I think any modern intentional bombing of civilians pales in comparison to what happened to civilians in conquered cities before modern times. The whole remaining siege army pillaging, raping and murdering in a very close-and-personal way, with full approval of the commanders.

But more to the point, now nasty stuff like this is considered a war crime. Back then it was a reward for being a soldier in an invading army.

Foreseeing? Humanity is at its least degenerate today, at least in the developed world. It's not long ago when things we now consider totally depraved were considered normal. Just think about the world wars of last century, then consider what was done in the age of colonialism, and things just get more grisly the farther back you go.

Getting some engineers of enemy tribe killed is nothing in the grand history of humanity.

"D-Bus Is portable", but seems headed down the road of practical unportability (barring complete rewrite and parallel maintenance of critical parts of a complex software stack). This seems to be a package deal, systemd + kernel DBus. Seems very much like Embrace, Extend, Extinguish: Integrate to Linux kernel, create growing ecosystem which depends on the new features of the Kernel version of DBus, abandon non-Linux kernel versions of DBus.

I truly hope I am wrong, but for now I will steer clear of systemd and any Linux distro which is going to use it. For me Linux comes with a bit of ideological baggage (you know, openness, freedom), and I'll not touch this particular bit of it until I am comfortable it is not going to shove something down my throat. And if it turns out to be difficult, then that more-or-less proves that my concern was valid.

(Yes, I'm the AC above.)

The issue is UI. Try doing some desktop-like workflow on a tablet with mouse and keyboard. Awkward. And I doubt Android even provides APIs for proper mouse handling, such as desktop-style text selection. So there is a long long way to go. Desktop UX app is surprisingly different from touch UX, in some fundamental ways. Even if there is one maximized window, workflow still works.

Additionally, especially for anyone with just single screen, Aero snap or equivalent (drag a window to edge of screen and it fills that half of the screen, etc) are really useful in enabling two windows on screen without the usual juggling and resizing. And it allows making full use of a wide screen monitor (I'd actually prefer 2:1 instead of prevalent 16:9 and 16:10). And it's easy to discover by accident, so more people might be using it than you think.

Funny thing about real world natural science is, pretty much everything affects pretty much everything. So if AGW is really happening, then comparing against pretty much anything that has happened in Earth's history should be consistent with that. Past climate changes have had their causes, and assuming we have not missed remains of pre-human industrial civilization, these causes should be different than a civilization returning "fossil" carbon to atmosphere. On the other hand, current climate change should look like it is because of returning fossil carbon to atmosphere by us.

Now, what does it look like to you?

Primary purpose is killing, that's what an assault rifle is designed for, but it is not the only purpose.

One purpose is: to be able to kill people, often in the hope that it will not be necessary, indeed with the hope that having a credible ability will avoid needing to actually do it.

Yet another purpose is to just have fun with target practice, without killing anyone.

And technically speaking, suppressive fire is not really intended for killing the enemy, it is intended for making it harder for the enemy to shoot and kill you.

Based purely on this /. article's comment's, I'd say she deserves a medal for bringing attention to the AIDS problem in Africa... Also, do you think her apology is insincere, or do you just generally not believe in forgiving?

How does false trade volume increase real (taxable) revenue?

I mean, other than perhaps increasing real transaction volume, which is presumably the goal anyway.

Well, I think it is excellent at what it is. Everything could be better, but anything will quickly reach a point where making something better makes something else less good. And BBB is easily in the region, where making it better is hard, where any improvement is just making it less good in some other respect, just making it different.

Just because you did not enjoy it does not make it terrible. It only means your life is less enjoyable compared to those who liked it (well,,unless you get kicks out of calling it terrible).

For practically all practical purposes, everybody who uses both words "planet" and "exoplanet" in practice, the difference matters. Language is a tool, and it is practical to have words which are a compromise which between avoiding ambiguity, being short, being consistent, and being practical.

For example, now and at least several decades into future, you can resolve the disk of "planets" with telescopes, and even see most of them with Eyeball Mk1. Contrast this to "exoplanets", at best for a few cases you can capture a few photons you can be pretty sure came from the "exoplanet", and this is not going to improve much until most if not all current IAU members, who decided on the terminology, are pushing daisies.

That's how they do it in the better 3rd world countries (in the worse ones, there's no option to just quit). I feel no desire to live in such a country, but if I did, I would have moved there by now. But here where I live, I prefer having the collective muscle of union negotiating power.

I think terrorists, by and large, fight for some cause they think is worth suffering for, in extreme cases which get most press, worth dying for. I just can't see a Satanist doing something like that, really. Terrorism isn't for personal gain.

About your perceived idea that Atheists are somehow more rational than religious people and would not engage in similar endeavors (like erecting a statue)... maybe on average they really are (and maybe not), but just because they believe in less deities (sometimes just 1 less) than believers of various faiths doesn't make them any more rational on individual basis.

Generally they'd drive a company van (usually with a high-mpg diesel engine) full of tools and stuff, or their own small car if someone else brought tools and materials. I think very few owned a van, or especially a pick-up (because those are pretty useless in the climate around here, compared to a tall van).

Well, there are just two quick ways to stop that. First, stop paying taxes, which has the downside of radically reduced quality of life. Second, move somewhere where your taxes are not used on bombing villages in Pakistan, which has the downside that you can no longer feel patriotic about being an American.

Then there are slower ways: Become rich enough so you can avoid paying taxes. Do a democratic change of politicians by making people of America vote differently. Start a traditional revolution (for NSA: just listing this option here for completeness, and not advocating it in any way, please!).

I'm no fan of Al Gore, but global impact of all the senseless trucks is pretty big, compared to global impact of senseless mansions. Also. the mansion itself might not be a nig deal, unless it is poorly insulated (lot of heating and cooling required), and watering its lawns etc draws from depleting water reserves (depends on location). Also, I happen to think that spending resources on long-lasting things (even mansions, and this assumes it is built to last) is much better than spending money on stuff like cars, which often don't last even a decade.