Why is this news? I know slashdot includes technology news but is every minor update to console hardware worth a story here? Really? Especially since you can buy a 4TB HDD quite cheaply now.

Yep. I cannot have my account under my real name because I sometimes work with children and young offenders who know my name, it would be quite annoying if they could all find me easily on facebook, even though I have all the privacy settings (good one!) turned up to max. If facebook turns round and says I can't use that pseudonym anymore I'll just delete everything and move to google+ or something. I suspect a lot of people would do the same.

From a rich person to a bank? How is that redistribution? If the bank gave it all away, to charity, to its poorer customers, its poorer employees, or even just threw it out the window one day, I'd be all for them taking the money from the rich guy and so would most people I'd wager, stealing or not. In reality it will flow into the pockets of other rich guys, that is not redistribution.

There aren't royals "walking around", there's less than a dozen of them really. They constitute less of our population than prolific serial killers constitute of yours. I know which I'd prefer. If you want to talk about useless financial burdens on the taxpayer, start with the big fish (miltary industrial complex much?) of which both our nations have plenty. The royal family certainly is not a big fish, especially if you count the significant tourism they bring here from.... oh look at that, it's America, who'd have thought?

I'm not a programmer, I know basic fortran and that's it, but surely you can just do something along the lines of: "IF (function) gives error THEN (function)=0" or is there some fundamental reason why a program can't divide by zero, catch itself trying to divide by zero and carry on using the value of zero (or whatever you want) as if the function returned zero in the first place?

Have a look at the recent WRC series of rallying games, still made by codemasters, none of the bullshit introduced in CMR:DiRT, pure rallying. WRC 4 is the latest and its like CMR1/2 all over again for me. I also like the GRID series of racing games, just the right balance between simulation and arcade, especially the most recent installation, GRID:Autosport.

Michael Crichton's book was based on another book called "The Lost World" by Arthur Conan Doyle written in 1912. It's not just films and hollywood.

I think you're conflating two concepts or methods of undermining encryption. One method is variations on a 'back-door' (like a master key in a physical key/lock situation), the other is 'weakening' the encrytion by somehow limiting the passkey length/complexity. I think you're referring to the second method when you say it's a practical impossibility and I agree with you. I also think the point is moot because all the attempts (successful or not) so far have been via the first method, back-doors, and probably will be in the future. But your original point still stands, weak (and backdoored) encryption is effectively no encryption, no exceptions. This is because "it won't work in practice because the backdoor key will eventually leak due to hacking, rogue employees, etc" as the AC put it in his reply to you.

This poll scared the shit out of me making me think Mother's day was today or very recently and I'd forgotten. Screw you /.

Although the slip roads (on ramps and off ramps for you yanks) are typically much shorter in the UK, people do this all the time, in London especially, and it is indeed a dick move. If one person does it they save a bit of time and it doesn't affect anyone else, but if more people do it they save less time and it slows everyone else down. I and a lot of other drivers just stubbornly refuse to let them merge back in, but there's always going to be someone idiot who will let you in.