This actually makes me nervous. Given the unbroken track record of Slashdot mistaking the market share for every major advance in technology since the iPod, I'm forced to believe that smart watches are going to be a hit.

And I'm not sure I want to live in that world.

The newer membranes need quite a lot less pressure than early versions (which is where the energy requirement was). That and membrane longevity has improved considerably. As is typical with high tech stuff, the costs come down and the quality improves over time.

Or just plain ol activated charcoal. My sailboat has an RO system with a charcoal canister that I replace twice a year. Bigger systems have more complex pre filters. I'm sure that the system in TFA is at least cleaner than any river water or shallow well system. Possibly not as pure as a deep artesian system but if it passes EPA criteria, it's going to be pretty clean.

Really Slashdot, RO systems are old hat. You can buy them on Ebay. Soon they'll be in breakfast cereal.

I just know there's a homeopathy joke in there somewhere...

You don't expect a critical appraisal from the vendor, do you? Take his, and everyone else's reporting with some degree of skepticism.

One notable fact that was tangentially mentioned is that one doesn't see any 'hits' in the media. I would think one would be able to see the effect of the missile intercepting the targets at least some of the time. Given the intense media coverage, one wonders. It's certainly possible that by the time the interceptor hits the target it's too small to visual, but there is one hell of a lot of energy involved. Kinetic energy often creates sparkly bits that can be seen.

It is also hard to argue that this ISN'T just one more aspect of the public relations game that is endemic to this conflict. Both sides (as is pointed out in TFA) engage in trying to get the other side to look mean and nasty. It's way more complicated than that.

It's Bush's fault.

Please run for Congress....

Please don't say things like that. You might give them an idea (they won't think of them on their own). Godzilla was created under less extreme circumstances.

You call that counterbalance?

What's keeping me, a rights owner of a movie that's a real stinker, from silencing everyone who dared to do a negative review of it by carpet bombing any and all media pages with takedown notices for those reviews?

The US learned that it's more profitable to wage than to win wars. At least for the elite few. It's really win-win in every aspect. You get the masses occupied with an external foe, you get the rabble off the street by dumping it into the army (and at the same time make them feel important because they're doing something important) and you can make the elite rich at the same time.

The US also has the economy to fuel the whole shit, unlike Germany in WW2. And also unlike Germany in WW2, they're not dumb enough to actually engage in a war with anyone who could actually fight back.

Really?

Fuck, the terrorists won, they're all over the US already!

Considering the price to develop something (along with the price of training the guy), I prefer a bunch of low cost religious nuts with AKs in their hands.

Hey, that's today's naming scheme. You take the meaning of a word, twist it around and create something that confuses the hell out of someone reading it.

It's called "political correctness".

Wow.

You're good.

The odd thing is that it is actually even likely that it's going to be more secure.

Once I have to turn for a communist country to get freedom I guess it's time to start drinking heavily.