation?

Why would I go to a right-wing, pro-Fascist science fiction novel full of grand guignol guff for advice on military policy?

This is hardly his highest profile ever case. Perhaps for the geek community, but for him it's small change.

Your figures are meaningless in context without knowing how many were lost, and what the operational cost was per tonne of ordnance.

In WW2, after the Battle of Britain the most successful British aircraft was probably the twin-engined Mosquito, an early stealth fighter/bomber. I was taught at school by the former wing commander of a Mosquito wing, and he told us that flying Mosquitos was considered a real privilege because you expected to survive the War. Mosquitos could fly to Germany, pathfind for heavy bombers, do a little precision bombing themselves and be back in time for breakfast, even if someone put a shell in an engine while over the target. Single engined fighters and 4 engined bombers had far higher loss rates.

The significant point is the kind of opposition you could expect. Bombing Third World countries is a bit different from bombing First World countries.

Oh that's cynical. Meanwhile in the UK, the Labour Party has just announced that if it wins the next election it will replace the Trident nuclear submarines, which has absolutely no connection whatsoever to the Labour votes from the Scottish shipyards, and sabotaging the campaign for Scottish independence. $40 billion for a useless piece of kit that cannot influence any foreseeable wars, but keeps the Scots onside. Perhaps that's it: it's called a strategic deterrent because it strategically deters the Scots from becoming independent and losing the work.

Analysts usually don't have to fly combat missions.