Which is why Iran never went to war with Iraq.

Oh, wait.

If you can't read about it on the internet, it didn't happen.

Also, in the Internet Age you're more likely to hear about it when someone does something crooked or foolish. I question the Ask-Slashdotter's assumption that things are getting worse.

(He actually asked the right question: why do things appear to be getting worse. But then elaborates on the assumption that the sky is actually falling.)

I'm surprised the feds haven't banned it. IIRC th constitution prevents the states from creating money other than gold or silver coin; surely they won't allow individuals more leeway.

All I can figure is that it's considered more like a credit card than money. Or else the hammer just hasn't come down yet.

SANS training is pretty good, if you have the money (or can get work to pay for it). They start at the very basics and go up to advanced pen testing, reversing, etc.

Offensive Security has some good free tutorials and paid training, including lab work, for their OSCP/OSCE series of certifications.

Skip the CEH. I don't know anyone who takes that seriously, even if they have one. It's basically just an expensive way to prove you know netcat.

This plane is really battery powered; the solar cells charge the batteries and take in enough over the course of the day to power the batteries over night. The plane could stay aloft indefinitely, if it weren't for the pilot's biological needs.

I agree that a 'solar powered' commercial airliner isn't realistic. however we very well may see some 'hybrid' type of aircraft in the future where large portions of the electricity necessary to run non-propulsion systems is provided by solar-rechargeable batteries (if that isn't a thing already... i'm not an aeronautical engineer, though I do come from a long line of pilots). Applying solar power to other methods of transportation could be the next experiment.

Sometimes stuff like this is just cool on its face regardless of practical applications in industry.

When SI1 did the trans-american flight, they had a stop-over at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazey annex out near Dulles and I went to go see it. I got to meet Bertrand Picard, which was really cool, got to touch the plane, and it was also a good excuse to go and see the rest of the collection.

With this aircraft, we're talking about something that has the weight of a car but the wingspan of a commercial long-haul airliner. It is largely constructed out of carbon fiber, and with proportions like this I would assume that sufficiently strong winds could cause it to snap. There are also the stop-overs for educational and marketing purposes (such as spending 3 days at Dulles with the first plane 2 years ago), as well as rest and recuperation time for the pilots. They have a large ground crew, engineering team and marketing team that moves with them. It's kind of like picking up the circus and moving it to a new city and trying to get there in time before your elephants, which are on a different train.

That said, it's one of the coolest things I've ever gotten to see in person, and Bertrand Picard is an amazing guy, from an amazing family. His grandfather was a high-altitude balloonist and scientist who inspired Professor Calculus in Tin-Tin. His father went with Challenger Deep to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. His uncle was also an explorer, Jean Picard, after whom Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek was named. The idea for this plane came about after nearly running out of fuel during an around-the-world balloon flight in the 1990s.

Whether we'll be seeing solar air transport on a commercial level in my lifetime or not, they're definitely attacking various engineering, scientific and social problems in a high-profile way.

Except it turned back toward Malaysia, but then turned again generally westward and followed a crooked channel out to sea, along a path that a Malaysian pilot would know isn't covered by air traffic radar, but would not know is covered by military radar.

Foul play is beyond question. The questions are who and why.

Well, compared to Matlab or Mathematica, yes. Or compared to commercial products like Visual Studio. Or the hardware cost sink of having to buy a Mac to get the free Xcode to program for the iPhone/iPad/iPod....

Not everything is gcc or clang on a free *nix

There was an ice age 10K years ago. So there are definitely longer term weather patterns on this planet. That's not evidence for or against global warming, but to claim we understand the climate well is disingenuous at best.

I always wanted to copyright my name, do something outrageous, and then sue all the media that runs a story on it.

I suspect you could say that to all governments, on lots of issues.

AIUI, the blue is caused by refraction and all other colors by pigments.

It didn't put either of us at a disadvantage. We had enough to destroy them 10x over. Being able to do it 20x over doesn't make us any more powerful. Now when you start getting down towards the 1x threshold you might have a point.

In what world do PCs have a standard hardware model?

Case size/shape- nope.
Cpu socket- nope.
RAM type- nope.
Peripheral bus- nope.

The only thing that all PCs have in common is a CPU instruction set. And not even 100% on that (x86-64 or IA64 was a battle not too long ago).