when a machine actually reads all these books and starts making comparisons based on content.

Are you being obtuse deliberately?

A libertarian state would never permit, much less mandate, such a thing.

If the database can be stolen, then that, in itself, IS the problem.

You don't need long passwords, just reasonably good ones, to defeat online guessing. Estimates of how quickly billions of guesses can be performed assume that all your encrypted passwords have been downloaded and can be subjected to brute force, offline. That means your security has already been compromised.

Apparently, you don't fully understand the difference between physics and engineering. Technological barriers can often be overcome with advances in materials and design. Declaring them to be insurmountable has been shown to be foolish, many times. Barriers imposed by the properties of matter, on the other hand, are much more durable. Declaring them to be insurmountable is rarely a mistake.

When Snowden's material runs out, he becomes worthless, so it makes sense for him (and his masters) so string it out as long as possible.

No, children, the trolls were not here first. Some of us remember that human beings inhabited the Internet before the Eternal September.

Houston has no zoning. Virtually no one can walk to work.

people will believe that Einstein said it.

There is a very significant difference: this involves detecting vibrations in images of objects in a video recording rather than the objects themselves. However, not just any video will do; it requires a very high frame rate.

Eight-core Mac Pro with 27" Cinema Display. Extra memory and hard drives. Plus tax.

by distributing FitBits to employees.
Did they also provide FitBit winders?

The FAA doesn't use the term "drone" for anything. This thing, tethered or not, is a model aircraft. As long as it is used for hobby purposes within the guidelines for model aircraft, the FAA doesn't care. What the FAA does not allow is any unlicensed aircraft (which includes models, balloons, kites, gliders, rockets and probably tennis balls), tethered or not, to be used directly or indirectly for commercial purposes.

At Texas Instruments, an integrated circuit was called a "bar", not "chip" or "die", partly because that's what Jack called them. Wafers were called "slices", so your multiprobe yield was expressed in "good bars per slice". They finally dropped the Texas jargon in the mid-'80s when it became obvious that it was a silly affectation in the face of industry-standard terminology and an obstacle to communicating clearly with vendors and customers.