It's a movie. Most people don't care but for those sticklers, all they have to do is release a special edition that contains a "director's cut" of the film as well as a "science advisor's cut." They would eat it up and it would be a fun way to spark discussion.

Make it so, movie guys.

This started with the (valid) concern to prevent overheating damage to laptop hardware. Are they just going to let someone fry their GPU and turn it in for warranty repairs now? That sounds unlikely. The new drivers will probably set a fuse to void warranty.

It would be tracked left, right, up, and down. Every movement of every citizen's wallet would get pumped straight into the FBI, DHS, ATF, IRS, Social Security, family courts, DMVs, and local PDs. Screw that. I'd rather pay for my Dunkin Donuts with blowjobs than with Fedcoin.

You need some military-grade ICE, man. Smooth as glass... it will flatline any intruder in the blink of an eye.

What kind of writer would ever create and then use a word like 'supertiny'?

Successful troll is successful.

Are you saying that theft is good for the economy because new phones have to be bought to replace the stolen ones? Thats a... "novel" theory.

Presumably once the phone has been activated on a different account, the original owner wouldn't be able to report it stolen.

Many skilled typist prefer not to have to remove their hands from the home position to reach those keys. It allows them to maintain a faster typing speed. Instead, they access those missing keys on a function layer. It's actually quite common (see Happy Hacking Keyboard)

Hard to believe such a racist comment is posted from an account with positive karma, but even harder to believe this has been upvoted. WTF??

Remember the primary concern when these laws were proposed. As soon as criminals discover a way to maliciously activate the kill switch on a non-stolen phone, there will be serious fallout. Imagine the ransomware. There are similar concerns with law enforcement, who have demonstrated a desire to be able to wipe or forever disable a phone they've confiscated (usually one documenting their misdeeds).

Although this problem needs a solution, a union is not that solution. Unions are a relic of a bygone era. The core premise of a union is that employes are all the same and can be swapped in and out of work like parts in a machine (once they are trained). This leads to collective bargaining which takes back some of the power that big employers have. However it also removes individuality from the worker. If I am smarter, stronger, or more skilled than my coworkers, I want to be able to elevate myself based on my merits. A union interferes with that. You pay a union, and the union acts only in its own best interest, not in your individual best interest.

Modern skilled workers, especially in the IT and Engineering fields, are usually very specialized. This is not a good fit for a union. It would be ill advised to take a good thing and remove all motivation for creativity and the free flow of invigorating talent.

A better solution is to simply prevent large corporations from getting away with their bullshit. No "gentleman's agreements" to prevent poaching. Stop accepting lies regarding layoffs and market performance. Reward employers for using home-grown talent rather than rewarding them with tax loopholes for moving overseas.

Those budget laptops do exist on the market, but they are slow, heavy, and prone to breaking. Don't even get me started on the screens. The screens are almost unusable.

Instead, compare it to an ultrabook. Those have SSDs, decent processor and memory configurations, good screens, and are lightweight. The prices are on par.

For $800 you must have been looking at the Surface Pro 3. I don't think an Android tablet is an apples-to-apples comparison. The Surface Pro 3 runs a full Windows 8 OS. It is basically a laptop without a permanent keyboard. The Surface 2 is more like $450. This is much closer to the price range you're talking about.

The real problem with Microsoft's tablet experience isn't the price of the Pro 3. I think it's a great piece of kit and compares favorably to a laptop for many usage scenarios. The problem is the Windows RT used on ARM phones and tables. Specifically, the Windows RT app ecosystem. There just isn't enough going on to make it a compelling platform.

Microsoft is great at making terrible decisions. They could have tried to capitalize on their their existing platforms with good market penetration to bootstrap a great app ecosystem. Instead, they wanted to have what Apple has. They wanted to control everything so they could milk it all for money. Unfortunately, they didn't offer any other reason to get developers and users to switch.

I can't see myself ever getting a Surface or Windows Phone. However, I probably will get my wife a Surface Pro 3 when her current laptop dies.

Dude, what does that even mean? Backups have to be done intelligently based on your situation. In the summary, the user had an external hard disk on USB which would have protected against primary HD failure, but not against common mode failures such as a fire at home or a compromised PC. He didn't protect himself against malicious code, and got burned. The raw number of backups don't matter if you're not paying attention to what you are and are not protecting against.