Better to have robots fight than people. Also once we have a lot of machine control APIs it won't be hard to make killer robots. I can make a paintball gun that shoots everyone but myself using a computer, a couple of high powered servos, a linear actuator, two cameras, and IBM's machine vision API. The fundamental technology just needs to be repurposed, so you're never going to stop the threat of killer machines.

Well, I will admit my latest experience loading Ubuntu on a VM has been a pain in the rump. VirtualBox couldn't get the resolution right, but connected to the Internet fine, Hyper-V got the resolution right but couldn't get the Internet to work. Pft.

I owned an iPad 2 since its launch, about three months ago someone broke into my house and stole it (among other things.) I decided it was time to go shopping, and finally settled on a first generation Surface Pro.

After using it for three months, I can say I prefer it over my laptop *and* my iPad. When I want to develop software, I switch to the desktop and plug in an external monitor (which means I get a second 10-inch screen to load documentation or whatever.) When I want to browse casually, I just unplug it from the extra monitor and go mobile. I don't like the screen aspect ratio (too tall and skinny in portrait) and the battery life needs work. It's also a bit heavy, and the app store isn't as rich.

Still, it has been incredibly nice to have access to my desktop and tablet all in one package. As a desktop, it's actually pretty solid. I don't do heavy media editing (most of my software development involves financial accounts) so it hasn't so much as hiccuped with what I've thrown at it. Now, I don't feel like the Surface Pro is better than an iPad as a tablet, though it's a solid desktop and a decent tablet. Still, having my desktop in such a small form factor has been a dream.

It feels like the natural progression if technology. When someone gets the hybrid-OS to work right, I could see desktops, laptops, phones, and tablets all becoming the same product in a way.

Lets not mince words; These "activists" want the man fired over his private political views. That's what this is about: They want heads to roll, they want someone to lose their job over a private donation. That is hateful bologna. It is sick and wrong to try to get someone fired over something like that.

If a company axed a low level employee for donating to a pro-gay campaign, people would crap a collective brick at the prospect of firing an employee over their private political actions. This isn't about criticizing someone for their views, this is about actively trying to get someone fired over their private, away-from-work political actions. That's wrong, and hateful. We try to ruin people's lives over a bad political choice or donation, we reason with them intelligently and kindly, with love and care. This whole "death to those who oppose pro-gay-legislation" is warped and wrong. Even gays I know are fed up with how hateful the pro-gay movement has become. Back, the hell, OFF. Your hate and cruelty is not making things better for gays.

Classical information, anonymous moron. You can't send something between two points on Minkowski Space along a geodesic that's undefined. Now go Google what I just said because it's pretty clear which of us has actually studied modern physics.

But the conspiring forces can't know what the quasars are sending off! That's the point. Nothing is capable of containing information pertaining to what the quasars have sent, because it's impossible to have made a round trip to find out ahead of time. Therefore, even if the forces can influence the scientist's choice of quasar, the mysterious force still has no idea which quasar will say what, so it can't rig the experiment.

As an analogy, imagine there are three settings: A, B, and C. The mysterious force wants to rig the experiment by forcing the scientist to select setting B. The scientist, to get around this, allows three quasars to select a setting. One of the quasars will pick A, one B, and one will select C. The scientist will then pick one of the quasars to set the settings. The mysterious force can choose which quasar the scientist will pick, but the mysterious force doesn't know which quasar will send which setting, therefore it can't force the scientist to pick B.

Because there cannot be casual information communication between a star of that distance and something on the Earth. In otherwords, there cannot be conspiracy between two things which are physically incapable of communication.

I said faster than light transfer of information. Learn your damn science before you run your mouth.

All experimental evidence suggests that the transfer of information faster than the speed of light in a vacuum is impossible. Scientists understand full well that there is always a possibility some new discovery could upend even the most fundamental view of the universe, but until evidence to suggest otherwise comes along, scientists can only work with the experimental data they have -- and so far, all of that suggests FTL transfer of information is impossible.

Therefore, drawing from the incredible amount of experimental data, it is reasonable to conclude that such stars could not have conspired with phenomenon on Earth, since the information would need to have left Earth, reached the star, then returned. The universe simply isn't old enough for such a round trip to have happened. If the max speed you can travel is 1,000 miles in an hour, and the universe is one hour old, then it is impossible to make a round trip to a destination 1,000 miles away. Therefore, if someone arrives from that destination, we know it is impossible for them to have conspired with someone from where you are at, since such a round trip would have taken at least two hours, and the universe is only one hour old.

This isn't entirely accurate. The 3D printing is important because it enabled a custom tailored design which prevents injury. Hence the "more fluid components" were 3D printed -- They just scan the person, and the computer prints an appropriately fitting shell. This is a major boon, since otherwise engineers would need to create custom molds everytime a new shaped leg came into the office.

My first Android device was a G1. Honestly, it was junk. The iPhone of the day blew it out of the water. It served as a showcase in the broader market for what Android could do, and helped Google gather real world usage data. This is arguably a "public beta" of sorts, from a development perspective.

There's always "those two" who start posting on each other's walls, obviously as just an excuse to chat, and then when they finally hookup they stop posting because they're too busy making out. Usually the Facebook mingling accelerates slowly -- The guy posts, the girl responds (or doesn't respond, so the guy takes a hint.) Etc. When marriage finally ensues, and the two live together, they leave Facebook almost entirely. Of course this is a reflection of the general social behavior of people. When we're young, we mingle with a lot of people until we find a mate, then drop out of the social sphere partially or fully. I've long suspected the highly social nature of teenagers and young adults is (partially) a social function to find romance, even if it's unintentional. Most people who have ran in various social circles will find there's some pseudodating within coed friend groups, where one pair will spend a bit more time with each other, which then either escalates into a real relationship, or the peliminary psuedodating fails and never progresses to real dating -- I.e. they start "posting on each others walls" a lot, until they drop out of the social circle (Facebook.)

Of course I get moderated as "offtopic," meanwhile the floods of "fbeta" are all +5. Even the moderation system is becoming a joke.

I used to really enjoy coming to /. -- even with Beta, even though it stinks. Now the entire comments section has just devolved into complaints. The real threat to /. isn't Evil Corporate Overlords, it's /tivism gone wrong. R.I.P. awesome comment community, you will be missed. :(