This may have an appearance of being updated. But by what and by whom? It is obvious that if a "Windows OS" costs USD 0.- it is not the Windows as we know it.

One should realize that there are a lot "pirated" Windows OS installations in Russia. I would guess more than 90%.

These PCs do not have Windows Update, since the OS is not authentic. And consequently hoards of different viruses, trojans and bot-networks run on them. The masters of these malicious networks could mount cyber activity from the IPs' of unsuspecting owners.

I would advise a Pentagon delegation to visit a Russian megalopolis for a cultural exchange trip and learn the real situation on the ground, before retaliating with cyber campaigns on poor people.

We may dislike or like E.Snowden. But there is no denial, there is the world Before Snowden and After Snowden. I am not sure which one is better, the same as the Dark Ages could be not better than Pax Romana. But that is what happened, and it is impossible to put toothpaste back into the tube.

China and Russia adopted the metric systems still in the early 20th century. Printing press, periodical system of elements, space flight, and many other significant humanity-scale scientific and engineering breakthroughs were made in those parts.

Why there are no photos of the found tools in the article? Do not archeologists have a photo-camera, or at least smartphone with a camera?

Or a nature of gravity is understood.

<quote>... until something like a space elevator comes along....</quote>

I looked up the shipwrecks statistics of recent years and I do not see that there is an issue with the hull strength.

Besides, the modular design could be as rigid and strong as necessary. Instead of torch cutting the old ships they could be disassembled, and the separate modules could be used as houses. In about the same way as old shipping containers are already being used in construction.

I saw how they break ships in a documentary. It is not a ecologically safe process. There is a lot of oxy-fuel cutting, burning, dumping, etc.

I watched and thought: "This is wrong. Why not use some module architecture?"

Ship breaking is very tedious process:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_breaking

Why no to build-in capabilities for a ship to break itself easily?

You are right. But there is also a good reason in the Commerce Secretary's position.

Here is the short paper by Jospeh Reagle "Free as in sexist. Free Culture and the Gender Gap" :

http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4291/3381
mirror:
http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4291/3381#author

Very interesting.

The journalist was there and made only these two dark small close-up photos? And that's it?

Was it a problem to shoot 7 - 10 HD photos from different viewpoints at this great excavation site and publish them together with the text?

Still he was called terrible, not awesome. And he was indeed in a way terrible from today's viewpoint, but no more terrible than Charles IX.

I do not want leave an impression that I am trying to bash the USA. Far from that. There are similar problems with border crossings everywhere. Take Mediterranean Sea, or the English Channel, etc.

A lot of human tragedies are going on there right now. But they will not attract so much attention as the Berlin Wall crossings' tragedies.

I heard on the radio that there is a racial issue in this problem too.

But I do not know exact statistics about the reasons why people are in prisons. And it was not my point.

What I wanted to say is that by pure political reasons some figures are given much more importance than the others.

For instance, 136 people died while crossing Berlin Wall, we all know it. And I regret it, certainly. Even one was one too many.

But hundreds of people die each year on the Mexican-US border. And nobody even know about it. And does not want to know. I regret it too. And I hope that it will change.

But again it was not my point. I am talking about political influence on historical science.