a) Repeat after me: China will NOT shoot at the US any time soon. The two nations are connected at the hip economically. They'll continue to play games with each other, for sure. there will be some sabotage, some espionage, some tensions, but China and the USA have the dollar bill version of Mutually Assured Destruction.
b) Both the Russians AND the USA have weapons in space regardless of treaties. How's that World War with Russia going?
c) How much did the USA expand their military budget last year? Or the year before that? Or before that? Heck, when's the last time it DIDN'T? How did that affect the ability of the last space race to allow a man to walk around on the moon?
d) Doesn't the tinfoil hat itch?
e) Given current sentiments(as demonstrated by your post) and the fact that the USA owes all the money, it's technically more likely the USA would act first. but again, see point a) for why this won't happen any time soon.

Sorry, not even going to post this anonymously.

Whatever you think of how China's gov't works. No matter the motivations. How is this anything other than an overall good thing? Seriously? We have a space agency in the world right now with both the government funding, the will and potentially the skills to advance manned spaceflight again!

Worse case scenario, things don't work out and remain as they are(not counting deaths here since that's always a possibility with these and NASA as well as the Russians have had their fair share).

Best case scenario: They pull off something here and either succeed or encourage this awesome spirit of competition we've been sorely lacking since the Soviet Union and the US fought over the moon.

Please, keep your racist, xenophobic, nationalist or just plain ignorant bile to yourselves and enjoy what MOST people who admire the stars have been wishing for for a very long time: a renewed interest in space travel.

Seriously, it looks like the "Share with" feature in the Android browser as well(which leverages the Intent system).

Not saying it's a bad thing(I love the idea)...I just fail to see how this is a "New Cross-App Data-Sharing System"....heck, if Google tended to play this game as dirty as Apple and MS do, they'd probably be doing a software patent suit by now O_o

More and more, I keep remembering Spider Robinson's Melancholy Elephants.

http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html

Yes, I know that deals mainly with copyright, but the points about the damaging effects of intellectual property protectionism is still relevant. Besides, these days, the main differences between patents and copyright are mainly that one costs more money and effort to file for while the other is implicit.

This is joyous news indeed. Thanks for hanging in there, Groklaw :)

I tried the beta, the UI is(or rather 'can be') very Maya-ish. They actually have a 'Maya' mode. All in all, the ability to jump in has greatly improved.

Just a disclaimer, I royally HATED the old UI and was sick of people jumping down people's throats for saying how utterly inaccessible it was. Yet now I have to say they did a really good job. Windows can be broken off or split, everything and the kitchen sink isn't all crammed into the lower half of the screen and the shortcuts actually can be set up to make sense..

I shouldn't feed the troll but...

A) the alternative you gave me was no better than what I use now.
B) your response to me starting that fact was childish
C) take an ipad or android tablet, shove 3mm worth of digitizer pcb below the lcd. How was that star trek level future tech?

Or, use the technology that's available now , throw in a 3mm digitizer and write down "I will not use snarky sarcasm when dealing with subjects of which I understand little."

I was thinking more along the lines of the ultra thin, ultra light form factor variety...4.5pds doesn't quite cut it:) I've got my old m200 for now.