Well, if their understanding of Microsoft Windows support is any guide ...

Do you feel the same way about the 1st Amendment and modern technology?

Rights are Rights. You can argue about whether a certain expression of those Rights is "good" or "bad". But they're still Rights.

Don't confuse them with business decisions/rulings.

I disagree completely! I would contest our political system has mutated to a something that is NOT, as Lincoln said, "a government of the people, by the people, for the people". Somehow I doubt our electorate is any more gullible, irresponsible, and/or swayed by the media compared to any other in the world. The slime balls have found a way to game the system. The system needs to change.

You have the Part 15 and ISM services for that. You really can buy a microwave link that's metropolitan-distance and legal to use.

We lost much of our 440 capability to PAVE PAWS in California. Remember, Amateur Radio is not the primary service on many bands. The military is on 440.

If you want that nearly infinite microwave spectrum, you have the Part 15 and ISM services. Absolutely nothing is stopping you. Power is not the issue with those frequencies, it's line of sight and Fresnel zones.

No, I absolutely do not have to prefix my words with anything. You do that by posting as an anonymous coward. I use my real name to indicate that I stand behind my words.

Yes. The usual mechanism here would be WiFi security, with HTTPS or SSL inside of it.

No, /. is more inclined than the general population to embrace anti-establishment points of view. So if /. thinks you're out there, you might be really out there.

I guess I have less faith. The XBox (360 that is) is the last thing MS that I can remember breaking into a market...and that was largely in spite of themselves (as proven so far by the One). I just don't see MS as an innovator. Maybe new leadership will change this.

Doesn't mean they are very good at it, or go about it very intelligently. Anyone can say "Hey we should get into this market". Its the execution that matters.

Again: Execution. Apple saw this, and basically took its existing iphone and ripped out the wireless radio. Bam, there's your iPod and at negligible manufacturing and R&D cost. MS on the other hand developed Zune and Phone completely separately. Not only is this a massive waste, it is a huge reflection of MS's silo'd corporate culture in general.

I think prior purchases (apps, vids, music, hardware) and apples vertical integration of their products are a couple significant obstacles. You have to come up with something special for users to ditch all of these ancillary purchases that "just work" and start fresh on a new platform. Maybe a more innovative and agile company can acheive this, but I don't think MS has it in them

I guess I was thinking in the context of WP7, which was MS's first modern generation of app-centric, internet- focused, touchscreen phones; Released around the same time as iPhone 4, but with the feature set of iPhone 1. Android was quicker to adapt to this market and thus is very successful in it.

It's just not the immediate end of the world as they may view it, but is being more sensitive to such things being crazy?

Their claims are what identify them as crazy.

From the summary:

Today, Lumsdaine views the thread connecting GPS and drones as part of a longer-term movement by military powers toward automated systems and compared today's conditions to the opening sequence of Terminator 2, where Sarah Connor laments that the survivors of Skynet's nuclear apocalypse "lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines."

When they start comparing reality to sci-fi apocalypse movies then there is a problem.

And when they start destroying things because of it, they've gone into "crazy" territory.

Learned to really concentrate while serving on a submarine in the USN - to the "music" of fans and humming power supplies... so, for heavy brainwork at the computer all I need is the noise of the computer. Music just pulls me out of what I'm doing.

Oddly enough, the opposite is true when I'm working out in my woodshop, there I like to have music.

I've been clicking around to find a sample, and, maybe it's just me, but I didn't find any.

It's just you, and whoever modded you up - the second link in TFA takes your right to a sample.

(Don't bother though, it's lame.)

Are you talking about France? Or Russia? Or where then?

You sure as heck aren't talking about the US. The military (read Naval) reactor program parted ways with the civilian world decades ago - they're simply too dissimilar. Nor can civilian reactors effectively make plutonium, nor were they needed to. And the for companies involved in military reactors, government contracting is only one small corner of their business. Etc... etc...