What makes them think there will be safe rail lines or functioning trains in 2048? Let alone going to whatever god-forsaken place they decide to store the stuff.

... and a lot less stupid. A form-fitting, immobile steel coffin with almost no visibility has got to be the least pleasant way to watch fireworks imaginable. Especially if you fall over face first while "standing" in it.

God forbid the kid ever does anything violent for the rest of his life. Then, everything he's ever written, said, or done comes under scrutiny. And anyone who ever saw it, and didn't report it to "proper authorities" goes under the bus with him. Gotta over your ass, just in case.

Not-news for these "authorities" - there isn't a teenage boy (or a lot of girls) born that hasn't fantasized violence, against more than an entirely fictional dinosaur, at least once. A lot of them even write it down. But as long as they don't know about it, no one cares.

Pffft! I had a riflery class at my christian summer camp. When I was nine. I was a pretty good shot. Good thing I didn't write a story about it.

That's just amazing. Any company I've worked for, I'd be strung up by the heels for giving away customer data, let alone selling it for the better part of a million dollars. One article notes "It was not clear whether the DEA has rules against soliciting corporate insiders to provide confidential customer information in exchange for money." Really, they need a specific rule against that? I can see a DEA official whispering in someone's ear "Shut up, shut up, let it go and just let her retire."

I'm more a historian than an explorer. It really bothers me to walk around my former mining town, only 150 years old, and there are old structures (foundations, dams, remnants of bridges, etc.) that no one remember what they were from. Wish there were easier ways to research them; have to get to work on that flux capacitor.

Give NASA the $14 billion spent in fiscal 2013 training foreign armies and providing them with weapons. That'll make up the difference nicely. Not enough? Move on to the $24 billion spent on the "National Drug Control Strategy." Two things we don't need more of are dead bodies and prison inmates.

I well recall the cries of "Windows Everywhere!" (and Windows CE that went with it). As you note, they want this for the same reasons the government wants to standardize the military aircraft they buy - saving money by re-using common components. Problem is, something that does everything does nothing well; witness the F-35 and the TFX/F-111. Worst thing is, it never actually costs less, anyway - you get an inferior product with higher costs.

It was a little annoying that Apple made the jump all at once into USB, but really - a couple of RS422 ports was better? ADB was always only for mice and keyboards, and years of experience showed that for most users, SCSI was just too expensive and hard to set up. Or don't you remember "SCSI Hell"? For higher end Macs, you could retrofit SCSI, serial, and even USB cards if you really needed to. Some configurations even included a SCSI card.

As far as "USB was everywhere on PC's" that's just wrong. At the time Apple switched over, 99% of PC users had never heard of a USB port. I know, I was managing a computer store at the time.

I was working very closely with Apple at the time, and unless everyone was being lied to, "IBM saved Macintosh" is a pretty serious mischaracterization. More like three companies working together to create a platform useful to all the contributors. Did IBM put more into it than the other AIM members? Probably. But they didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts.

There was a reason, and I'm surprised you've completely missed it.

"We'll invent something to fix this when the time comes" is not a sound policy, or a policy at all. It's wishful thinking. What if we don't?

What's the point of having a "plan" when it changes every four or eight years? It takes longer than that to complete a large technology project; the only way to accomplish it is to have a beloved leader start it, then quick shoot him - so it'll be completed in his honor. Come to think of it, we'll never get past the "beloved leader" part. What's the last time we had anything other than the lesser of evils?

I must admit (and this will probably get some catcalls) I don't think the "kiddie porn" industry is as big or as big a problem as is claimed. I've been poking around some of the dark and unpleasant parts of the internet since there WAS an internet, and I don't think I've seen a single unambiguous example. Certainly not "$20 billion dollars worth" - NO ONE is that good at hiding. Rather, I think it's the one thing they can manufacture criminals with, that no one dares defend.

After reading this, some of my spare time will be taken up with loading as much obsolete recordable media as possible with pictures of flowers, puppies, and kittens (what's the age of consent for a cat?) and secreting them around the house. If I ever have any porn, I'll print it out on paper, to be safe from lazy searches.

I live in a small town. The next town over (a bit over a mile) has a fire department completely obsessed with fireworks. Not just the 4th, but MOST holidays. It was cute at first, but now I close the windows, draw the shades, and turn up the TV.