Which means absolutely nothing because you can't actually use any of that firepower in any conflict short of "Civilization as we know it is coming to an end." That's not to dispute the rest of your points, which are mostly valid, but let us leave the SSBN out of the calculation of modern naval firepower. They have a specific mission: deterrence. The day they are called upon to loft their birds is the day that mission has failed.

There is an argument to be made that we need more ships, particularly attack submarines and surface combatants. The former will prove decisive in any conflict with the PRC and the latter are needed for missile defense, amongst other missions. Unfortunately most of the shipbuilding budget is going to the Gerald Ford CVNs while the looming Ohio replacement is going to consume billions more. Both are needed at the end of the day, so unless we're going to throw more money at the Navy I'm not sure what the solution is. I'd opt for throwing more money at them, since it takes decades to build a modern Navy, and it can't be used (as easily) for interventionist adventures in the same manner as a standing army....

First of all there is no 'hyper inflation' in Russia. Hyper inflation is not just 50% or 100% inflation, hyperinflation is thousands percent and more. This is just kids play, compared to hyperinflation.

Secondly there are markets in Russia, people buy and sell products and commodities and labour and while there are regulations, actually they are much lower than regulations in countries like the USA. So store owners who paid their money for their stock respond to the market conditions by raising prices, that's market dictated behaviour and not government regulated behaviour (though this behaviour is a response to a government created problem).

The point is your example with a bakery is absolutely false, a bakery will change prices if the market forces dictate it so.

+1 hilarious.

Actually, I do. Unlike you I know how to do research.

The kernel and friends manage hotplug devices quite nicely.
I take that to mean you want a clickity-click GUI, so you can see what the system has already detected and handled properly for you, and do things without needing to understand what you're doing. If that's what you're looking for, hardinfo is a well-known option. Your choice of graphical desktop environment probably has one it provides by default as well. Look under "System" or similar.

Well THAT is fucking offensive, the way you said "codifying" it sounded like "codpiece".

Yes? Well then...

Baldric... Bring me... The Black Russian!

Needless to say, by disagreeing, I mark myself as an un-person.

Needless, pointless, and untrue. Someone else may so choose to regard you; you, however, are not that at all, and anyone who takes the attitude that you are, as you put it, an "unperson", is solely responsible for that attitude. You're still you, just as worthy as ever.

Consider the source, soldier on. Defy invalid social norms.

Some things are just not done, and are socially unacceptable this is one of them.

Socially unacceptable is one thing. And the appropriate response from you when faced with something you identify as such is also social: adjust your respect, relationship(s) and commentary according to the social cues you are given.

Relying on coercion and/or violence exerted by your government so you can assure that the general social environment is only populated by speech you approve of is something else entirely. It reeks of abject failure on your part, and on the part of your legislators. Such government-based active repression is one of the very few things that is more despicable than intentionally offensive speech presented without even a suggestion of humor.

> But as an athiest, my very existence is 'offensive' to muslims.

I'm an atheist as well. And I am aware that some Muslims proactively take offense because of my lack of belief.

However, you should be aware that of the five pillars of Islam, none say or imply one word about "hating atheists." That's just crap out of the Koran, which is a mish-mosh of uncorrelated and unordered quotes. Only fanatics take the violent sections of the Koran seriously. Not that there aren't enough fanatics to go around, of course.

> Are you suggesting that I should commit suicide to appease the Muslims?

Not in the least. I wasn't suggesting anyone should commit suicide, or in any way alter who or what they are. These are not things that give offense. You have not chosen to be atheist in order to give offense, have you? I presume you're atheist because you find that to be a comfortable state of mind, one that correlates well with what you observe of the world around you. Nothing to do with giving offense at all. I'm not wrong, am I? If I am, please let me know... that's a whole 'nuther bag of wolverines.

Simply being (existing as) atheist is not giving offense. That is the same as the case where someone is simply "being atheist" or "being Christian" or "being Muslim" or "being a rock collector."

When such provokes an "offended" response, we are merely seeing examples of the common practice by muddy thinkers of taking offense for any, or no, sane reason...

> Go Fuck Yourself ...Just as you have here. Brilliant to have so cleverly put yourself in exactly the same unreasonable club with those nasty, hateful, offended Islamists, isn't it? :)

Because that's where your taxes will go. How much of your taxes go to people being the victim of identity theft? None. How many times does the FBI/NSA/CIA get involved when one of our citizens' bank account is emptied by hackers? Never.

But if a corporation like Sony gets hacked or the banks get stolen from (even though they can simply restore their databases back to reflect the original amounts afterwards) then there will be a large investigation and the POTUS will get involved etc etc.

From the articles (if they're true), they are treated like rock stars in their country and make more than most people in their country. It doesn't matter how much you make on a world-scale, if I move to Africa with my 'wealth' even though I wouldn't survive more than a few months in the West before being broke, I could probably live there for a decade without working.

What matters is not if an app can tell where you are in the store, but if and when the app shares that information with a server. I don't care what information an application collects, if the data stays in-app.

Of course the great likelihood is that an app that collects that information will probably send that to a server, at the very least to query for specifics around you... but a smart app developer could provide a privacy option for users while still gaining benefit from iBeacons and the like.