It's a nice try, but it's not analogous, and I think you know that.

For one thing, Bletchley Park didn't monitor their citizens wholesale; they didn't have the technical capability to do that.[1] That's the part of Snowden's revelations that infuriates so many people, and should also make you afraid. You don't have to go very far back in US history to be afraid of such a thing: imagine if J. Edgar Hoover had the NSA's assets. Monitoring foreign powers is a different story, and I have a hard time believing that part of Snowden's leaks truly surprised any foreign nation (it's what we pay the CIA to do, ultimately).

For another thing, we're not actually in a war right now, unless you want to claim the "war on terror" is an excuse to do such things. (a type of "war" that conveniently has no possible end date, no possibility of peace treaties, armistice, etc.; and a type of "war" in which everyone is a suspect... the proverbial boogeyman)

[1] Ironically Britain's gone a lot further in monitoring their citizens these days than Bletchley Park could, and further than even the US has gone. But that doesn't really matter. Last time I checked, the US revolted from British rule, and had some documents they claimed they abide by instead.

I have the utmost respect for the men and women who put themselves in harm's way to protect my country, my family, and myself. But I like to believe they also do it to protect our way of life, and the ideals our country stands for. "A little bit of surveillance" is an enormous price to pay - it changes what this country is about, to be something less worthy.

And this isn't just about the Constitution or the ideals of liberty... there are some very practical reasons not to allow our government to perform surveillance of its citizens in the manner they've been accused of. It's not hard to imagine such abilities could be abused, and it's not like we haven't had people like J. Edgar Hoover. Imagine what Hoover would have been able to do given the NSA's knowledge.

If our military asked for money to protect our soldiers, with better body armor, better protection for Humvee's, etc., I'm all for it. But ask us to give up our liberty? No. That's not the deal.

For the syntax of most regex engines, star "*" in a regex bracket expression is not a special character - it is the literal star character. (sorry for pointing this out, but this is /. after all, so I can't help myself)

rahvin112: if I could mod you up I would. Totally agree. It's a shame really.

What does "gone to Congress" mean? You mean like just walking in the front door and demanding speaking time during a joint session of both houses? (not gonna happen) Or do you mean he could have contacted a congressman, which would give him a fairly high chance of being arrested within hours for being a traitor? (or do you think contacting a congressman with information about the NSA's activities would somehow remain quiet for long?)

Maybe you aren't aware of it, but the US Constitution doesn't seem to have much applicability to NSA activities.

Actually, according to the Guardian journalist, Snowden wouldn't give them a copy of everything. You can disbelieve him, but at least on the surface it appears Snowden was being more careful than Chelsea Manning. (and yes, I consider Chelsea Manning a traitor)

There's no debate Snowden stole highly classified intelligence documents and leaked them to the press. But that doesn't mean he's automatically a traitor. He might be, but we don't know. For example, suppose you had highly classified intelligence documents that implicated the NSA in a coup attempt to overthrow our elected leaders or coerce them in some way. Revealing those documents would not make you a traitor; quite the opposite. And for some people, what Snowden revealed shows an unconstitutional and potentially dangerous action by a portion of our government. If they're right, he's no traitor; quite the opposite.

And I'm only talking about the part that reveals blanket monitoring of US citizens, without cause nor due process. Monitoring foreign nationals isn't unconstitutional, and is what we should want our government to do: it's why have the CIA and NSA and so on to begin with. (Sorry Merkel, but monitoring Europeans is fine too, including their elected officials. We're friends now, but haven't always been, and might not forever be.)

I don't know about you, but I don't want my country to only have to be slightly better than China or Russia. I don't give a crap how bad or good Russia or China are; I only care that my country abide by the values it claims to uphold. Being China++ doesn't mean much.

For a few seconds I thought you were being serious, and I was going to respond with something like "You think going to a politician, any politician, with material the government considers treasonous to reveal, is a good idea?!?" But then I realized you must be joking, because no one is that insane. So I applaud you sir/madame, well done! You had me a for a bit.

Really? What legal measures could he have tried while remaining in the US? He would have been arrested faster than SSD read times, and never heard from again for "national security" reasons. The government's first response was to label him a traitor - they don't let you have much freedom as a traitor, in case you didn't know. I doubt any legal measures he could have tried before being arrested as a traitor would even have been reported on by the press, again for national security reasons.

Whether you think his revelations were right or wrong, I think you'd have to agree he couldn't have truly revealed anything successfully by staying in the US.

Let's be honest here - you've never used a system with an SSD, have you? The difference is surprisingly noticeable. Many people say that when they upgraded their HDD to an SSD, it was like getting a new computer. They're right. I recently did it, and it's an amazing difference. And no, I don't do anything with uncompressed video, or any video.

What I do is programming. So I do things like 'make' a lot, and 'git checkout', and even 'grep', and so on. All of those types of things improve with an SSD, because they all involve file access, for a lot of files.

So I guess in a way yes, you're right: outside of the small percentage of users who do things with files of any type, or that would get an improvement with faster memory paging (because that too is faster), or that open and close apps a lot, HDD are more than fast enough. Of course the "small percentage" might be quite large, at least for /. readers.

Then the school administrators should be charged with tampering with evidence. And the judge should have thrown it out for lack of evidence. And the police officer should be reprimanded for failing to Mirandize the kid, and the kid was actually a minor (15 years old) so not bringing in the parent before interrogating him is another reprimand.

So, recording in a public place (it was a public school classroom, in front of others) is illegal in PA? Then the school administrators should be charged with tampering with evidence. And the judge should have thrown it out for lack of evidence. And the police officer should be reprimanded for failing to Mirandize the kid, and the kid was actually a minor (15 years old) so not bringing in the parent before interrogating him is another reprimand. So in summary: EPIC FAIL.

Probably because it's geared towards the high-end of the market. The aftermarket stereos and cars this is geared toward are luxury ones, not economy brands. My guess is the demographics of that market are more in Apple's iPhone/iPad sweet-spot than Android's. But I have no data to back that up, just personal observation.

That's interesting, since I meet a lot of software developers at other companies and the most common laptop maker they have (by far) are Apple ones: MBP or Air. Now maybe it's the tech industry I'm in (networking), or the type of developers I meet (highly paid ones who travel), but they can't all be stupid.

I used to tease them about it, until I got one because I was fed up with my employer-supplied laptop... and I have to say they are really, really good. There are some very frustrating things about Apple, no debate, but compared to the competition? Not even close. If I want to boot to linux or run it in a VM I can, but sometimes you just want something that works well without being a sysadmin; and the physical design is really good.

They're way expensive, but it's the thing you use all day, every day. If you can afford it at all, I think it's worth it. If you can't afford it, there's nothing to argue over.

It's like arguing over monitors. If you can afford a 30" or bigger IPS and you would use it all the time, get one. If you can't, don't complain that you don't need the extra inch or two.

Interesting paper. Something else peaked for me at age 24, but it definitely had a high P value. (wink wink)

And a source for that "data point" would be...?