I was likewise glad to see Niven's Bussard ramjet space battles mentioned.

I had heard (IIRC it was on /. itself) that the (a?) problem with the battles in the BSG remake is this: if there is FTL travel, one can jump in a few light-minutes from a target*, see exactly where they are**, and jump in right on top of them to launch nukes before they have a chance to "see" the radiation emanating from your first exit from FTL because it has to travel the minutes or hours to reach them.

* Substitute light-hours if your FTL charge-time requires it
** Or (more precisely) where they were very recently

A picture is worth 500 trees, if they're selling trees at $2 each, and fining for pictures at $1,000 each.

But seriously, thanks for posting this. I remembered reading the book and was hoping someone would make the citation so I could remember the numbers.

Sorry to meta, but it was amazing to see a disagreement on the internet (over a misunderstanding, even; between recognized users, even) turn into a semblance of consensus.

Carry on. =)

With respect to the Verizon/non-Verizon service, I had been tracking that (excitedly) at the time. There was an investment package from various wireless companies and a roll out plan for non-Verizon cell service in (1) the top 20 stations for October 2009, (2) all other underground stations by Fall 2010, and (3) all tunnels by October 2012.

They got the first two down, but the third step never materialized, with Metro blaming the wireless companies for not doing the work, and the wireless companies correspondingly blaming Metro for scheduling times for them to install the equipment in the tunnels (which required Metro staff to be there, and necessitated diverting trains around them), but then not showing up as agreed. Here's a story by The Examiner on the he-said she-said stuff. (Note: The Examiner is very right-biased on political issues, but I've found their local investigative reporting to be sound and insightful.)

I have plenty of material for crazy-thing-happened-on-the-Metro stories, but I'll save those for another time.

How did this get a mod point!? What's next (Godwin's law alert)?
"Would that we had a fuhrer again to get rid of the [ethnic group] problem?"

Science fiction allows you to craft a setting around an idea in order to explore the idea more fully. The setting could be past, present, future, whatever.

Convincing a high school english teacher that robots didn't automatically make a story unreadable once proved very difficult.

And then, a few days later, we have the Yahoo story break, where we find out that you're fined a quarter mil every day you stand your ground...

I'm a Pebble owner. I agree with this sentiment. I liked the ad for Apple Watch, but I'm not going to remember to plug the thing in every day.

Unobtrusive notifications are nice (at the cinema, say), and on-wrist walking directions can be really convenient, but not $350+ convenient.

Also, the "Share my heartbeat" thing seems creepy.

This is my expectation of what would happen if a non-U.S. government [subpoena]ed records stored in the U.S. belonging to some company:

If company says "yes:" Government obviously gets the records.
If, however, company says "no, these are out of your jurisdiction," the government can try to do one of the following:
- Convince the U.S. government to compel the company to turn over the records
- Fine the business
- Revoke business's permit to operate in the country
- Seize the local portion of the business

What other recourse does the that government have?
- It can't send agents to the U.S. to physically seize the records. That would be all kinds of hell for it. U.S. pols would go apeshit.

Correspondingly, Microsoft is hoping here that it falls into the "too big to fail" category and that it can bluster itself out of the present situation. If M$ can convince Uncle Sam that he has more to lose by the dissolution of M$ than by the exposure of the records, Microsoft "wins."

Posting to remove accidental downvote.

No no no no.

Those idiotic hoops frankly make my passwords worse. Given these (and potentially many other permutations) of password rules for hypothetical different sites, you can't formulate a decent method for acceptably strong passwords that can be kept to memory:

10+ chars; no char restriction
8-14 chars; must have 2+ ASCII symbols outside of [a-zA-Z0-9]
6-12 chars; must have 1+ number, 1+ uppercase, 1+ lowercase; must have 1+ symbol from the following set: [&$#@!^+=~]
8+ chars; must have 1+ number, 1+ uppercase, 1+ lowercase; must have 1+ symbol from the following set: [&$#@!^+=~,.?/{}]
Exactly 10 characters; must have 1+ number, 2+ uppercase, 2+ lowercase; NO special characters

Misread title as ...is an Anti-Aircraft for the Water

While this is funny, it is going to fall to the twelve-year-olds of the internet who will make sure that every officer is tazed without ceasing.

I was somewhat sympathetic to the "We pirate because there's no legal way to get it online" until I read an article yesterday that highlighted NetFlix piracy.

If NetFlix doesn't serve your country, fine. I am not talking to you. If, however, you're getting House of Cards on isohunt or whatever the kids do these days, you can't claim it as "no legal way" anymore. Admit that you just don't want to pay $8 a month to be entertained.