What are you talking about? Nixon could only have wet dreams over what the US Government can and does do now.

The only two extenuating circumstances is that Obama certainly didn't build all this up on his own, nor was the first president to do so, but was in the building for many decades. The second being that the entire government is in on it.

Nixon is a great big boogie man to hold up, but his crimes pale against modern day government.

If the government was truly of the people, and concern with the 4th amendment - it would have decades ago ensured secure protocols and encryptions instead of backdoors into everything. But the concentrated shouts of law enforcement and the planners in power is typically louder than the diffused power of the majority. And instead of doing the right thing, it always choosing the lesser of 2 evils at that very moment (and there is always some "crisis), guess what? It still went bad.

The only point of your post is to act as an apologist. Sure, in the days of Nixon, when the government had its shoes covered in shit, and Nixon ankle deep in it appeared to be the worst guy out there. But now that the government is knee high in it, that point is long moot and gone.

And I say this all because we already experienced a guy who had the reach in his day somewhat comparable to today. Hoover. That guy had info on everyone and stayed in power so long because of it. I can't even guess at all the behind-the-scenes crimes he committed but since he wasn't a figurehead president and doesn't appear to have a party badge affixed to him, no one brings him up or attack him for shortterm gain.

Now the NSA is in the same position. And they have way more power to affect elections or politicians than Nixon ever had. Some Senator wants to defund the agency? Slip a brown envelope under her door full of her browsing history with a note saying "No $ Already?" and she'll get the message.

All it needs is the wrong director.

Probably was a case of civil forfeiture while vacationing.

Japan drowned in it's own marketshare is everything corporate view a while back - there will always be someone that comes along that offers it cheaper. Customers ain't loyal and monopoly lockdown in a previously open market is frowned upon.

But you're right in the sense that this is just a small part of Apple's business now. Still, they make a decent buck on each one they sell, which at the end of the day, isn't bad business.

PPC. Always a day late and a dollar too much. Apple wasn't a big enough customer to justify to IBM to spend more on making foundries and there were always supply problems.

By using the same intel chips as the competition, Apple shed one of it's biggest boat anchors around it's neck. The people who really care about which chips are in it are gamers and they stay with intel/MS since it's what they can play the most games on.

Other than that, the people don't pay attention unless it's a hindrance. Which PPC was but Apple thought it was being different back in the 90s for whatever reason. To the point that there were RISC vs CISC arguments in the 90s directed at end consumers, the last people in the world who should actually give a damn about it.

Apple woke up not too coincidentally when PPC had no viable path for mobile and it's probably one of the best moves Jobs ever made, and in hindsight, most common sense. Surprisingly it took him nearly a decade to shed that inherited weight.

Vexing Vabbit.

And for Elmer Fudd, certainly ambitious.

We're talking about a country where you can't even rent out DVDs you own, unless you have an official licensed rental copy. This is where GEMA (their RIAA) priced Youtube out of the market per play. This is a country that supports making art owners pay artists a residual on art they own upon sale/auction (imagine you had to pay bricklayers or carpenters like this when selling a house). Similiar to england, you also have to pay taxes on every radio you own, every monitor (as it can be used as a TV, in theory).

Used to be that you had to have a monitor and was a quasi voluntary tax you could avoid saying you didn't have any of that (but the harassment was not worth it), as of 2013, every household has to be 18 euro /month ($22.75) regardless of TV or radio usage. We're talking about over $7.5B a year for truly shitty programming.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Germany rose up in the 19th Century as an industrial power very quickly because they had cheap books, people could own an entire bookshelf's worth for a fraction of what it cost in England. A lot looser IP or even for some time, no IP. Now copyright holders and entrenched interest strangle everything.

Despite having a decent software industry, Germany is having a tough time keeping up with the internet. Nearly all the good ideas are implemented first in America and elsewhere, and then come to them. If the legislators allow it. The entrenched interests fight awfully hard.

They are certainly losing out to feed old and dying interests.

I suppose this is for naval shipyards and the like?

That current counterbalance has got to go though. It's dangerous to both the wearer and people around him.

It's my understanding that the variability problem is overstated when wind towers are considered in aggregate.

http://ramblingsdc.net/Austral...

A real leap in battery tech though is always welcome.

US Military could count as it's own country in oil usage. They also do a fair bit with reusable energy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

And I know several other projects. But for Military readiness, it would be nice if they put a few billion more into supporting something like algae biodiesel or fusion and a few billion less into one more aircraft carrier (correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the current fleet has around 11, more than the rest of the world combined?)

Off the top of my head, America's strategic reserve can cover fuel use for 60 days. However, since the biggest threat to America isn't any type of invasion force (no viable one exists), it would likely be economic and since the days of Hurricane Katrina, we've been shown to be unable to cope with peoples' extended needs.

So the Leadership's strategy should be to wean the country off of it's most dire dependencies. It should almost be the military's strategy as it would only positively effect them, but that runs counter to global force projection and stamping out the latest fires around the world.

I agree with your overall message, but humans being what they are (not always following the rules), another barrier of protection would not hurt imo.

A salute to your friends for me.

Not quite. Just thinking dumb humanoid robots that need a puppetmaster would have a lot of uses.

We have robots for ridding explosive ordinance. Considering the humber of healthcare workers that contracted this disease so far, hopefully some remotely controlled robot doctor/nurses would help further quarantine the situation.

We are far from autonomous humanoid robots, but since this isn't a labor saving measure, it should be much easier, as they are rather more like walking drones, how far is current tech from making this possible?

I think it's actually Obama who's done the most on climate change concretely. He signed into law new fuel economy standards that will double the fuel called me a new vehicles. Elon musk is selling a couple thousand cars a year, well Obama standards will affect millions of cars every year.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/2232...

When posed with the question: Would I prefer 50 politicians like X or businessmen/inventor's like Musk, my answer would be more Musks in the world.

Politicians should be lauded for doing the right thing for PR purposes, but their importance to the overall scheme should not be overhyped in history. Their minds are not the ones that shape the future. They can mandate anything they like, but it's up to engineers and others to actually implement it.

(Also, fuel economy standards are notorious for the loopholes and crooked accounting.)

The research team seeks to actively defeat what Abrash calls âoethe myth of technological innovation,â the idea that just because a technology is possible, it will eventually exist without a concerted effort to develop it.

This rings within my experience of experiencing some projects firsthand just die on the vine because of corporate politics or just typical upper management being risk adverse to something long-term.

There's a common perception of tech being like a river, with it's bends and turns varying but still getting there (out to some utopian ocean destination) but I visualize it flowing the other way, from a ocean of talent to rivers and creeks, etc. Some advances are unavoidable rivers, but there are a lot of unexplored tributaries and creeks along the way that could provide a unique benefit.

This is especially true as society often demands solutions to problems previous tech created, making a unique trajectory through history on research based on a series of reactions rather than intrinsic need. (Think of the history of the rocket and space race).

If the man's account is to be believed, EVEN if he name dropped his employer, it was only in an effort to get fair service from comcast to begin with. And get all the crap charges removed.

And comcast should get bad press for contacting their customer's employer to begin with. Who the hell does that to a customer? Comcast, that's who. Time to go to congress, and get all this cable and telecom monopoly crap gotten rid of.