I've never had a keyboard phone fail

A beer spilled on my Treo 650, killing a couple of keys. I was able to buy a replacement keyboard off a random eBay seller and swap it in without much trouble (after which the phone was as good as new), but it was an annoyance all the same.

I suspect a newer touchscreen phone would've been less vulnerable to that kind of failure. Can't say that I've tested the theory yet, even though I usually have a beer in one hand and my phone in the other (to log the beer) whenever a beerfest is on.

No, no you don't. And you sure as hell have nothing to do with what's going on at 200, let alone 400 feet.

And for YOUR benefit, if you have enough discipline to run your own business that happens to use the same type of technology. I suppose you consider the wireless connectivity you use every day to be a "rape of the commons" every time you connect to a web site that runs advertising in order to pay for their operations? Rape! Rape rape rape! Eeeeevil businesses doing things like ... delivery antibiotics to your hospital. Rape rape rape!

You're so right. Only people who HATE businesses should be recommending regulations. Only people who've never had the energy to organize a croquet game, let alone the biggest retailer in the world, should propose changes to a huge body of regulations. A fine idea.

Hopefully the new platform will still support irony.

Your objections are just a matter of software for an ATM customized for this application. Except the one about ATMs not able to count money. Huh? You can put a stack of cash in the thing and it will count the money including identifying the denominations.

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.

ATMs (the kind built into the wall at the bank) take deposits these days, so why not just use one of those?