It's not like the private companies that they replaced were any better. A buddy of mine is the Operations Manager for our little regional airport; in the pre 9/11 days he watched the private outfit miss firearms as they scrolled past on the x-ray machine. In the post 9/11 days it's still a joke; he can get me into the secured area with a simple, "He's with me." statement to the TSA flunkies. Not even a metal detector. That's the gaping hole in airport security, incidentally, insiders. Just buy one off or blackmail them and you're set to do whatever nefarious deed you have in mind. Once you're through the secured area at one airport you're into all of them.

The bigger problem is that our body politic is incapable of having an adult conversation about risk. We live in a society that won't let kids use playgrounds where they might scrape a knee. Good luck having a conversation about the proper balance between security and liberty in that environment.

You can claim that but it would be bogus. The Insurance Agency that I work for writes auto policies with 11 different carriers. I can name another five or six direct carriers (i.e., those that don't use independent agents) off the top of my head that are available where I live. Auto insurance is one of the most competitive marketplaces out there, with genuine differences in price between providers, and the provider that's best for Person A may be the most expensive for Person B, depending on their individual circumstances.

I was replying to this: There is nothing illegal about paying blackmailers

Then he should have told the FBI the truth when they asked what the money was for. Or simply said, "I choose not to give a statement." Lying to the Feds is beyond fucking stupid. That's their "gotcha" card and it baffles me that so many seemingly intelligent people fall into such an easily avoidable trap.

There's a right to remain silent. I suggest using it....

Umm, no. CATV stands for Community Antenna TeleVision; it evolved because people in areas without OTA reception (i.e., valleys) put up a shared antenna to receive OTA signals.

Spoken like someone who doesn't understand the difference between a workstation and a server.

It works perfectly fine for everything except DirectX gaming. I don't think you need to worry about Call of Duty in your office environment. There's a difference between a VM and emulation, just so you know.

The lion's share of MDs could be replaced by machines. We tend to worship the ground they walk on in the United States but at the end of the day medicine is just a trade, no different than plumbers or electricians, and nurses do the bulk of the work in your typical medical practice. The percentage of truly innovative Doctors is no different than the percentage of truly innovative coders, for most it's just rote memorization and long established best practices.

There are countries that recognize this fact, where MDs are paid less than teachers and society doesn't treat them as Gods walking amongst men. Of course, in fairness to American MDs, Doctors in those nations don't have to deal with crushing malpractice premiums and student loan debt.......

Better question: Why is it still an A/B choice in the day and age of virtual computing? It's not like you even have to deal with the hassle of dual booting anymore. I run Slackware as my native OS, use it for >50% of my daily tasks, and still have the option of firing up Windows in a VM when the need arises.

Yeah, I wasn't really disputing that point dude. :)

Just saying that the days of SMS being delivered via the paging channel on the voice network are fading into the past. It's all data now. The only thing the old method had going for it was that it was easier on the battery. The newer data networks purchase responsiveness at the expense of battery life by going into sleep mode less frequently.

Not with newer phones; Verizon's new model phones all deliver SMS via the data network. That's why your texts are sent so much faster than they used to be, the phone doesn't have to deal with contention to secure a channel on the voice network just to send 140 bytes. Voice is going there too, see VoLTE. Eventually it's all just going to be packets. The carrier's voice and SMS services will get special QoS treatment but that's the only thing that will be special about them.

I think you mean DC-8s. :)

No it doesn't. Losses are related to current, not AC vs. DC. A higher current in the same sized conductor equates to higher loss. You can get around this by raising the voltage (traditionally easier with AC), thus transferring the same amount of energy with less current, or you can increase the size of the conductor. DC can actually transfer more energy than AC on a similar sized conductor because it doesn't have to deal with skin effect.

I could link all of these terms to applicable articles for you but I'm feeling lazy and this is all common knowledge stuff anyway.

Edison was the original master of FUD.

Bomb squads don't "investigate" items that might be bombs. They safely dispose of them. Are you seriously going to value a $30 pressure cooker over someone's life? If the authorities were wrong they should (and usually do, FYI) reimburse the property owner. No piece of property is worth taking a chance on someone's life.