So you prefer the explanation that the NSA used super secret TOR breaking software over a simple exploit ? The FBI explanation seems totally plausible to me. If it were the NSA they probably would have used similar techniques.

My idea is that hackers from the NSA, FBI or black hats are like magicians. It looks like they have some kinds of superpowers or really advanced tech while they just use simple tricks. Finding good tricks and executing them correctly is hard but the trick themselves are often stupidly simple.

Note that the CAPTCHA exploit may not be the only one they found but why would they reveal the other ones if the first one is sufficient to explain the break ?

It may look like scientists nowadays are less creative. I don't think it's the case, they just communicate more.
Research is always made in small steps. The thing is that now, with sites like arXiv and search engines, we see all these small steps instead of just the end result. It is probably why it looks more incremental.
Another factor is that we have pretty much nailed down most of the human scale phenomena. Science now needs to address high level of accuracy or work at the nano or cosmic scales. Our brains are not made to deal with this, as a result, a lot of rigor is required and most wonderfully creative ideas end up flat out wrong when compared to the actual data. Because of this, when someone comes up with a creative idea, we need to make sure that he is ready to deal with high precision observations.

Isn't burning waste what fast breeder reactors do ? They already did this but it didn't make it somehow. Superphénix for example had a few technical issues but still managed to be commercially exploited for a time. If was shut down for political reasons.
The current stand is to use reprocessing and MOX fuel.

The difference is that phones are small and you only need to stock a dozen models to serve most clients.

And while there is no obligation to do so, it may bring a lot of good publicity. Especially now that brick and mortar shops have to compete with online resellers. In fact, the ability to walk in and leave with your item is probably the number one reason they still exist.

Psychologically, immediate response is extremely important. If you want a good example of a company fully understanding this principle, just look at Apple stores. You can get your new shiny gadget the day of its announcement, they are always stocked, there is always someone available for you and beside the stupid launch day queues you can walk in and a minute later you leave with an iPhone in one pocket a very light wallet in the other. And of course, they do stockpile replacements.

Police don't have a James Bond style license to kill. They have the right to kill in some extreme situations (basically, if it is necessary to prevent other people from being killed) but so do you, especially if you live in the US.
The fact that they have a gun is not that special. Many people in many professions happen to manipulate lethal things (vehicles, tools, chemicals, ...) and many people in the US own a gun personally.

The idea is that if someone get killed during an arrest (basically the only case where police has more power than the average citizen), it should be thoroughly investigated without assuming that the officer conducting the arrest always says the truth. If it is the case and police has the possibility to film themselves, they will probably do, as a way to prove they didn't simply murder the perp.

Yep, AviSynth is a wonderful tool, escpecially for encoding. It has among the best filters for duties like de-interlacing, scaling and enhancement. Is also does a good job at split and merge operations.
However, if you intend do actually produce something like a short film from camera footage, the lack of good GUI frontends make it very teidous.

Another thing is that AviSynth is Windows only as it relies on DirectShow. This is somewhat surprising considering how "linux-like" this software feels. The cross-platform "AviSynth 3.0" project hasn't seen updates since 2007.

Do you want to be constantly monitored at work ? And if you are, do you think it is a good thing ? If not, why are things like this bad for you and good for police ?

Constant monitoring leads to micromanagment and people criticizing things they don't know. Policemen however should be able to film themselves to prove their innocence in case they are accused of wrongdoing. And complains against the police should be treated as it should be : like a fair trial, where both sides can present their evidence. And of course, the lack of videos from the police when they have the ability to present them should be seen as suspicious.

In France, not all nukes are base load.
Running nuclear power plants at full power is more efficient but it doesn't mean they can't follow the load, at least for newer designs.
The ramp time is probably not in the seconds but to buffer rapid changes we still have hydro.

Mozilla communicates a lot about openness, privacy, etc...It wants to be the "good guy". Sponsored tiles (ads) are mostly considered evil.

IMHO, Chrome already has the technical advantage. Firefox tends to copy Chrome features rather than the opposite, and Chrome feels faster and more stable. It would be a shame to also lose the political advantage.

As for the comment "but the ads can be turned off". Sure, but look at ABP. They made their controversial whitelist feature completely optional, yet, it didn't stop people from raging and even create forks that just disable the option.

Remember in 2011 when Google deleted thousands of GMail accounts because of a bug. They managed to restore almost everything... from tape.
So if even if the champion of cloud computing with consumer-grade hard drives uses tapes, I bet that tapes are far from dead.

It CAN screw up the instrumentation. It won't affect flight controls or engines, however, it can mess up with the radios.

You know sometimes you hear some noise in your speakers or headphones when you are about to receive a call. Pilot headsets are no different and will pickup cell phone radio noise exactly the same way. In another instance, a cell phone external battery pack leaked enough radio noise to open the squelch of a nearby portable air band radio. There are all personal experiences. And if you don't think it is a serious problem, radio interference was involved in the deadliest plane accident (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... ). Beside communication, ILS systems (required for low visibility landing) are very sensitive instruments and I don't know how robust they are to cell phone radiation.

Well, I hope that airliners are somehow less sensitive to radio interference that the small aircrafts I pilot but still, I once boarded a plane where the pilot made an announcement along the line of "someone is using a cell phone, I won't take off before it is switched off". Meaning that it did have a noticeable effect.

"Agile" is just a buzzword, like "synergy", it means absolutely nothing.
Good management is good, bad management is bad, whether or not they use the "agile" tag is irrelevant.

Without ads, the manufacturers will probably do pass the lower marketing costs to us. Not because they want to but because without ads, a lower a price will probably have a bigger influence on the buyer's choice. People will also have a little less money due to the "no-ads tax", meaning that if manufacturers will have to reduce their prices to match the customers purchasing power.
Manufacturers that publish ads are not the ones who are in power. You, the customer, are. If you had no choice but to buy their products at the price they fixed, they wouldn't need ads in the first place.

But the real reality is that this scenario will simply never happen.

Not at all, there are also many points where the Linux model is better : http://www.linuxfoundation.org...
I think that it is related to the monolithic vs microkernel debate. Each model has its pros and cons, and a lot of potential for flamewars too.

Won't we run into some kind of lithium shortage if the demand for li-ion batteries raises ?
Or at least a increase in raw material price offsetting the decrease in manufacturing costs.