Almost everything. The question I hear astronauts apparently ask is "what is going to kill me next?" It seems to be about 90%+ of their training. Trying to figure out all the ways they can die and how to mitigate the chances of it actually happening.

It doesn't matter whether he gets an open trial or not. The trial quite simply will not be fair. That is more or less a foregone conclusion. The laws he is charged under basically allow for no context to be considered even if what he did was morally correct and justified. He quite simply cannot get a fair trial.

A ludicrous argument because it presumes the laws are just. Laws frequently are wildly unfair and you cannot have a fair trial when you are being judged under unfair laws.

Nobody is asking them to. It would be fine if they would merely drop the issue instead of seeking retribution. That is an option available to them. The cat is out of the bag, the government has egg on its face (deservedly so) and the right thing happened. Time to let it go.

Glad to know I'm not the only one that thinks that. I always thought it sounded uncomfortably like something right out of a oppressive dictatorship or a George Orwell book.

Semantics really. He unquestionably would have been impeached and likely removed from office. And if he didn't do anything there would have been no reason to pardon him.

I absolutely can blame Obama and Bush. The government was breaking the law and violating the constitutional rights of its citizens. I'm not surprised at the response but that doesn't mean it is acceptable. Remember this is the same government that has recently used torture, held people without charge or trial, invaded two countries, spied on its own citizens, put digital strip search machines in airports, and on and on.

And it wouldn't set a "dangerous precedent" because this isn't the first time something like this has happened. The only dangerous precedent is if we don't hold the government accountable.

By that logic George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld should go to Iraq and Afghanistan to be judged for war crimes and stop hiding behind the cover of an authoritarian regime. Closed Guantanamo Bay yet? Yeah didn't think so. "Running away"? Sounds like the smart course of action when the chances of him getting a fair trial seem to be nil.

No it isn't. I'm not trying to prove or disprove them and never claimed otherwise. If you want to claim that they cannot work then you need to provide a testable theorem to back that up. If you want to claim that they can work same thing applies. If you are merely trying to refute claims that someone has developed a quantum computer when they haven't then you merely need to clarify your position.

Here is what I think we know right now. Some scientists apparently have created functional quantum computers with small numbers of qubits in labs. These lack sufficient qubits to be generally useful but do appear to indicate that useful quantum computers are likely to be possible. If there is a quantum computer with enough qubits to be generally useful I am not aware of it and there is no public indication of any breakthrough at this time. There appear to be substantial technical and theoretical problems to be worked out before quantum computers become a reality.

As far as I know they are all in the proof of concept stage in physics laboratories with very modest numbers of qubits. Never claimed otherwise. It does not follow however that quantum computers are an impossibility. Based on my understanding of the work accomplished thus far I suspect they probably can become a reality eventually but I make no claims regarding when that may be.

EBay apparently had $17 billion in revenue last year so I'm guessing the answer is yes.

It's not quite that bad but you do need to be careful.

That is why I no longer own the auction company I held about 10 years ago. It was basically impossible to deal with eBay. They would raise fees every 6 months like clockwork. Any buyer could simply invoke the magic words "not as described" and get their money back. You couldn't defend yourself against unjustified bad feedback. Makers of luxury goods (like Louis Vuitton) could simply shut your auction down with a strike against you even if the merchandise was 100% legit. (and yes this happened to us regularly) The amount of labor in running an auction is ludicrous.

Buying on eBay has risks but generally manageable ones. Selling on eBay has risks that are not really manageable if you are doing more than selling some chotchkies.

Because selling a car is different than most other merchandise. I used to own an auction company and made much of my living selling through eBay, including cars. For merchandise eBay can enforce a contract to sell. For cars transfer of ownership comes with transfer of title and eBay cannot force you to sell the car for the auction price. In essence it is a glorified classified listing. If you decide not to sell the car you merely have to refuse to sign over the title and there isn't anything eBay can do about that.

You might have a point if his argument was something more nuanced than "it's hard and I don't understand how it will ever work" with a few marketing = boogeyman slams thrown in for good measure. Maybe quantum computers will be a thing and maybe they won't but he sure as hell doesn't know. If you want to claim quantum computers will never work then present some compelling technical evidence to support that position. Otherwise shut up and let the researchers do their job.

"May place an upper bound"? Sounds like you don't really know much about quantum computers yourself there my friend. Come back when you have some specific physics to discuss beyond some vague hand waiving about gravity and neutrinos.

So because you can't understand it, it must not be of any consequence? I think that says more about you than it does about the technology.

That sounds like pretty much every new technology ever. The first computers were difficult to build and maintain, didn't scale well and people weren't entirely sure what to do with them outside of a few narrow use cases. The first airplanes were difficult to build and maintain, didn't scale well, and... etc. We figured it out eventually. Probably will with quantum computing too in due time.

Because it is computerized and does more than control a lock. When was the last time you saw a computer without any sort of operating system?

Because that's what most people know how to write software for. Not saying it was a good choice but I understand why they did it.

It's not an embedded device. It runs a pretty much bog standard PC. I've actually worked on some of the hardware in these in my day job a while back on a project. (No I had nothing to do with the design or the implementation of them nor do I have any relationship with Brinks and no the project had nothing to do with hacking them)

Because it wasn't out of date or unsupported when they designed the safes. These aren't a brand new design. Again, not saying it was a good choice but it made sense (sort of) at the time.

That is for a court of law to decide. You may be right but that has not yet been decided to my knowledge.

That is not remotely true. I refer you to FCC v Pacifica Foundation, better known as the case over George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words broadcast which was upheld by the Supreme Court and restricts viewpoints based on their content.

Countless times. It is trivial to find examples throughout history. Look up military coup and you'll find no end of examples of tyrants being deposed by their own military forces, often for moral reasons.