I don't see anything new or interesting in the articles to consider it a "discovery of a way" (e.g. http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Pag... )

In contrast this is a better article with more detail on how whales could _actually_ affect ecosystems significantly: http://www.newscientist.com/ar...
And that's a 4 year old article.

I say try because in a battle between a jet engine with the power to push 400 tons of steel into the sky VS a drone I'm going to put my money on the jet engine lasting long enough for them to turn around and land again.

You might want to rethink that after being reminded of jet airliners being brought down by birds - not an ounce of metallic content, just a few pounds of meat and soft lightweight bones - or the 747 which almost crashed after all four engines failed from ingesting some ash. (Fortunately, they happened to be relatively near an airport and were high enough to glide for over a hundred miles, which bought them just enough time to restart an engine while they had been preparing to ditch in the ocean, buying them enough time to limp to the nearest runway - although all four engines were damaged beyond repair.)

For that matter, the French Concorde which crashed in 2000 was destroyed by a single thin strip of metal, 17 inches long and just over an inch wide, less than four ounces: essentially, a slightly larger than average metal ruler. It didn't even go into an engine, it just burst a tire - violently enough that the ten pound lump of rubber ruptured the wing and number 5 fuel tank, causing the crash which killed everyone on board.

That was a single 4 oz strip of metal hitting a tire. A pound of bolts or nails will destroy the engine - or a metal drone engine that size.

This might be one of those many flawed studies.

How many times did they shock themselves? If it was just once and then they sat there without doing it again then perhaps it was more of curiosity than not being able to be alone and deprived of stimuli.

Many people are very curious about stuff.

And some are stupid or rebellious - if you tell them don't push a button many of them will push the button without trying to find out why not e.g. they might ask "You mean this button?" and then push it...

But that's why this "vulnerability" should be fixed:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubu...

Imagine if by default if you don't uncheck a checkbox a popular distro has full disk encryption enabled and/or creates an encrypted container.

Then they can't use the "wrench" on everyone that happens to have that distro, because it really is very plausible that the person doesn't have the keys to the container.

As for the arguments against it - if you're in a country where they are still willing to use the "wrench" on someone who is likely to not have the keys, you're screwed already. In such countries if they're not happy with you, you're in big trouble whether you use crypto or not.

That's why the "bug" I submitted should be fixed: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubu... ;)

That's why I have been proposing that for robot cars they also have cameras/sensors/radars/lidars at bumper height. It's often easier to spot (from a distance) people/animals obscured by vehicles from bumper level than it is to spot them from driver or roof level. But I'm no car or robot car engineer, so someone else will have to actually do it.

You might be able to do something like this for "kiddie" sensors mounted on bicycles/motorcycles, but given the front wheel of those vehicles is movable it's probably a bit trickier :).

Some of the stupid interviewing criteria that my colleagues and me [sic] had to deal with boggles my mind.

Ahh, reminds me of the Angry Aussie and his response to pointless interview questions:

For instance, there was the putz I had to see this week who thought he was being really clever. It seems as though someone gave him the book of Microsoft interview questions and he was eager to show off his new "knowledge". This style of interviewing gives you abstract questions that have no relationship whatsoever to the work you'll be doing. Or to the real world.

Proponents say they're trying to see how creatively you can think. Normal humans say it's a waste of time.

For the random people that use Orkut like others use Facebook, it really is not a lot of time to figure out what to do with potentially gigabytes of information. That holds particularly true for anyone that is not technically savvy.

How long does it take to slide over to Google Takeout and download all of your data?

A few minutes? An hour?

When Goog crushed Wave, I downloaded all my stuff in a matter of minutes. Couldn't really do much with it, but it lowered my White Hot Rage down to Red.

1. 1. Rewrite your code
2. 2. Fix all the bugs you introduced that didn't exist in the original
3. 3. (and ongoing) Run into all the edge cases that were discovered and solved years ago in the original code.
4. 4. Spend tons of manhours and tie up your talent pool rewriting just to get where you are now instead of adding new features.
5. 5. Embrace your FAIL

End goal: change the constitution. We need a start. It's easy to see how hard this will be and to give up early, but some of us feel the imperative to fight for it. We can change things. The vast will of the masses (corporation political donations are not equivalent to the free speech we enjoy as individuals) needs to be strategically gathered. Critical mass could take decades, as with things like gay marriage.

Wonder how well the laser works through glass or plastic windows, or other common transparent stuff you might want to take pictures through.

Not my "meme." I rarely, if ever, refer to it.

But, it's true. Capitalism relies on private control and a free, competitive market. Crony capitalism is government control and a resulting non-free market by explicitly decreasing competition.

I mean, sure, you can call it whatever you want to, but when I say "capitalism works" and someone says "crony capitalism is proof it doesn't," that's just stupid, because crony capitalism flatly violates some of the primary tenets of capitalism.

So you admit you lied.

False, but telling that you think such a stupid thing. To you, there's no difference between freedom, and not-freedom. It's just two different options, neither better than the other.

a. I never saw you ask that. It might've been in the comment I replied to, and I didn't see it, because after your massive whopper about what you want people to think crony capitalism is, I stopped reading.

b. Why would I produce an example of something I never asserted? Once again: holy shit, you're retarded.

I haven't seen the case strongly made. If you have a link, I'd be obliged. Stories I saw all handwaved at it.

But they are Republicans. Voter suppression is expected. It's OK.

Only because I see YOU STANDING BEHIND ME. What the fuck, man?!?

Sorry, no. I have these things called pride and integrity.