How much of the equipment was actually faulty?

If the news tells them there's a major solar storm that can destroy electronics, how much of these insurance claims are simply people seeking a free upgrade for a old, working piece of equipment?

You will notice that on the worst days, there were not significantly more claims; just that on significant solar days they were more claims probably because those days got into world news.

Or insurance companies themselves only allow such claims during certain periods around such reported days.

Only automate tasks on systems that can be quickly snapshotted and simply QC'd using scripts.

For instance, if you have a web server you want to update weekly, then setup a script on the virtual host that snapshots the virtual machine before the upgrades and then runs a series of checks on the web server after the upgrades. If the web server does not respond as expected to the post-upgrade checks, the virtual host can revert back to the pre-update snapshot and send a message to you notifying you of the upgrade failure. You could also snapshot the failed virtual machine, spin it up on another machine or instance without networking to check the logs for any errors that occurred during upgrades.

If the virtual machine is *nix based, you could mount the snapshot directly on the host and browse the logs as well, or even automate the collection of failed logs too.

Any upgrade procedure that cannot be easily scripted or delayed in such a fashion should be done manually and well attended by someone knowledgeable.

You're running out of places to hide.

waddya mean, he pw3n3d that car

I didn't mean to imply that the guys that make a lot of money on software had anything to do directly with Gary Kildall's death. It was probably similar in situation to how a Stefi Graf women's tennis fan stabbed Monica Szeles in the shoulder muscles back in the 90's. Kain is everywhere, killing Able, simply because he's able - when you're supposed to make smoke that rises to the sky, the fastest way to winning is to kill everyone whose smoke rises up more than yours. Are you your brother's keeper?

Tracking is separate from recorded and forwarded history of travel. It has always been possible to hire an agent to follow a specific indivdual. This is different from carrying a device which tracks everybody by default at a very low cost.

An external agent to track dumb cellphones is far more complex than having an agent running inside a smart phone. It involves pretty substantial external resources and doesn't easily scale to large populations.

You knew this, I hope, and were just trolling us. Right?

If Slashdot had posted a story about "the Lone Gunmen" pilot episode, then they would have a scoop that anticipated the 9/11 attacks with a civilian airliner, by several months...

Well, strictly speaking, experience is what you have after you have overcome the problem...

Seriously, how stupid and removed from the world can you get? The US is not nearly so weak that the whole Islamic world combined can bring it to its knees. It can however self-destruct and that is well underway. The next step after fascism is complete collapse. May take a few decades though.

Indeed. And that is the extreme risk that the NSA's activities create. And after a while of using real charges (and most people have something...), just make anybody opposing the new regime a drug dealer, a child-pornography user or simply a terrorist. The FBI and many police forces already have started to practice lying to courts under oath with "parallel constructions" when they use data from the NSA. The step to complete fabrication is a small one and, I guess, has already been taken more than once. Prosecutors are also well prepared with making "deals", as in offering 30 years imprisonment if people keep quiet and a sentence exceeding the remaining lifetime of the accused if they decide to fight. This effectively cuts the courts out of the process.

This has all happened before and, for the 3rd Reich or Stalinism can be found in the history books. Unless something dramatic happens very soon to reign the NSA in, that step to pure fascism is pretty much ensured.

To be fair, it was the GeStaPo that did the killing or the shipping off of people to the KZs. So you have that pretty much backwards.

it's different and you know it

anyone still reading...jeez...BTC isn't "money" like a currency is "money"

There is an argument to be made that Jesus was intentionally trying to make a martyr out of himself. He failed to put up a defense when asked.

Your statement fairly reeks of the innuendo "this isn't something to get angry over, because he wasn't normal".

It dulls the impact of an important event, it's unfalsifiable (you cite no evidence, just "there's an argument to make"), and it serves to quell any discontent over the current political situation.

I like it. Can the technique be reversed in future incidents? Can a properly crafted response be used to whip up political discontent and restlessness?

I wonder...

We really should be recognizing him as the clown he was, and recognizing the administration and the cops and the courts as the tyrants the continue to be.
Instead he's been propped up as some sort of tragic hero figure and attached to things that have very little to do with him or the case against him, and thus the important shit (the tyranny) gets lost in the haze.

I don't care if I can look at it. I just want to know if it will run Watch_Dogs on ultra at 60 fps.