THANK YOU for actual information. I've always been curious. Mod up parent, please.

There's no requirement that an ISP _accept_ and rebroadcast your anonymous traffic. Nobody has to listen to anonymous speech. Net neutrality says that the ISP should treat packets the same. It doesn't say anything about the protocols.

If you want to engage in anonymous protocol transmissions that are associated with things like spamming, you're going to need to find an ISP willing to accept that kind of thing on an anonymous basis. Otherwise, sign your work.

Accommodating anonymous usage often means blocking non-anonymous usage, somewhere along the stream, to deal with the sheer mass of anonymous crap that's out there.

All of the activities you mention are fine if not conducted anonymously. It's anonymity that's the problem. Given that, it makes sense to block certain anonymous behaviors. Want to not get blocked? Sign a key with a valid chain demonstrating you're willing to attach your name and/or company to your actions.

Yeah, that whole "release a viable, open source alternative to the JVM" was just nuts, wasn't it? You realize it's not 2004 any more, right? And that anti-Microsoft rants are hilariously out of date?

It's good for the open-source community to have more than one VM.

I somehow doubt you've ever interacted with De Icaza. If you had, you'd know he's a consummate professional with a view of how things should get done. And get them done, he does.

Happens there too. The one the cheeses me off the most: Tangier Dream (http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/tangier-dream/id342411025). Stellar ratings and reviews, dotted with occasional "it's crap". Nothing unusual there. But check out the OTHER reviews by those reviewer -- non-existent, or telling the reader to check out "Buddy Mix" or some other piece of crap. The way the scam works is to pick something popular and write a fake review on it, adding a sentence noting that the reviewer's _other_ favorite right now is Tangier Dream, or Buddy Mix, or whatever. "Karen Rosa" on Bruce Springsteen's Wrecking Ball: "...Speaking of cool rock tracks I just heard a great song I think everyone should check out 'Show Me A Little Leg' by Buddy Mix."...

"Karen Rosa" on Tangier Dream: "Wow...Wow...Wow!!! I think that says it all."

"Emily Love" on Kitaro's Digital Box Set: "I heard a new artist that has some asian feel to his music but also reminds me of Jarre and TD. The artist name is Eric Walker and his CD is Tangier Dream".

"Emily Love" on Tangier Dream: "Soothing and beautiful music..."

"Kristin Chan" on Digitalism's I Love You, Dude: "Also while I was looking for new music to hear I found Eric Walker and his cd Tangier Dream".

The turf war winner is "Ryan FarishFan", who has written six reviews on iTunes for a variety of albums. Each references Tangier Dream or Buddy Mix (on the same label).

Ick. I do see that at least a few of the reviews I bitched about to iTunes staff are gone now.

Clearly you have never heard of "I Can Walk Blindfolded Using The Force", a slick new app that hums when danger is near. Of course, if some bozo roots their phone and disables the danger sensors, you really can't expect ICWBUTF to work properly, can you? And boom, another user is dead. Long live Clu.

Let's say we are moving drone warfare towards cheaper, stupider, throwaway bots. We develop a series of dumb but statistically effective behaviors for these bots. We work on extending one-way range. Then we want to build them by the millions, in the name of achieving a different sort of "shock and awe".

Where would we go to build millions of these cheap, nasty things? Where are the factories and fabs capable of the job? Our trading partners across the pacific, where all our electronics come from...

Seems to me that if you modify the law to split the loss by default, both parties will be very well motivated to ensure that security procedures are properly followed. Follow-on litigation can take care of additional liability on either side for unreasonable conduct or procedures.

Allowing banks to write a contract that says they aren't liable doesn't make sense, but neither does providing blanket protection for business.

Agreed. Flips a switch, thinks he's a fucking hero.

Go build something like Google's distributed computation grid world-wide, "hero".

You know -- that thing you (hilariously) think you are like.

It was built by old dogs who are infinitely smarter and better than you will ever be.

And that makes me happy.

Social security cards are required for non-citizens with work authorizations from the INS. They do indicate that they are valid only with INS authorization, on the face.

Sounds like he's headed to spend the next five years as a pediatrician resident. What strikes me is this: After all the acceleration, does he end up simple having a professional career that's ten years longer than normal? Without some exceptional accomplishments along the way, it might not have been the best trade-off.

Goes right along with my vote for the best job title -- "Principal Thermal Engineer".

Any idea how many actual terrorists have actually been discovered by TSA personnel doing security inspections? Seems to me that the most likely answer is zero. You can then make the argument that the increased security procedures have scared off potential terrorists, I suppose.

There just doesn't seem to be any limit to how far ball-free politicians will go to make air travel appear to be "safer", while at the same time completely ignoring other modes of transportation that are equally dangerous (and equally pointless to monitor).

Seems to me that the main weakness in the system was the lack of lockable cockpit doors. That has been corrected.

Completely agree. I mean, what's more likely? Hotmail was hacked, or this guy's password was compromised? In addition to a third party web-site any device he used could have had a logger.

Not sure if hotmail offers two-factor id like gmail...

I guess the summary of his story is that he blames hotmail for his bad, multi-use, compromised password.

Nice prior art. I poked around and found http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/bpia2314.pdf, which describes pen-based gestures including drag-and-drop. I'm sure there are many more. The conceptual distance between pen and single-touch is very small.