I don't know if there is journalistic purpose in this. I only know what I feel about it. I've not watched it (or there other videos) and have no desire to.

I've seen people dying and badly injured before in real life as well as video. I'm not very squeamish about it, but it's unpleasant.

ISIS desperately wanted people to see this and have it burned into their memory. I have no desire to help them get something they want. The couple of stills I saw from it simply confirmed my opinion of them.

Beyond that, I have neither time nor memory neurons for either them or their "snuff" videos.

It's all clean sharp and black and white in your universe.

So, to be safe from moral hazard, maybe he should just not do math. Nobody should do math. Because it might end up being used for a bad end or be paid for by the "wrong" people.

I'll leave the moral purity to you, religious fundies, and other true believers.

It may be morally uplifting, but, sharing the world with you is going to a little chilly, because even fire has been used as a weapon.

I was in ABQ in the 90s, and they had things like the Airborne Laser 747 come through, an Antonov AN 124 delivering a Topaz space reactor (had to close Gibson Ave when it departed for worry about the jet wash being over the barriers), etc.

A lot of the interesting things didn't look all that odd unless you knew what to look for, like extra sensor ports added to them and such (Aviation Week was sometimes a good guide to those). The trestle was already closed, so they weren't getting them for EMP testing so much. Phillips Lab still got a lot of one off planes coming through for things related to R and D.

The Balloon Fiesta mass ascensions are still one of the most amazing things I've seen. I-25 was a dangerous place to be driving when that happened. everyone was looking at the balloons and not the road.

With all the weird aircraft that fly into Kirtland, and the yearly Balloon Fiesta with hundreds of hot air balloons, I'm surprised it would have drawn much in the way of UFO calls in ABQ.

They regularly have weirder things in the air.

"Conservatives did try to murder the NEA over that!"

Trying to shut a government agency is attempted murder?

So, does that mean trying to shut down a corporation is attempted murder as well?

(Note, I don't want the NEA shut down, but equating it to murdering a person is ridiculous.)

So, you're saying you're a lawyer?

Our new elite military hacker.

Well. I used to be a good soldier, years ago.

Now I'm a fat slob with asthma.

Does that mean I can be a good hacker?

"Stay on the PCR run, boys. I'm gonna get them DNA strands replicated if it harelips everybody on Bear Creek!"

-Major Kong

Ah, so you aren't surrounded by a set of kids all unhappy and whining cause they can't play with their new xbox etc.

He's just unhappy they aren't eating Quisp instead.

By this thinking, wouldn't threatening to plant a bomb would be a superpower?

"How can you even say that."

It's been my observation over years of dealing with them.

  Most people who use computers aren't the Slashdot crowd. They "kinda, sorta" know enough to be able to check their email, surf the web, or play some games.

Usually when they have a failure from malware, they've been infected (perhaps with other things as well) for some time. If they can even find the original system restore disk, they're way ahead of the game.

They get Cousin Jimmy (or one of their kids), cause he's good with computers, to clean up or reinstall their computer. Usually leaving many of the same holes that got them zapped in the first place.

Or, they get some computer store to deal with it. They just gripe about losing some stuff, but it was a game they liked and can no longer find, or an email from momma before she died, etc. not something life and death. They may start copying some things to a thumb drive, if you're lucky.

So many times I've asked "When was your last backup?" and get a vacant stare even from people with PhDs at the university I work at. Let alone the everyday person on the street who has a computer at home.

As computer files become more valuable to ordinary people (rather than just IT geeks and businesses), backup plans become more important.

Most general users don't do this, but as the data becomes more damaging if it's lost, encrypted or maliciously destroyed, they may need some sort of solution.

Even a pretty sophisticated ransom-ware would have a hard time if you take an occasional backup and check it by restoring/reading the file on another machine.

I have this sneaking suspicion that the real damage that could be done to Sony is if the group that broke in got into the internal financial data rather than what gets reported.

Word has long been that the accounting practices of Hollywood and the music industry make Enron look pretty tame. And Sony is into both.

Imagine how many lawyers/accountants would be going over any financial records that get released. There are lots of actors and musicians that have felt they got shafted with what they were paid versus what they were actually owed.