TFA is about drone self-defence..

and

Moreover, ships and bases already have great anti-missile defence technology - and the only advantage that would have using drones in a defensive role would be if there is poor LOS, in which case the strategists would be out of a job, if not court-martialed. Moreover, the ship/base airspace would be cluttered. Most UAV designs are for long endurance missions. the article refers to MALE UAVS (Predator / Reaper), and hints at HALE UAVs such as the RQ-4 Global Hawk and the RQ-170 Sentinel .

Note that the Iranians downed an ultra-secret RQ-170 Sentinel using EW (electronic warfare), not missiles. Lasers won't be much help with emerging EW technology.

Hah, well assuming that you aren't merely posting for humour value, I would suggest that; as the primary cause of failure in these UAVs is equipment failure, operator error, and weather; the AI you refer to isn't particularly intelligent. If it were intelligent then it would be attempting to fund research into greater autonomy for AI systems...

Drone figures from WP show that as of Q1 2009, of the 223 USAF UAVs in operational service, only 4 were shot down. Whereas 11 were lost due to accidents (mainly flying into things), and 55 were lost due to equipment failure, operator error, or weather.

Importantly, the current failsafe for OOC UAVs is to shoot them down with AIM-9 missiles, which is what happened to a reaper on 13 September 2009. Developing an autonomous laser defence would preclude this failsafe.

In brief, the US government should be spending it's money on other problems. Given a vote, I doubt that the US populace would sign up for this particular budgetary spend.

To me this looks like an agreement by the UN to help fund NASA's existing NEO program ( http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ ).

Yes. Posting all your contacts on the Internet is open to breaches of privacy (regardless of zero-day exploits).

Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft - all of them kowtow to the NSA, the CIA, the FBI. Why?
Because in return their lobbyists get to bend the ears of the legislators.

Why is anyone surprised by any of this?

I know this sounds strange at first, but before I learned assembler, I didn't really understand what was going on in the heart of the machine. If I were to introduce a programme starting from fundamentals, it would start with an easy assembler (eg Z80, 68000, PIC); this itself introduces the fundamental operations of programming, including assignment, de-referencing, LUTs, stacks, etc.

The next progression would be 'C'. This abstracts out the hardware dependency, but keeps the underlying structure.
This assists with more complex algorithm development, but also shows how the approach to programming developed from assembler.

Following that, I would move onto one of the modern 'C' successors. Personally I use C++, but maybe objective-C would be better.

It totally depends upon your purpose though.. If you want to cover UI/UX stuff, then you should think of a different approach. If you want to cover databases, that's something else again.

But in programming - IMO, the most genuinely 'useful' ideas are things like the registers and special registers that make up a CPU.

In the last few hours it seems that the offer of yielding their entire chemical arsenal may put all of this into a different light.
First of all we must eliminate the possibility of the problem repeating itself.
Later on we can deal with identifying who is to blame and what the consequences should be.

In general, it is nonsensical to surmise that hitters deserve to be hit. The regression indicates that the entire world would be hitting each other.

Every time some government gets really stupid, they push more people into finding ways around it. IMO, it would be good to see more people using TOR - which at the moment seems to be filled with idiots, but could serve a much better purpose providing political safety.

No, not really.
Although I was talking about the US health system, and you are clearly not a supporter (who is?!) what I haven't heard is any alternatives that you offer, except for the right to self-determination.

The problem with that is that it sort of forgets that a market economy is governed by the inefficiencies of marketing - and profit-making. Neither of which are beneficial to the end-user. I wish it were so that humans were less prone to the mechanisms of advertising, but we are, and we make bad decisions on this.

You aren't stupid - but neither of us are going to change our views - let's agree to differ on this. No-one else is here, I think.

Of course - derived from the greek city states. But states are indeed an extension of society. Look how the concept of the nation state has provided the R&D opportunities to open up the world. The convention of the 'nation state' is a powerful one, which appears to have served us well. National pride, identity, and patriotism, all are focussed by the perception.

As the world gets smaller, it's true that the idea of the nation state begins to lose it's strength over to larger federations of states - something which you feel threatened by. The end-game is a world government. Not the puppet show that is the UN, but a global administration - but don't worry, it won't happen in our lifetimes. Especially while the US chooses to arbitrarily attack impoverished nations based upon trumped up charges.

Once, I guess, you believed that your mind was free.

Look at the marketing budget used by your top healthcare providers, and talk to me about efficiency.
I suggest you learn about Health economics, and likewise recognise that in the US, which has rejected universal healthcare to date (thanks to the lobbying made by big industry there), the per capita cost of healthcare is about $8,233 whereas everywhere else it's less, by about $3,000. Considering that the US has some of the worst healthcare provision, which itself is pretty dehumanising, I suggest you get back to your calculator and policy books.

Brother states help, because they know that they can receive help in kind when they need it. It's a form of mutual assurance, which is what we are pretty good at as a species. The difficulty, for me, is to envisage how a libertarian state could organise itself to assist anyone. Likewise, how would it involve the powerful from becoming miniature despots and tyrants or worse? Taxation is taxation, regardless of whether it goes to the state, or to the country.

In Europe, we have the EU, which is, in some ways, like a federation of states with an extremely diminished, non-executive, central government. Yes, about 0.5% of my income tax goes to the EU. while about 1% goes to foreign aid. The remaining 98.5% goes to the state, who spends it looking after the aged and destitute (35%), provision of universal healthcare (18%), provision of universal education (14%), national defence (5%), policing (3%), roads and rails (3%), and the remainder on things like investing in industry, and paying off the state debt, with a tiny amount going to intelligence, and the civil service.

If someone entered my house and took most of my permissions, it would only be theft if I did not consent. This is true regardless of the number. But your metaphor fails - I don't live in a communist country. I get to keep a lot of what I earn. Most, actually. I have a house, and a convertible, and fly around the world on holidays. But none of that is really very interesting.

Your last question is far more interesting:

Yes. Yes, I would. But it's not how you see it. If you belonged to a destitute family of 12, with nine brothers and sisters, and you managed to go out and earn a couple of loaves, would you keep it for yourself, or would you share it with your family? I don't even have to share that much with my extended family of fellow citizens. But I am really happy that I am in a position to do what I can for them,

Typically in Western Europe spending goes to meet those in need. E.g.
UK Gov. Spending
        Total £715.3 billion
          Pensions £144.6 billion
          Health Care. £130.2 billion
          Education £99.3 billion
          Defence £44.6 billion
          Welfare £114.7 billion
                The rest is made up of investing in new industry, large social programmes, transport, and paying off debts.

I don't see taxation as a theft. I see it as a way for the community to provide for itself.

I am only going to respond in one place, Arker.
You speak of obligations and enforcement, but it's not like that; though it may look that way to you.
Every person has choice - we have the freedom to break laws just as much as we do to keep them. But most of us choose to stay within the law, because we prefer the company of law abiders; and there is a mutual benefit.

Humans are social by nature. Language - the internet - slashdot - is evidence of this. Social groups depend upon collaboration for success. The benefits of a community are subject to economies of scale - the larger the community, the greater the benefits. These benefits include disposable income, and what may as well be called 'free time' oe leisure time.

Just like as being in a household we do chores, and therefore live in a harmonious state, so do we have to accept some responsibility for the community that we are a part of, and this means aiding those in need, so that when we are needy, we too may benefit. This is most elegantly done through mechanisms such as taxation.

A successful community works for the success of every one of its members, and each member should expect that as a right; yes, universal education, healthcare, retraining, defence, etc. a community which is made of individuals who feel valued, who feel well-met, who feel responsible, and empowered, and engaged, and rewarded - is a community that has little crime, and more free time, more real money to spend.

You don't want to, or cannot, see this the way that I do. I am not misinformed, or deluded, or idealistic. Freedom of expression is important, as is free time, and disposable income, with liberty to spend that in any way I like. I submit that I have more choices available to me with the remaining 60% of my income and my 5 day week and 25 days of holiday than that you would with what was left after your pension plan, healthcare provision, education fees, national defence service, fire services, local policing, library contributions, road maintenance programmes, bank loans supporting new industries, postal programmes, and so on. not only do you have to end up paying separately for pretty much the same ride, but you have to manage each of those separately, and woot. You get to choose between the Blue fire brigade corp. or the red fire fighters company as to who to pay in case your house catches fire. if that's how you measure liberty, brother, you carry on.

I'm really happy having plenty of free time, and plenty of disposable income, and getting all of that paid for, looked after, and managed through my tax.