What support does it need to add? It should be acting exactly like a generic x86 machine; the new OS should be written to support it as a matter of course.

I mean, sure, the fancy stuff (mouse pointer integration, cut-and-paste between VM and host, etc.) are nice, but it's not as if they're necessary.

It's really quite trivial on a mechanical level to convert literally any gasoline vehicle to run on methane. They get less mileage per unit of mass, but the output is of course vastly cleaner, the crankcase lubricant lasts longer, and so on. The fuel can be stored in relatively inexpensive tanks compared to hydrogen, or of course compared to the energy density of batteries. Propane conversions are common in off-roading. Range becomes an issue, but I see a lot of Jeeps with conversions up here in the sticks. Gas will work at any right-side-up angle even when the tank is mostly empty, unlike gasoline.

Or, of course, you can use the fischer-tropsch process to turn the methane into actual gasoline and not have to bother converting the vehicles.

So, does additional patent infringement occur when those children reproduce?

What if instead of humans, they were some other species and a third-party human caused them to reproduce -- would that third party human be liable?

Normally, a legal remedy for claims of patent infringement is for the infringing party to cease infringing. Would that be ethical -- or even possible (if, for example, the modified organisms escaped into the wild) -- in this situation?

And if you want a version of Android that doesn't do this -- that actually does try to reverse-engineer the binary blobs instead -- then you want to support Replicant (although it works on fewer devices than Cyanogenmod right now).

So tell whoever manages the LibreOffice pkgsrc package to get his ass in gear. (Or if there isn't such a package, get your ass in gear making one!)

Tell me, do you personally change your own locks and personally cut the corresponding keys

I do. All it takes is a screwdriver, you know. Some of the newer locks (e.g. Kwikset SmartKey) are even designed to be easily re-keyed by the owner.

I remember back on 2004. My girlfriend in Japan had 100/100Mb fibre and it cost her about ã20/month.

I don't believe you (about the "girlfriend" part, not the "fiber" part).

Yeah, but voters are getting big government anyway! It's just that it's the even worse kind of big government -- the kind that spends all its money unaccountably on the military-industrial complex (and increasingly, the prison-industrial complex) instead of providing services to constituents.

There are more than two parties. The trick is that you have to care about them at the local level first in order for them to become relevant at the national level later.

How'd you get a blank post past the lameness filter?

My point is that the "year of the Linux desktop" won't be because of "normal" Linux, but rather Chrome OS.

The guru knows the novice knows more than the corporate enterprise architect, but won't let on lest the novice get a more-swelled head.

Now, I grant you that most an entire generation having grown up with the idea that it's ok to steal IP, and the toxic idiocy of the "information wants to be free" crowd additionally muddying the waters, and the proliferation of people who just can't seem to keep their word, one might have reason to be cynical about this.

You've gone off the rails here. The "information wants to be free" crowd thinks as such precisely because information naturally (i.e., without the interference of law) is in the Public Domain to begin with. Creating a strawman argument claiming that they'd somehow twist that position to justify stealing from the Public Domain is not only offensive, but patently absurd.

I for one hope we get the answer to this poll soon. There is an astronomical phenomenon recently in the news called Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). Most astrophysicists think these are probably neutron stars collapsing into black holes or other exotic stellar phenomenon, but there is also speculation they are beacon signals from extragalactic civilizations. Of course Pulsars were called LGMs at for “Little Green Men” at first.

FBRs are probably not Benford Beasons, but it seems likely to me our first detection of ETI will be from non-continuous sources and will slowly build to the certainty they are ETI-signals only after much additional study, hypothesis, and building of specialized instruments to study them.

It will be interesting to see how the general public reacts as the certainty slowly builds.