Funny fact: 3 Mile failed because of a safety procedure. When a gage went bad, it was red tagged. Good idea ... unless it hangs over the gage that would have warned the operators the reactor was going wonky. So, as you say, they interpreted the conditions on the gages they could see, not the critical one the couldn't, and made the wrong call.

That Guy Fawkes dude was pretty clever to plan things that way. Some of his other planning didn't go as smoothly, but he got the right date for future fireworks.

Airbus didn't patent jack squat. They file a patent application. If the patent is granted, then you can say they patented something. The difference is pretty enormous. It's like saying you are married to someone when all you did was ask them to marry you (and haven't even gotten a response). There are a few more steps involved.

Do any of the Slashdot editors know the first thing about patents? Seriously. Any?

It was handled remotely. Operators used manipulators to handle the material behind glass shielding. Worked fine until some nitric acid exploded. He was blasted with shattered glass and americium.

Because the incremental improvement adding all of these optics and electronics, make it robust, and make it work is not cheap. And most cooks do pretty darn good with just what they have.

Small benefit vs big cost => no change

Failure is an orphan.

Dude! I know! And have used it! Uhm... have you ever heard of sarcasm?

Assuming you're using Mac OS X or 64-bit Linux. It's just Windows that doesn't have a 64-bit Firefox for some dumb, poorly explained reason.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner.

My job requires specialized software that only runs on windows. And truthfully, the 32 bit version of Firefox works fine. But as you put it, it's dumb and poorly explained.

and there was a 64 bit version of Adobe flash, but I don't think it's been updated in years.

You hear that whooshing sound? Coming from somewhere over your head? Don't bother looking up. I'm well aware of waterfox and 64 bit nightlies.

This is a fantastic idea. One that fits with what Mozilla does already. The perfect expansion of their work: 64 bit Firefox.

Yeah, I know it's radical. And maybe they will struggle at first. But who knows, maybe they will succeed where so many other browser vendors have failed.

Communications with your lawyer are privileged. Give them your information with instructions on when and how to release it. Make sure to pay them in advance.

This is standard stuff in may novels because it kind of works.

Is it 100% effective? Maybe not. But it's a layer of protection. If you are especially paranoid, give one lawyer a 1-time pad encrypted hardcopy file. Give another the key.

Why worry? Obama will draw a red line and say "No further!"

Is that the Mason-Dixon Line?

Fair enough. Maybe he should have said secret trials. FISC is basically a warrant rubber stamp factory.

I'm genuinely curious about he extent of secret trials in the US. My understanding is that there are restrictions when it comes to public trials for minors. Probably other situations. Where the boundaries are, I'm not sure.

I didn't write the program, actually a script, but I did modify it to run on a Kindle. The epaper version with a keyboard. Needed some sort of calculations done while traveling without a laptop. Some sort of one line script, but the simplest solution was to take an existing sample script and modify hard coded numbers.

Yes, modifying a script with a web based editor on an epaper device is a bit awkward. But it got the job done.