It's OK. The alternate Kate Upton has really let herself go and she's become the alternate Melissa McCarthy.

I may actually be the only person who actually likes God Emperor Of Dune, but I get many peoples' observations that after the third Dune book, the series changed pretty substantially. Being a big fan of Herbert's work, what I saw was that the later Dune books began in many respects to resemble his other later era books in prose style, and it was that which likely turned off many people.

I can tell you right now that if I was a successful writer, doubtless making a meaningful, but still modest wage, and someone waved the big bucks in front of me to make my unfinished series into a major multinational television production, I would not hesitate for the briefest moment in taking the cash.

I'm not a fan of the television series, but do enjoy the books. The only thing that really pisses me off is that there is such a length of time between each book that I end up having to reread the entire series from the start just to remember all the characters and story lines. Thus far I've read the first three books three times.

Eagerly awaiting the sequel series:

A Poop for Penguins
A Tit for Tyrion
Another Tit for Tyrion
A Gaggle of Geese
Yet Another Tit for Tyrion
A Bunghole of Bratwurst

He has managed to out-Tolkien JRR Tolkien. Even with three or four contiguous story lines going on, Tolkien had to map out the chronology of events carefully so that he always knew where all the main characters and events were happening in relation to each other. Martin has something like two or three times as many plots going on, and he must spend have his time keeping the plotting straight.

The Game of Thrones series is essentially a shared universe with one writer.

He may not finish it, but you can be damned sure the producers of the series have a solid plot line at their disposal should he kick the bucket. This is a cash cow of monumental proportions, and they won't let something as minor as the author's death get in the way of continuing production.

I am also a Mathematician and none of this adds up.

I am a Noetic Scientist, and I think you're all crazy.

Far more importantly Libre Office for Android https://wiki.documentfoundatio... is around the corner.

There is a whole wikipedia article on the machinations of M$ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C..., then there is Embrace, extend and extinguish Embrace, extend and extinguish and there is also Fear, uncertainty and doubt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F..., with M$ having a reputation for having mastered it. So the fellows at M$ were pretty naughty but that seems pretty much typical for major corporations when they become dominant, they just automatically turn into a great big old bag of exploitative dicks until they end up being sufficiently punished by the market. They of course try to fend this off, normally seeking government assistance to protect their position via the application of hoards of corrupt lobbyists.

Eventually once sufficiently punished and managed largely replaced they can sometimes come good although they can never ever be trusted as a dominant player again. There is of course no harm in using them to weaken other players who have gained dominance, maintaining a balance in suppliers being important.

Basically over sized corporations are just a really, really bad idea and breaking them up and keeping them small often serves everyone far better.

There are reasons beyond the "4 GNU freedoms" to oppose these devices being installed into all new computers.

I'll bet your not so sanguine about having a device installed in your car that allows for remote shutoff, location reporting and monitoring of your driving habits.

Because the real question is not "what is so controversial?" but rather "how secure are these systems?" It's not about what a sysadmin can do with the power to remotely turn on your computer, but what some miscreant can do with that power when he inevitably gets his hands on it. And the computer in question is not the one on your desktop at work or your business laptop (that your company paid for anyway), but the one you have at home for your taxes/banking/personal communications.

At some point, you have to start trusting people/organizations/companies.

What you're really saying is, "You don't have a choice, so just suck it up, princess. Privacy is so 20th century."

No, you don't have to trust people/organizations/companies who have not earned your trust. You are the one paying. Use the power you have as a consumer. Weaponize your purchasing power.

And always, always reserve the right to just say "Nope, I don't need it, I don't want it, and I'll find another way."

In actual use faraday cages can be readily subverted by incoming power lines. For a building wide faraday cage to be secure power lines must be conditioned to prevent data interception via subverted hardware within the faraday cage, otherwise that unsecured wire leads right from the supposedly secure hardware to a power station many kilometres away and connected to every other device hooked up to the same power source. Other things must also be looked at like water pipes, tapping into the earth circuit or even using the farady cage itself as conductor. Digital security is a mindless headfuck, no matter what you do to secure it, it can be subverted, which is why manual system are becoming preferred again for real serious security as they require direct personal access.

The real question is whether running down maintenance ability will sound real fine up until the moment of catastrophic failure and their ability to react to it has been totally compromised. This would result in hugely extended down time in the event of that catastrophic failure, what ever it's cause. Looks great on a spreadsheet and pumps up an executives bonus but the whole company ends up going boom when a catastrophic failure occurs because customers will not tolerate extended downtime and that downtime might not be hours but weeks on even months as the try to rebuild maintenance efforts so that their maintainers can rebuild the system.

This kind of evaluation extends out to government, should governments pay the costs of maintaining manual systems ie pencil and paper because in the event of catastrophic failure recovery is bound to their ability to sustain the essential elements of government whilst digital system are rebuilt and as it will be required to rebuild those systems. Corporate executives abandon these ideas because of course costs affect bonuses and golden parachutes in the event of failure.