Some really nice photos. Hard to believe their still was an A4 on a stand in 1996; it looks like it was kept up as a display. This also brings up my frustration with Kickstarter. There a lot of cool projects I'd back if only I could find out about them in time; usually I find out about them when I read a 'Kickstarter funded" tag line in an article and the funding period is over.

Yea, I realized after I hit submit I should have used Mirror Spock and Khan or the Borg and Doomsday machine...

Your argument is the moral equivalent of saying Stalin is a good guy because he wasn't as bad as Hitler. If that's your position, then fine, we simply disagree.

As a side note, I never criticized Putin for what he did but rather said he is acting in his own interests and that once Snowden ceases to be useful Snowden may find himself out in the cold.

SWAT: Smokes Whiskey and Tattoos

Sergei Magnitsky Pussy Riot Alexander Litvinenko Stanislav Markelov Anastasia Baburova

The list goes on and on...

Free press? Human rights? Rule of law? Only as long as it doesn't threaten his position.

Ask yourself this, if the rule of law was so strong why do oligarchs move as much cash as possible out of Russia? What do they fear?

I'm not sure why you are a Putin apologist but his actions speak volumes about him. Then again, as a KGB officer he learned a thing or two about survival.

So, my conclusion is he only will care about Snowden as long as Snowden is useful, and afterwards Snowden will simply be a pawn to sacrifice for some new advantage or benefit.

Putin's actions to date in many areas have shown him to look after Putin first; thus it is reasonable to assume he is acting, in Snowden's case, in the same manner. So yes, I agree you judge on actions and am doing so in this case. You appear to judge based on a single action, i.e. He gave Snowden temporary permission to remain in Russia, while I prefer to judge what he does in the larger context of how he has acted in many situations. Thus I think it is naive to think, or believe, he is acting out of some desire to help, or cares for, Snowden beyond how he useful to advance Putin's agenda. So let me ask the question differently since you seem to be hung up on the word believe: What in Putin's actions makes you conclude Putin is not acting in his best interests but out of some great concern for Snowden?

No worries, I forgot to properly use the sarcasm tag anyway, Cheers...

Do you really believe that Putin let Snowden in for any other reason other than he could be useful to Putin and that when he is no longer useful to Putin he'll be unceremoniously tossed aside and used to get something else Putin wants?

Not really. Russia's leadership doesn't really have to worry about public perception of how Snowden is treated and Putin can be relied upon to do what is best for Putin, not Snowden, Russia or anyone else unless doing so advances Putin. Once Snowden is no longer useful he can swap him for something he wants without worrying about the reaction in Russia. In addition, Snowden is much more likely to get tired of Russia than Germany and thus may eventually decide to return to the US without preconditions. Thus, the US is more likely to get Snowden back from Russia than Germany and so Russia may be a more desirable option for the US.

Having been a field engineer, where I had to fix and make work the stuff the idiots who called them selves engineers doing the design, having a backdoor to access systems was very useful. Customer didn't remember the password? No problem, I still had a way into the control system. I did, however, wonder what other equipment had the same "feature?" My stuff had no public facing interface no network connection so illicit access was not an issue except maybe if a disgruntled employee decided to have some fun; but the general design approach was "we need backdoors for support reasons" and that mentality carried over as equipment became more connected and no one ever seems 2015-03-20o question it or assess the risks vs reward for such a design philosophy. Of course, no one would ever access the proprietary "Company Confidential" engineering support documentation, right? It's kept safe right here on our internal document so no one weill ever know our backdoor user is "admin" with a password of "Pass1234" and thus we can make them easy for our field support staff, who we at HQ all know are dumb knuckle dragging mouth breathers anyway, to remember.

There you go, bringing facts into a /. discussion. How are we to have righteous indignation over the Man's actions when you go and do that? Think of the /. posters, damn it.

The police have to treat such a threat seriously. Given the situation and his age he falls into a risk profile that says he might be serious about this, and according to TFA he didn't tell police he was just "testing" FB and failed to convince them he wasn't serious about committing suicide.Just because he posted on FB people seem to think it was different. Well, his friends reacted to it just like he had written a note and left it at a party and took action to try to get him help. I'd do the same if it were a friend of mine.

Finally, he says he was exercising his First Amendment Rights. Separate from him having no FA rights on FB; the government didn't violate his FA rights since ehe was still free to post his treat without the government trying to stop him, they simply took action after he made the threat. The FA doesn't say "and shall not be held liable for anything stupid they do while exercising this right..."

You are doing the same disposal strategy I am.

In fairness to FedEx their sorting operation in Memphis already use robots that weigh and measure each package to minimize the forces used during sorting. the drivers, well that's another story. Given Amazon's size and volume manufacturers could package stuff more reasonably. Do I really need a tamper proof sealed plastic case for an item I buy through Amazon? Amazon already packages some of their Amazon labeled stuff more sanely in cardboard and I wish they'd push manufacturers to do something similar for what they sell via Amazon.

And HD only accepts small CFL bulbs, not the long ones (2-3ft plus) that they also sell; at least that was the case recently when I had to replace some shop light bulbs and bought the replacements at HD and then tried to return for recycle the old ones.