An armed revolution wasn't that realistic back in 1794 either - i.e the failed Whiskey Rebellion.

However, if enough people feel revolution is the only option, they'll find a way. Technology makes the government stronger, but does so likewise with individuals...

It's only a matter of time before revolutionaries, or terrorists depending on how one views the situation, obtains nuclear weapons - the great equalizer ... not just for nations, but also for disenfranchised groups within.

Furthermore, RAID can potentially *increase* the chance of data loss.

I've seen multiple instances of a RAID controller corrupting data throughout the RAID. Also, recovery isn't a sure thing on a RAID depending on the number of drives and the configuration used, especially if being performed by someone who lacks experience in that realm.

On a related note, RAID can sometimes be more expensive - people who run small home RAIDs, in particular, often don't have exact spare drives on hand, which they should! Attempting to swap in a different brand / model drive doesn't always work well sometimes necessitating swapping out additional perfectly good drives in the RAID to get it running again.

True. However, many young people rely on social networking sites to meet up and coordinate activities, as well as, chat directly through them - the major ones, in particular, Facebook and Google+, have similar age restrictions to that of GMail.

In reply to some comments / sentiments in this thread regarding how quick Google is to delete accounts, be wary of creating a Google+ account / user profile.

There have been many reports of Google+ accounts being flagged for various reasons (username choosen, duplicate acct, complaints from others, etc) resulting in the linked services, such as, GMail being suspended / terminated too.

Imho, avoid creating a Google+ account - not so easy now that Google is rolling that out across services, so the next best option is not create a profile; leave it as empty as possible. And keep services separate ... don't use the same Google+ account for GMail as one does for other services (ie. YouTube).

Absolutely agree. Not faulting the websites, services, etc for the age restrictions. Google is in a no-win situation due to the law.

Effectively creating a "don't ask, don't tell" situation, which seems to be very commonplace in life. Many activities are technically restricted, forbidden, etc ... but overlooked as long as both sides play along ...

An example is Facebook one user / one account policy - long as the user keeps their duplicate accounts / usernames on the down-low, and don't cause problems, Facebook, despite automated ways to catch many dups (Google+ is reportedly more aggressive), usually overlooks the extra accounts.

Seems a good lesson that often in life one must tell lies of varying degrees. Fibbing about age is one of those.

Many websites and services (email, web hosting / blog sites, facebook, etc) have age stipulations ranging from 13 to 21, which effectively makes much of the web useless to young people unless they lie.

You're likely spot on.

My post was more playing devil's advocate to put that thought out there for discussion - many of the replies a good point that the military would have no need to do that...

Good points about much of the so-called virus software likely being monitoring - often the best security will consist of a group who do not fully trust each other; keeping an eye on each others actions.

Or perhaps all this talk of viruses in drone systems is laying the ground work to create plausible deniability for hitting the "wrong" target, which in reality, may really be the intended target - think assassinations ... government could claim it wasn't us who killed "X", we would never do that, it must have been those pesky hackers; the virus did it.

Another option is not trashing them, but instead put them all in a box to store indefinitely.

I'm amazed more don't put two and two together. Most of Mozilla Foundation's income comes from Google. Seems like a huge conflict of interest...

And many others feel the same way - below is an excerpt from a cnet article from a few years ago to ponder when considering what's happened with Firefox lately...

"However, the open secret in the tech sector is that at the end of the day, Google calls the shots. As this blog post will explain, when a pro-user security feature in the browser threatens Google's business model, it is the feature that is made to compromise--not the search engine."

Read entire article at http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9776759-46.html

One has to wonder whether some driving Firefox development are really in cahoots with Google with the objective of marginalizing Firefox as a Chrome clone.

Regardless of whether that's the case, Firefox is looking to be more like Chrome all the time ... and, hence, imho, it's no surprise so many Firefox users are flocking to Chrome.

It's obvious that the brand of blank DVDs makes a difference, but what few know is using a *slower* burn speed, such as 4X, can greatly help.

Some other suggestions:

* Be sure no extra programs, browsers, etc are running when burning - if not possible, consider getting a dedicated computer just for burning use.

* Make at least two copies using two different brands of DVD - and on each DVD itself, burn two copies - that will limit data to about 2.2 GIG per DVD, so not always practical for video, but certainly worth doing for pictures.

* Storage - keep in dark, well ventilated place - not the garage nor the attic. Keep moisture under 50% whenever possible.

DVDs can be a good intermediate backup option that can with some care in burning and storage, likely last 10-20 year, and perhaps far longer - no one really knows yet.

I remember back when consumer grade videotapes became widely available some people claiming they'd only last 10 years - and yet roughly 30 years later, it turns out videotape degrade somewhat, but nowhere near as much as was once believed. So it's quite possible in 30+ years burned DVDs may still be readable with little to no data loss.

This highlights the danger of automatic software updates.

Glad to see others publicly noticing the wind speed discrepancies and general weakness of the storm.

Related to that is some local stations not only referred to it as a hurricane, but further stated that hurricane force winds extended out 125 miles from the eye when it was already very evident, even to many TV news reporters, some of who, that morning, on the air, characterized it as more akin to a Nor'Easter.

Makes some, including myself, wonder whether state and local governments, from pressure by the Feds, used the storm as a pretext to test shutting down entire mass transit systems and mass evacuations; not to see if it was possible, but what the public reaction would be, and the amount of compliance - reportedly, some local authorities, for people who refused to leave, were demanding them to provide their names and social security numbers.

Ron

Mozilla Corporation gets most of the funding from Google, and so it's no surprise that Firefox is becoming more like Chrome.

Are many of the influential people involved with Firefox development Google employees? And/or many Google die-hard fanboys? If so that alone explains much of it ...

As to what the end game is?... Firefox, while keeping its branding / look, becoming a Chrome clone? -or- Firefox simply being made redundant, and eventually killed off, by getting most Firefox users over to Chrome - from anecdotal reports, people are switching in droves.

What gets me is where are the FORKS? ... if big corporations and developers rely on Firefox, why aren't any forking recent versions of it? Imho, 3.6x would be a fantastic fork point, and improve on that.

Exactly. And is the main danger of the machines.

Overall body exposure is very, very low when operating correctly, but if the beam stops and/or the operator repeatedly rescans isolated areas / uses higher resolution, the radiation exposure can be far higher.

A related issue is that much of the radiation energy is concentrated in the skin - that alone raises safety questions.

And how do the minimally trained TSA employees, let alone passengers, know for sure the machines are operating correctly? They don't, and hence avoiding such scans is prudent, especially for people who regularly fly.