http://news.slashdot.org/story...

I think it has been shown that they lack the technical knowledge to do the kind of science fiction hacks the media all gets in a tizzy about. They have show time and time again, that they do not need any such hacks anyway, as they can simply force companies to comply with handing over information by law.

I mean why spend time developing the super widget to spy on everyone, when you can coerce any company they owns the applications, hardware, or infrastructure to do your bidding for you. Heck they will build it for you should you submit enough "information requests". Best part of the arrangement is in many cases there is a charge back to the company that can actually make money providing the information, using your own tax dollars to pay for it! Win-WIn.

It is a pretty big deal. I have a Galaxy S3 which I like. To me it really only has one downside. That big screen chows down on battery power pretty fast when you are actually using it for anything. As such the battery length isn't great. It is mitigated a bit by the fact that you can pop out a used battery and pop in a charged one and you are ready to go.

If Apply managed to not only increase screen sized AND increase battery length, that is a pretty primary feature. However you are probably still stuck with the single battery.

The problem with renewable energy is energy storage. This is a factory that will make gigantic batteries by literately the millions. They probably also get huge subsidies from the government. As with most energy projects, the up front capital costs are where the problem is. What company is going to do this when energy is cheap and available. Unless you make an electric car and it is probably worth the PR.

Lev Andropov: It's stuck, yes?
Watts: Back off! You don't know the components!
Lev Andropov: [annoyed] Components. American components, Russian Components, ALL MADE IN TAIWAN!

Not sure if you know this from actual knowledge or if it is simply deduction, but a post on Slashdot that makes sense, amazing! :)

The Anon makes it all mysterious, as I'm sure we all assume it is some US Naval Admiral posting in secret...

Also an "amphibious assault ship" i.e. a troop ship designed to attack land, ordering a US cruiser, the largest navel ship not a aircraft carrier now that battleships are faux pas, is pretty funny. Regardless of law or rights or superpowers, that is like me trying to threaten an Abrams tank using my station wagon, or maybe more accurately my bicycle... It is no wonder they told them to take a hike.

Because jobs (and political donations). Although it seems most the jobs that Rogers creates are minimum wage call centre jobs...

My favorite was when their National Bank burned to the ground by accident recently... supposedly.

My first thought was, um that isn't going to erase your debt you know, that is held by other banks...

Like any good DRM, make it annoying, but little else. Any DRM is beatable if in enemy hands. However you make it so they can't IMMEDIATELY use it, or it will be a pain in the ass to fix it so they can. Something simple like a Tank with an easily removable critical piece of the electronic sighting apparatus. When you have to abandon ship so to speak, grab the widget and go. Sure they can drive the tank around, and even fire the gun, but if they can only aim at things manually it will make it much less effective against countermeasures. Then again, removable firing pin (if such a thing even exists), sure they could machine a new one, but that would take time.

Or when said country dissolves, and it all falls into basically individuals, groups, warlords, etc... hands.
Or when the Army/Government is so corrupt that they sell the weapons to anyone to line their personal pockets...

The whole point of supercaviataing torpedoes is speed. A fast and/or maneuverable ship might be able to evade a slow torpedo. While this is less likely with a very fast one. However a Carrier, let alone a "super" carrier, are A) slow, and B) not maneuverable. Their strength are the aircraft on it, and the flotilla around it. Even a very fast torpedo would be detected from a long ways away, and counter measures deployed, though there may be slightly less time to do so. It is the jobs of the anti-torp helos, and Destroyers etc... in the flotilla to take care of those things.

Really the only thing dangerous to carriers are MASS torpedoes, more so than the counter measures can compensate for... However you would have to have a lot of subs, and sacrifice many of them getting close enough and retaliation. The real worry was about these super fast missiles, which are MUCH faster than even very fast torpedoes. The trouble is, that air counter measures could probably take care of it, however could become overwhelmed more easily because of the reduced time between detection and response.

Anyway it is really only dangerous in an all out war, as the BIGGEST defense is that a super carrier is such a massive ship, that any attack would be seen as a clear act of war and generate a very nasty response.

However your University may not have used Java or some buzzword fancy new language that is all the rage, but rather used an older core language.

So when you are competing against some one year code monkey for a job that lists whatever language is the flavor of them month that you don't necessarily have it doesn't work out well. I have tried explaining that the fundamentals are the same, or that I would be able to pick up any language very quickly, however to management and HR, the guy who had the training in the fancy wing ding gets the position.

True Story:

Was at a stag party, held at a cabin. One of the previous occupants left her wallet under one of the sofas. In it was all her identification as well as her iPhone. She was something like 19-20 years old. One of the guys jokingly said "I wonder how stupid this girl is" and tried to crack the "password". Tried "1234" which didn't work. Then said "hey", looked at her drivers licence, and entered her birthday. "Click".

Two tries.

Granted that is a 4 letter password, but if you pick something stupid, and lets face it many people do, not just 19 year old girls, it won't be hard to crack. Particularly if your life's details are open for public inspection.

In the end we called the girls mom, and got her to contact us with an address we could mail the package to (minus the little baggy of coke we flushed down the toilet).

Well we also have Hate crime in Canada, though it is a bit vague.

Likely he wasn't actually charged with anything, and even if he was it would be pretty minor.

I don't know, I think there should be some consequences for behaving like an asshole, even if they are relatively minor. At the very least they are removed from the area. So long as it is done in a fair structured manner.

Indeed the guy was likely there to protest. Which is fine. Protest is allowed. However there is a time and place. If you want to shout slogans and raise hell outside of Parliament or city hall go for it. However if you time it to coincide with something solemn, you can still protest, but have some respect for what is going on. Hold you flag, but be respectful. Anyway perhaps he was and it was police over reaction, we will never know, as they only one that recorded it was his compatriots.