So if Confiker owns Windows boxen it's because Windows is awful and shoddy. But if CN owns Linux boxen it's because they are "misconfigured". Grow up, /.

To both the idiot who wrote this and the idiot who wrote its parent: One of the most compelling arguments for directed energy weapons, a point I have seen made time after time in briefings, is the reduction and/or elimination of "collateral damage" they will enable. In fact, no one I know in the military even uses the phrase "collateral damage" without a visible reaction of repugnance. The US military, as a matter of strategy and of tactical planning, abhors the idea of killing anyone who is not actively engaging in trying to kill us first. So the billions spent on this project reflect a commitment to that principle, which will be achieved both by the precision of the weapon (especially when used in a tactical engagement) and by its speed and range, which are unique and could possibly eliminate the threat of long-range nuclear weapons forever. THAT was the vision that motivated SDI and the ABL from their beginnings.

Reuters is increasingly a hack agency driven by left-wing politics, so their reporting is less and less reliable.

In fact, for multiple-warhead ICBMs (which most if not all are nowadays) you really have to hit them before they deploy the multiple warheads.

A liquid-fueled missile was destroyed. A solid-fueled one was also engaged but the test stopped short of destroying it (probably for safety reasons.) A previous test did destroy a solid-fueled target See: the article at mda.mil.

but maybe a political one. The governments of India and China both have announced intentions of establishing presences on the Moon. I would rather that the US be a participant in that rather than an onlooker - or hitchhiker.

Also IE7Pro for IE users

Dufus. If the power beam wandered off target even a little bit, it would be noticed instantly since the power would stop being delivered to the paying customers at that point. And it is much more likely that if the satelllite guidance systems failed that the beam would end up pointing into space.

"... the right wing--a group also famous for narrow-minded egocentric world-views" As is the left wing, apparently.

"Terrorist organizations have long recognized that engineering departments are fertile ground for recruitment and have concentrated their efforts there." Liberal types love to speculate about how scary conservative religious people are. But the population of this site is both heavily skewed towards engineers and very liberal. The reason you see engineers as terrorists is because the terrorist organizations realize the value of engineering and recruit as many as they can.

Actually that site tends to confirm the article. Data from yahoo, etc. show more hits for java, but data from programming discussion sites (only reddit is listed there) shows C# ahead of java.

Yes, free speech is a crime against nature.

Trying to cast the story in the beset possible light, the OP has to fold, staple and mutilate the simple content of the TFA to avoid its real negative implications for Linux market share now and in the future. Look for instance at this graphic (also from hitslink.com), which really shows how hopeless the situation is for Linux.

The ABL has yielded many many benefits: modeling, control systems, adaptive optics, laser chemistry, CFD analysis. Yes, in the end it has to actually be able to shoot down a missle, but all of the advances that were funded by the ABL development mean that subsequent generations of DE weapons get developed in progressively shorter amounts of time. The ABL with its COIL laser is arguably the most mature laser weapon and certainly the most powerful at this point. But the nextgen systems like HELLADS will certainly be more compact and efficient (think orders of magnitude) and will take much less time to develop as well. That is why it is important to invest in promising technology even if it will not yield an immediately useful product. Heated debate serves to help determine which technologies are truly "promising" and which are just wastes of resources. But in the case of ABL it seems the US made the right choice and is starting to reap the benefits.

Wireless USB (see Dynadock.com)