Have any details been released? This sounds curiously like an e-mail-based phishing campaign, if the passwords weren't obtained from Gmail's own systems and they weren't exploiting a software vulnerability.

This is ultimately no different from the days of downloading trojan-laden warez from a BBS or pr0n site and getting infected with an autodialer that calls some random long-distance number through the modem.

If you're not willing to be careful about what you're installing, or where you're downloading it from, don't be surprised when your phone racks up random charges without your direct input.

This thing isn't even out of the design phase, so it's a bit... i dunno... presumptuous to state it's "currently" capable of anything.

On top of that, 21 days doesn't let you get very far from Earth into "deep space", unless LM is sitting on a revolutionary propulsion system for the capsule, which given the budgets and proposals involved doesn't seem likely. Moon missions are possible, which would be neat to get back into, but until NASA gets the budget of their dreams while DoD has to hold a fundraiser to pay for those new aircraft carriers (or a non-gubmint concern cooks up something awesome), I just can't get too excited over these press releases.

The word you're looking for is "rival".

In other words, about as much evidence as other claims that Anonymous, PS3 hackers, or Osama bin Laden were involved.

Hey, gotta fill that news cycle. Gotta draw eyeballs for advertisers. Content is just a vehicle for making money. Truth is incidental, and at this point often accidental.

IIRC TMI's reactor vessel was intact. That's likely not true for Fukushima 1, and that doesn't even bring in cores 2 and 3, plus 4's spent fuel pool.

What are you going to do with that molten mess? Remember; it's basically all radioactive waste now, good luck finding a country that will take it. Nope, that witches brew of toxic heavy metals is staying there for a long, long time. An earthquake-resistant, tsunami-resistant structure is goin to have to be built and maintained for, oh, the next few thousand years.

If nuclear reactors were treated as lackadasically as fossil fuel-burning facilities have been until recently (and may still be), you bet your arse there would be many more deaths and sicknesses. The paranoia exists because we know very well what an uncontrolled release of radiation, or a power excursion in an operating reactor, can do.

So who is Sony blaming for the SOE hack? /b/?

The ad for a free copy of "Vulnerability Management for Dummies" that appeared beside this article when I first clicked on it was a nice touch.

The voice recorder may be completely destroyed. Keeping them separate decreases the possibility that a single force or impact will destroy both units.

Same reason enterprise IT departments (should) maintain multiple, separate backups of critical data.

Cute feature list. Too bad my Linux machine does everything I need it for, at the cost of only the hardware. Microsoft has given me no reason to consider spending money when the free options fill my needs, from normal end-user stuff to web design and system administration.

At some point, a person should stand before a legislative committee dealing with copyright term extensions - pick a country where these discussions are happening, any one - and ask just how many more term extensions will be granted, or whether copyright terms will be made permanent de jure, not just de facto.

Since you're already at +5 and you said it better than I could have, can I just tack on "me too"?

It's almost as if "trust" is an unknown concept to many people.

I'm sure this will seem like a great idea... until the power goes out. I would think that the residents of a state subjected to power outages for profit not too long ago might be a bit more careful about increasing their reliance upon electric current for basic information accessibility.

If we don't replace fossil fuel generation with something more sustainable before peak extraction hits, we are all going to be knocked back to the Paper Age pretty fast. Say what you will about dead trees - they don't require current to operate.

... don't leave it in a place where a random disaster (or random disgruntled third-party employee) can wipe it from the face of the Earth. Terabyte-size drives are cheap nowadays. Buy them. Buy many of them. Back up elements to them on a regular basis. Don't destroy raw material until the editing is done and the master has been copied at least twice purely for long-term storage, never mind how many copies need to be made available for distribution. Don't even rely on just hard disks - dump masters to tape if you can afford it. HDCAM's not completely overpriced; hell, even standard-definition Digital Betacam is better than, quite literally, nothing.

If they're lucky, the animated contributions and sound elements may be retrievable should the individuals responsible for those be more scrupulous about their material retention than the studio (the story didn't quite make clear what, if anything, they've been able to recover), but any location shooting lost is going to be a pain to redo.

This should be a very expensive lesson for their technically-inclined production crew and, if they have any, actual IT staff.