Mod parent up. I had no idea there was a trusted way to show a compiler hasn't been Thompson hacked!

http://www.dwheeler.com/trusting-trust/

You're talking about the Thompson hack, an extremely effective mechanism for subverting huge swaths of software: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TheKenThompsonHack

The only way around it is to view the binary code and inspect it (either manually or automatically). Either way, the level of effort to detect it is immense, and either way you may still be subject to some further hack that shows you different binary data than what's actually executed.

I suppose in theory the hack could be in the hardware somewhere.

You are also assuming that the outside air pressure wouldn't crush it down to a density that would make it sink.

I would be really surprised if you could just evacuate the stuff and make it float. Some day we'll use evacuated carbon nanostructures for lighter than air, but I don't think we're there yet.

I'll look that up, thanks!

There is no such legal entity as IP. I believe you're thinking of trademark, where infringement means someone is misrepresenting the trademark holder. Copyright is a totally different animal.

Excellent point; I had missed the "all revenue so far" on the last point.

So this is probably only 36 years of copyright. I think that's a travesty and will become more & more of one as technology changes our culture so much it's unrecognizable 36 years later, but it's less of a travesty.

This is a shit proposal. (46 years copyright for the highest grossing properties, mostly overlapping with the content with the highest cultural impact).

That said, compared to what we have today, it is a shining example of truth & justice.

Why are we impressed with this?

A typical quasar looks about as bright from 33 light years away as the sun does from earth. A quasar's lifespan is from tens of millions to a few billion years.

That means in galaxies with a quasar, there is a shell 33 light years in radius, and a few light years in thickness, in which essentially every planet in every stellar system (as well as rogue planets and moons) is in the "habitable zone".

That seems way cooler to me than speculation about a few planets being in the habitable zone.

The comment was about understanding life, synthetic biology, an end to the use of fossil fuels, and health.

The story has nothing to do with any of those.

The story is only (extremely) tangentially even related to uploading...

WTF does this comment have to do with this story? Why is it +4 interesting?

Oh, duh, settlement with the FTC. Thanks.

In that case, can we sue the FTC for incompetence?

If Apple's browser promises to stop tracking, and Google ignores the 'stop tracking' indicator, and Apple says "that's fine, just pay us some $$$"...

Does that mean we should have a class action lawsuit against Apple for false advertising? If they're claiming that setting this flag means don't track me, then they go ahead and make a settlement with Google that *allows them to keep the data they got tracking me*, aren't they advertising a false sense of security?

Of course, I'm also peeved against Google. I am hoping :
a) this was unintentional
b) Google will issue (has issued?) a statement that they will delete the data despite not being required to

The proposal is that rich people invest in business, creating more new jobs and more value. Poor people spend their money on stuff.

I haven't seen any real support for the notion that investing in businesses based on what rich people think will succeed creates more jobs or a "bigger economic pie" than poor people giving more money to businesses that provide services & goods that the poor actually need.

Obviously, I don't buy it, but that's the supposed reason.

I do carry an extra battery.

That said, you don't know me. And I don't know anyone else who carries an extra battery.

BTW, my phone is a Nexus One. And probably will remain so until it dies (which seems unlikely considering all the abuse it's survived so far) or until Google Glass comes out.

In fact, I see nothing in this whole thread that goes beyond ad hominem. Please provide arguments for or against the one on-topic notion for this story: "Ray Kurzweil predicts the cloud will ... help expand our brain capacity beyond its current limits."

This, to me, is a very sensible, even self-evident, statement. Right now I use Google's cloud of computer mapping services to navigate virtually anywhere I go. I use Google's cloud of search services to find the answer to virtually any question I may have, from the syntax for an API, to repairs for my car, to the lyrics to some song I like. Even in the last few years these capabilities have improved dramatically; I'm sure they will continue to do so.

You may not like the word "cloud", but it accurately describes computing systems with multiple redundant computers accessing multiple copies of information to provide speed and reliability.

Frankly, all the spastic reactions whenever Kurzweil's name is used make you guys look like the unbalanced ones, not him.

(Note that while I'm replying to the grandparent of this conversation, this is directed to the thread as a whole. This one comment is innocuous; the trend here is not.)