Why won't this useless search engine tell me the best place to ford the thunderbird river?

Equal to what? Why should it be equal? A company like Yahoo would be very happy to have a search that was half as profitable as Google's.

The converse side of this coin is that such great expectations can become a burden on the children (or the one "target" child), even if the parent tries to avoid being pushy about it -- a lot gets across that is never said directly, and even through the mere implication of a future look of disappointment on one's face.

They could sell ads without tracking people.

You aren't saying that GCHQ conducts no signals intelligence operations on servers or signals in Ireland, are you? I hear they've been known to operate in other countries. And fanacy that, the UK and Ireland share a land border.

No secret intelligence protocols between the UK and Ireland?

Or, they're trying to make a viable business out of operating mammoth server farms so you can get stuff you don't have to pay for.

TL;DR: The upside of being under continuous surveillance is that everyone else is too. It is the same argument as, "Because terrorists might get caught."

Here's just one example of the downside: Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and similar will all have zero attendance as soon as employers stop hiring people who have been seen at an AA/NA meeting. That will be a reality within ten years, as private license plate tracking databases come online.

Doubt it? Ask yourself this: Would a typical "profit over everything" manager hire someone he knew was in NA? That guy is going to abuse these databases as they come online. That is reality.

So you won't watch a whole insightful TED talk because the guy tosses out a completely irrelevant rhetorical device?

I understand your point, but obsessing over it just makes you a pedant.

"Legal jurisdiction of the NSA"

Ha ha, even funnier.

-Angela Merkel

He has been charged with a felony. They could keep him in jail. Based on that, I'd say that banishment is quite legal. They're saying "everywhere except DC until your trial" vs. "noplace but this cell until your trial".

It doesn't become an issue unless they deny him the right to a speedy trial.

what we're saying is that arranging for velocity AND position to be 'null' at the same time is harder than simply arranging for velocity to be null and position to be +/- 100m(or so).

*Sigh*
 
I understand what you're saying - but as with my previously reply, you don't grasp the problem.
 
The appearance of the vehicle "working hard at the last second" during the first attempt was a consequence of running out of hydraulic fluid - and would have occurred regardless of the size of the target. The appearance of the vehicle "working hard at the last second" during the last attempt was a consequence of the throttle valve not operating to spec - and would have occurred regardless of the size of the target.
 
From the point of view of the final landing sequence it's not all that much easier to arrange for velocity to be null and position to be +/- 100m than it is to arrange the same +/- 1m. Selecting a landing point occurs at a relatively high altitude (and on a, relatively speaking, relaxed timeline) and final trim starts around a kilometer or so up (AIUI). From there, jittering the variables (burn time and timing, gimbal angles, and throttle settings) a tiny amount one way or another to maintain targeting isn't a substantial burden (on the software or the hardware) compared to the much larger problem of nulling your velocities.

You're talking about some kind of articulated arm (which can survive being essentially inside rocket exhaust)

I think you're picturing something different. I'm picturing something pretty big that comes in from the sides, staying well away from the exhaust.

That just makes an already heavy, complex, and expensive system even heavier, more complex, and more expensive than I envisioned.

"....away from the NSA."

Ha ha ha ha ha, yeah, that was +1, hilarious.

-The NSA

Well, keeping you out of the public eye is an appropriate punishment when you're convicted of a political crime. But we shouldn't recognize political crimes.

If people want to pay attention to what this guy has to say because he gyrocoptered in restricted airspace, that's their business. Even though it's a pretty stupid reason, it shouldn't be a judge's role to sit in judgment of that.

THere's an important flip side to freedom of speech that is often overlooked: freedom of listening. As a citizen you should be able to hear what the government doesn't want you to hear, unless the government has a compelling reason, and even then the restrictions should be narrowly tailored. "That guy just pulled a stupid stunt," is not a compelling reason to intervene in what people choose to listen to.

You can't fire a faculty member because outside the scope of his duties he expresses an opinion you don't like -- even if it's a clearly crackpot opinion. If you could, Stanford would have kicked Linus Pauling out when he became a Vitamin C crackpot.

The difference, though, is that Pauling was a sincere crackpot -- brilliant people are often susceptible to crackpottery because they're so used to being more right than their neighbors. Dr. Oz is a snake-oil salesman; when he's faced with people who are educated -- not necessarily scientists but critical thinkers -- in a forum he doesn't control, he speaks in a much more equivocal fashion. That shows he knows the language he uses on his show and in his magazine is irresponsible.

So selling snake-oil isn't crackpottery, it's misconduct. But somebody's got to find, chapter and verse, the specific institutional rules of conduct Dr. Oz's misconduct violates. There will have to be due process, particularly if he's a tenured professor, which will probably require lesser disciplinary measures than dismissal be tried first.