We use 802.1x on WiFi, in fact that's the most secure method as it provides for mutual authentication between client and AP. Cellphones are easy since the SIM standard already allows for secure digital certificate storage.

Within a country it's easy to accomplish, all you do is require all ISPs offering service within the country to require it, and if you tie the license to an x.500 cert and use 802.1x at all end user access points then you can effectively require that users within that country are not anonymous. The downfall of the plan is that it's the Internet, a connection of networks ruled only by the protocols that are used to establish communications, so if you expect to be able to track an IP in Moscow to an individual, good luck with that unless you work for the FSB.

The fact that it is only nine fold is pretty impressive, really.

Agreed! The fact that a 1950's two stroke without emissions controls is only 9x higher on VOCs than an average 2007 highly engineered engine with ~$2000 worth of emissions control equipment and another $1000 or so worth of electronics to minimize emissions production is pretty amazing.

Banks typically bring in their own auditors for any large loan, we routinely deal with just about all the major auditors and we're only a $7B company, plus our joint venture partners bring in their auditors whenever we're doing a joint deal. It's not like any company with $3B in loans should have just one set of eyes looking over their books.

The mid level managers were making $55-66k per year and that was enough for them to be silent about a massive fraud?!? I don't get that, it doesn't seem like enough money to have a permanent black mark on your resume.

Doesn't work with 4.4.2 on my S5 or 4.4.4 on my Nexus 7.

But in 1995, as promised, it was available to private companies for consumer applications

Say what? There were consumer GPS receivers in the late 1980's, in fact in the first Gulf War (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991) many soldiers used commercial units purchased from US retailers because the crypto hardened milspec units were in such short supply. In fact I'm not sure what they're referring to with the 1995 date, since the biggest change wrt consumer use was Clinton's order to permanently disable selective availability, but that wasn't until 2000.

It's only 7MB and I did mention page 22 =)

Uh, you are aware that a bat mitzvah is the female version of a bar mitzvah, yes?

Uh, about that, the Rance tidal plant in France has operated for 40 years with nothing but sacrificial anode protection and it looks pretty good to me (see page 22). Construction costs have been payed off and ongoing maintenance costs are below the cost of nuclear.

Why on gods green earth would you use Fischer–Tropsch when you can do biodiesel at a much higher EROEI? The only really good use of Fischer–Tropsch I've seen is using a nuclear power plant on a carrier to produce AvGas for the jet fleet to eliminate the long tail supply line, and the navy didn't think it enough of an advantage to include an extra set of power plants in the current generation of carriers (expected to be produced through 2050 and in the fleet through 2100) to do the production.

Uh, about that, the Rance tidal plant in France has operated for 40 years with nothing but sacrificial anode protection and it looks pretty good to me (see page 22).

Interesting, it looks like the Rance build costs (~$650m in current dollars for ~540GWhrs of annual output) have been recovered in under 40 years and the operating costs are lower than nuclear (1.8c/kWhr vs 2.5c/kWhr). Decommissioning costs will be lower than nuclear obviously, and safe operating life is probably longer. So it would seem in areas with high average tidal flow it's pretty obvious that it's worth at least exploring.

Could they have imagined a government where something akin to the Dutch East India Company simply walked in and individually bribed every single Congressman and the President to do their bidding, without the American people even realizing it?

Sure they did:

1. “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
— Thomas Jefferson, 1802 letter to Secretary of State Albert Gallatin.

2. “I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
— Thomas Jefferson.

3. “The power of all corporations ought to be limited, [...] the growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.”
— James Madison

4.“Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.”
— John Adams

I'm sorry but x86 has had a 36bit virtual address space since the Pentium Pro, but I have NEVER seen it called a 36bit architecture, because it's not. Also to be pedantic, XP RTM and XP SP1 supported >4GB of ram, and SP2+ support PAE (it's required for NX) but limit the visibility of physical memory above the 4GB line for driver compatibility reasons. MS could easily support PAE and AWE in Windows client versions, they are based on the same code and kernel as the server variants, they just choose not to. I'm not really arguing FOR x86 and against AMD64, just providing a little bit of information and clarifying some statements made in the thread =)