Nice to know they actually keep track of these things. What's next? "Nuke found in sandbox"

Consider this: 50 years ago, they were just samples of a common infection --- no extraordinary accounting or security measures were required, and it's certainly possible that a number of samples slipped through the cracks and have been "lost" and are just out there somewhere.

Who would have known that Smallpox would eventually be mostly eradicated, and security would ever be a concern?

You can't bolt on security after the fact ---- Smallpox is out there, and someone who wants it badly enough, with sufficient resources, who knows where to look, can surely find it by some means. Hint: This includes state actors, such as countries who would be our enemies. I'm not concerned about terrorists ---- only, foreign governments, or utterly callous or insane (but rich) people, e.g. arms dealers, for the most part.

As for the terrorists.... I think they'll stick with something simpler, as getting ahold of Smallpox is neither easy nor cheap, nor likely an efficient use of their resources; I doubt that a slow-spreading disease is really capable of generating a sufficient level of terror, for their tastes: anyways.

Terrorists have a number of potentially nasty biological and chemical poisonous agents, which are likely much easier for those folks to get ahold of. Also, explosives or poisons in crowded areas with immediate casualties gets more attention.

The greatest concern should be that they get ahold of a WMD or ability to generate a large amount of radioactive material, that can 'safely' be handled and dispersed without great expertise.

Wait, I was alive during that time -- the smallpox vaccine wasn't made from smallpox, it was made from cowpox

I strongly suggest you read more. There were other ways of innoculating against smallpox which were also commonly used, especially, before better methods were developed.

Only an issue if your body becomes a conduit to ground.

Body becoming a conduit to ground is more an issue for weaker effects such as lightning.

In fact ALL bodies can pretty become a conduit to the ground at sufficient voltage, as long as anything touching your body can serve as an antennae to pickup the EM signal; this may be able to harm you, but more likely -- it will just render the device itself permanently inoperative by shorting out the components, and the real worst highly likely scenario is the heat causes the implant to melt, while still in your body.

A Solar EMP contains higher-frequency EM and can be much more dangerous than a hit by a nearby lightning strike.

The issue is instead of being a shortest path to ground is an issue regarding contact with any metallic object, or.... in fact, if the metallic object is long or large enough, mere proximity is sufficient to be in danger.

Furthermore, with a CME of sufficient magnitude..... even humans without implants of any sort would be in danger, even if at a large distance from anything containing conductive materials.

The human body itself also contains ioninc liquids which can readily conduct an electromagnetic field, and the nervous system itself is electrical....

EMP pulse? What dystopian Matrix-like world do you live in?

How about an EMP pulse caused by an earth-directed X45-Class solar flare, such as the one that occured in Solar Cycle 23; November 2003, The Carrington event during the Solar Storm of August 1859, the Carrington Class-CME which narrowly missed earth in April of 2014, and numerous similar ones, which have (luckily) not pointed anywhere near earth?

Apparently, this is quite true. According to a UC davis study: which was published in the January issue of Journal Animal Cognition: The performance of drug- and explosives-sniffing dog/handler teams is affected by human handlers’ beliefs.

The study, published in the January issue of the journal Animal Cognition, found that detection-dog/handler teams erroneously “alerted,” or identified a scent, when there was no scent present more than 200 times — particularly when the handler believed that there was scent present. ....

The handlers were told that there might be up to three of their target scents in each room, and that there would be a piece of red construction paper in two of the rooms that identified the location of the target scent. However, there were no target scents — explosives or drugs — placed in any of the rooms. ...

Although there should have been no alerts in any of the rooms, there were alerts in all rooms. Moreover, there were more alerts at the locations indicated by construction paper than at either of the locations containing just the decoy scents or at any other locations.

There are numerous ways a view screen could be disabled (object smashed it, software error, etc.)

Yes... just like there are numerous ways that a pilot could be disabled: object smashed him, criminals snuck into the cockpit carrying some boxcutters, etc.

However, they can provide some extra shielding to the view screen, just like they can lock and reinforce the cockpit door and provide other security features.

A pilot is also required to be able to operate the plane using backup instruments without looking out the window --- it is part of the standard pilot training and qualification process, and they have to do this routinely.

Every large aircraft has manual backup systems that allow it to be safely piloted under IFR, even when there is zero visibility.

Which is why it's on ~1 out of 9 t-shirts, ~4 out of 10 underwear, and 3 out of 100 tatoos. They could license it for 1$.

Perhaps they can get around the "license requirement" for this memorial by purchasing a $10 T-shirt off the shelf. And simply don the product they purchased to the statue after folding.

The product then is already licensed; and the statue is not an article being used in trade.... it makes no difference if you wear it in public or attach it to a statue: you purchased a product that included the right to contain that logo licensed to the apparel distributor ---- the trademark holder's consent simply isn't required (they already consented to the mark's usage).

They could also "treat" the shirt by covering it with some chemicals, plastics, and protective coatings to help preserve and protect it. and possibly take some other steps to "emboss" or emphasize the mark, as long as the logo itself remains unaltered.

This would have been a total non-issue had they just done it and not asked anyone or publicized it.

I'm not sure that's true. These big publishers hire companies such as RightsCorp to "monitor and search for unauthorized usage" of their "intellectual property".

If their rights protection contractor(s) found a Superman statue: there's no way these greedy b****rds could resist that potential revenue stream.

Police K-9s are routinely used during roadside automobile stops to establish probable cause in cases where consent to search is not granted.

Police K-9s who can sniff illegal substances. Silicon memory chips/processors are not an illegal substance.

That's not generally the case with event tickets, where one person may entirely reasonably be buying tickets for a themselves and anyone else that he or she specifically intends to go with so that they can all sit together.

This is also the case with small development shops --- usually you have more than 2 or 3 developers/testers, and you don't need just "one" occulus ---- you need at least 2 or 3 to do some serious development and testing.

Engineering, at least in the classic sense of human engineering, is a directed, (generally) intelligent effort to change the environment.

This is before, software users frustrated with technical support, got in the habit of routinely demanding to speak to an engineer.

As a result..... first line tech support personnel now have titles such as "support engineer", and those that build products now have titles such as 'individual contributor', 'analyst', development specialist, or 'architect'.

What is so magically different about showing me an advert in the game for something else that it needs laws creating to stop it?

Because 'paying for more action' during gameplay is fundamentally the same as a slot machine at a casino; there's a big difference between placing an advertisement VS an "instant in-game purchase" experience of one of thousands of unlockables.

It should be treated exactly like casino gaming or other forms of paid gaming. (Personally, I am not in favor of it being banned completely --- but it should be heavily regulated, and the vendor should be responsible for 200% of the amount of unauthorized purchases by a minor)

If I go into a bar and order a beer does the bar owner have to hide all the more expensive beers, food etc so that I can't be tempted with it. Should the waitress be locked up if she asks if I'd like another?

Buying a beer at a bar is not merely monetized human behavior; there is actually a tangible physical good being purchased, which had to be manufactured, and a significant portion of the product's price at the bar is the cost of materials required to manufacture that unit.

Furthermore, the bartender is not going to just give you instant gratification of a drink with no questions asked ---- you have to present physical credentials; if you are a 5 year old, you cannot go to a bar and buy one.

Humans also cannot drink a very large amount of beer... so there are natural physical limitations on how many 'expensive beers' you can order and drink during a visit.

I think Amazon's problem is going to be that just refunding the purchases doesn't help the parents. If the kid maxes out the credit-card on in-app purchases, the parents have to deal not just with those purchases but the fees and interest from over-limit charges

Top recommendations: (1) Use a $20 pre-paid debit card as the CC loaded on your Tablet for in-app purchases, OR a Virtual Account Number (VAN),

Note... however.... I am sure Amazon themself should have a limit on the amount of in-app purchases, and if there's a sudden unusual deviation from your normal pattern of purchases, your CC company is likely to flag it as possible fraud and call you.

what part of the gaming industry isn't preying off of exactly the same neurons as gambling?

It's just fine if they 'prey' off the exact same neurons as gambling. Selling a game package for a fixed dollar amount, or a subscription fee agreed upon before you start playing should be just fine. The customer is agreeing to payment for entertainment, which is clearly without coercion, since they have not started playing yet.

Selling an 'expansion pack' containing additional content while users are not playing the game should also be legal, as long as the expansion pack is announced in advance and not prompted for purchase in the game, or given a 'sample' of the expansion.

The player has not been exposed to this pleasure yet, therefore they can make a rational choice.

What should not be legal for any video game:

1.) Selling "replays" or re-attempts to try again. For example: no selling additional lives or continues, or the ability to perform any task within an app must not be a "consumable" that more can be obtained by making a purchase, or other activities outside the app (such as sharing with X friends).

2.) Selling ability to access something shown or advertised in game, for example as a "locked" mission, "premium" campaign, or "bonus option", should be illegal.

3.) Selling an ability to skip any mission, challenge, level, or allow faster completion, should be illegal.

4.) Selling player "strength enhancements", powerups, extra health, extra uses of a special ability, or other reduction of difficulty.

5.) Selling badges, awards, or other recognition of gameplay abilities or player customizations.

6.) Selling additional "time" playing the game, or additional "spins", "turns", or "plays" should be illegal ---- for example, limiting the number of times a certain challenge can be attempted per day, but allowing players to pay a premium, subscribe to a premium service, or share with X friends, for additional plays: should be illegal.

suddenly cannot recover anything following a series of six separate 'hard drive crashes' on RAID-7 systems, so that the IRS' evidence can no longer prove criminal intent by leaders of the government.

I read the sections of The Internal Revenue Manual pertaining to Emails as criminal records.

And I am personally convinced, that the IRS objective is malicious compliance; instead of creating a searchable permanent digital record of all employee e-mail, it seems they go out of their way to say "Preserve digital versions only for limited periods", and it's up to each employee to manually print the approximate hardcopy of the data and have the printout, of anything to be deemed "a record":

1. 1.10.3.2.3 (07-08-2011) Emails as Possible Federal Records - Advises Employees - To save emails and attachments that meet the definition of a federal record be added to the organization’s files by printing them and filing them with related paper records.
2. They are using Microsoft Exchange. This is an e-mail server application that has a feature called personal archive, which they apparently choose not to use, even though a few thousand terabytes of cloud storage is much cheaper than the equivalent pieces of paper and filing procedures.. In addition, there are many archiving applications available for Exchange, and there is a Journaling feature in Exchange which can be used to support permanent archiving of all mail.
3. They impose a 500 megabyte limit on their users' mailboxes. The Exchange software default is 2 Gigabytes, in other words: they are going out of their way to coerce employees towards deleting mail, and intentionally making the system 100% reliant on the employee ---- so that any error on the employee's part results in no record generate.
   
   Note: Their employee manual specifically advises employees to delete mail: Delete some mail from your mailbox or contact your system administrator to adjust your storage limit. (Consider whether any of the items you want to delete may be a federal record. IRM 1.10.3.3.2 above.)