Well the folk at Transmeta Corporation made it obvious that the external
ISA was no longer a necessary constraint on the way a modern processor
works. The explosion of the fast transistor count made it possible to craft
an instruction issue logic chain that was very rich in the clock times of modern
days.

Strictly modern processors are more VLIW than RISC and trigger arrays
of resources selected by the expanded long instruction words.

Most interesting are the first five min...
It is not a debate....

Positions in writing... have already been submitted.

Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City sits where
in the chain.

Email is not covered... but there are parallel email issues.
Grand jury issues too. Bulk collection...

Back in a couple of hours.

So my phone has FB installed by default and they know exactly what
data plan I have.

There seems to be no reason to pay data overages because of
vendor installed applications. There seems to be a fundamental
conflict of interest, evidence of fraud or bait and switch.

I am not talking about an auto with a speedometer that goes to 120 mph
sold in states with maximum speed limits well below but a clear misrepresentation
of purpose in marketing.

Speaking about strange numbers. Phones are marketed with standby
times and talk times that are impossible given the default software,
default settings and most likely distance to cell tower service.

I am most likely moving my number to my old old old Nokia flip phone.
It has standby time in days not hours. I see nothing smart in the battery
support for most smart phones.

What does a woosh sound like in space...

House size is not too bad. Last I checked Hugh Laurie weighs 185 pounds lbs.
so this asteroid is not so large that I would worry.

On another note larger objects take decades for a satellite to reach
and maneuver to. We will get clobbered by some big ass brick piles
because these things are hard to detect in a time frame that might
permit us to do anything....

Does it take nineteen minutes to understand this.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

When a kid cannot mime splashing his friends with imaginary
water balloons without getting removed from school and subjected
to interrogation and counseling.... we have crossed a line.

I consider this issue to have its roots in "zero tolerance" policies
that have morphed into "intolerance" policies. Worse they teach
hide bound behaviour as ideal, remove negotiation and listening
from the table. Intolerant management at work, school and yes
parenting evokes despair and helplessness in people.

It is true that some find solace in the strict adherence to policy
by administrators and bureaucrats mindset but when policy is
wrong much more goes wrong. When we are lucky Kafka chuckles
in his grave.

Currently in the news we are seeing a zero tolerance organization
run amok in Iraq and Syria as ISIS fighters impose an extreme
view of the rules and then enforce those rules with a "Zero Tolerance"
policy.

Never give up a working phone when you get a new one.

Read above and now you know why.

A visit to the phone store can activate the old device perhaps
with the old SIM card...

I use my old phones to WiFi stream music and stuff into
my home. Bluetooth to the audio world for music.
Chromecast for other stuff...

This is true for most microwave links as well.

Further a radar like echo return from cell towers could
be developed to fill in many gaps.

There is a big absorption band about 2.45 GHz and
yes cell tower frequencies. The 2.45GHz is interesting because
of the inexpensive low power WiFi chips that could be used to
build a solar power communication mesh to cover vast areas
with bandwidths better than the Telebit UUCP/UUCICO links
of the early Unix communication explosion.

Good stuff except that the Yellowstone volcano risk is vastly bigger than any emergency grain supply we ever considered.

We are not talking about a regional disaster but one so big that with the modern population and population distribution
we would be well and goodly firetrucked.

You point is spot on if we consider lesser but still massive disasters. Most folk consider disaster planning of three days
food and water to be a difficult investment. A continent wide disaster with spill over to other continents needs to address
decades or more.

As a geologist the impact, size and risk of Yellowstone has been an ongoing learning experience.

Yellowstone like large eruptions and large asteroid impacts are global game changers.
Any that wake up in the morning and think about this get concerned.

Both issues invoke magical thinking... we could make the problem go away by -________-.

What we do know is that historic eruptions did blanket North America with ash,
we also have some decent data about how many and how often and when we
might be due...

The un-interesting bit is the mumble foo about a computer program. Some think
this is adding to the knowledge but the reality is hand drawn maps from
20 years ago tell the same OMG KYAGB story.

Add regions of Indonesia to the list right along side the Mammoth Mtn. caldera in California.

These game changing big events are well beyond any FEMA planning.
Have a good cup of tea and enjoy the fireworks.

What largish Linux push in Europe was squashed in favor of MicroSoft products?

Microsoft has a lot to lose if they ignore international law and act as
the blind agent of a US court.

China is working to replace all MS and Cisco software already as
well as replace all Intel and other non-Chinese processors with their own
chip designs. Their early hardware efforts have shown that there
are few technical problems in their way to nationalize large markets.

It is not the data that is the issue.

It is a US Judge requiring a company to reach out across international borders and
as an agent of the judge grab the data and spirit it across international borders and
deliver it to the judge. This something that the US judge could not require of the
State Department, CIA or NSA any other government agency to do.

If it was not data the rule would be more obvious. If a storage company had
a large box of cigars perhaps from some random country close to Florida could that
company be compelled to ship that box of cigars to the judge to determine
if the owner of the box of cigars was engaging in the trade of and trade with
a foreign country that the US has issues with. Only by inspection of the
contents of the box would the judge know.

Now it is possible that Cuban cigars are no longer the smoking gun of illegal
trade with Cuba but the point is that this judge is forcing a company to reach out
across international borders and do the judges bidding.

What if the company name was Blackwater Security Consulting (since renamed Academi)
and that company was directed by a judge to import or export anything or anyone
at the behest of the judge (with or without payment for services BTW).

If it was a physical container the decision in my mind is obvious
that the judge is reaching, reaching, reaching well beyond charter and
jurisdiction.

It gets more interesting if the transport of the physical container crosses
other international borders. Most nations have laws that prohibit trafficking
in stolen goods. So a packet map showing how each and every fragment
of this container traveled could also be a topic of a United Nations inquiry.
Blood diamonds, ebony, ivory... trafficking in crime tainted desirables and
this judge covets this stuff.

OK I am a child of the 60s. Time not the drug thing...

The Raspberry Pi is an astounding teaching tool.
It is open at all the important levels (hardware and software) that
are impossible or impracticable for a student and class to explore
on any other computer.

At the current price it is less expensive than most textbooks.

It supports all the tool chains a student needs support on and
supports virtually any programming language worth teaching
and worth learning.

The last turn of the Raspberry Pi gave it more USB ports and
a better connector for the OS flash media (mSD). All good stuff.

I have built small MPI clusters with them and noticed that I quickly
ran into problems that plague programmers of million dollar clusters that I have
worked on. The Beaglebone Black is a nice baby step forward in ARM land.

This MIPS board that started this does need to match the price and features
of the R-Pi or BBB if it is to have legs. I am a fan of the MIPS ISA but with
modern compilers the ISA is almost a don't care.

Re this MIPS board do wish it had dual+ GigE networking. I do wish it
had more DRAM. I do wish I knew more about it in detail.

Of interest the SD card, case and wall wart power supply cost as much as the
board itself. All together it costs less than most textbooks....

But golly folks do not ignore the Raspberry Pi.

Remember, penicillin is not an effective treatment for Influenza
or other viral infections. There are some secondary infections
where penicillin or another antibiotic has value BUT penicillin is
not an effective treatment for Influenza.

This Ebola thing is dangerous... it is lethal enough
and contagious enough to totally upend the health care
and economic systems of the UK, France, Germany, US,
Russia, Japan...

Most modern nations do not have infrastructure that permits
long term quarantine of all but a small handful of individuals.
Nothing in place will address the millions of travelers... stuck in
transit.