Bread.

Nice nickname you got there. Wonder where the inspiration came from. Achem, now, on to the commentary!

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Good people are being killed today, with the regular guns, that the bad guys are taking away from them and then shooting them with it.

Here's the problem with your argument: You're demanding absolute reliability, which is an impossible standard even for the guns that exist today. If it misfires, jams, or any one of a handful of other failure conditions, it's a liability. Yet these risks have been accepted because the benefits outweigh the risks.

And that's where you went horribly wrong in your line of thinking: You didn't stop and consider that the goal wasn't perfection, and impossible goal even with futuristic technology from the year 2999. What you need to consider is whether the change reduces risk and/or improves the utility of the device.

Let's say out of 1000 times an officer draws his or her weapon, they have it taken from them by force 20 times and used against them. Now let's say we have a device that's 99.99% effective in eliminating that risk, but can fail and render the gun inoperative 1 out of every 1000 times the officer tries to use the weapon. Do we use the device?

Of course we do. We've reduced the risk from 2% to 0.1%. I understand the emotional need behind you wanting it to be as reliable as possible and the idea of a device that could prevent you from using it at a critical moment is fear-inducing, but statistically, it's far more likely to save a life than cost one.

These wheels aren't like your normal car wheels. The very thin atmosphere means that the soil is more like lunar soil than Earth soil. Atmospheric erosion tends to smooth out sand particulate so it has a rounder shape -- it is less sharp. Lunar soil is incredibly corrosive. Think of all the problems our troops had operating in Iraq with their equipment, now multiply that by a hundred. It's like walking on microscopic needles. Martian soil isn't quite as bad, thanks to having had an atmosphere at one point, and retains a minimal one now, but it's still inhospitable.

The rover was designed with multiple wheel-sets to operate independently, and the wheels themselves designed to wear somewhat more gracefully in the face of these obstacles. But yes, they're going to look ugly fast.

... As apparently North America is part of the European Union? :/

It's quite common as well for doctors to tell patients to shove it. I have a diagnosis of both ADHD and Asperger's (btw, that's not what they're calling it now) and getting medication is exceptionally difficult, especially for anxiety. You don't mention this, but anxiety has such a high comorbidity with ASD that it's practically unheard of to find someone without it. The reason for this is those drug-seeking parents and young adults who want mind-enhancing drugs or their precious little snowflake to stop tearing the house apart and just veg out in front of the television. Parenting, lulz -- Disney raises our kids today.

So it's not that I disagree with your assessment, but a clinical diagnosis, confirmed with neurological testing, is highly effective at screening out those segments of the population. And while it is a problem, it is still uncommon -- most people who present with ADHD or ASD symptoms have a bona-fide medical condition. Only a small fraction of patients are trying to abuse the system. Unfortunately, just as with pain medication, the political fallout and disinformation spread by well-meaning but lacking any medical certification people such as yourself only contribute to the problem of real patients, with real problems, getting help.

On a different note; I don't think this German IT firm is seeking autistic workers because they're better. They're seeking them because they're vulnerable adults without the capacity to protect themselves from exploitative labor practices. And programming, contract work -- much of our field is exploitative in nature and one must be assertive, sometimes even aggressive, in pushing back. I've had to teach my aspie friends how to assert themselves on this sort of thing, because they genuinely can't see it. They are generally very trusting people; They don't see ulterior motives. It's part of the condition -- they're so intellectual they take everything at face value or literally.

In this field... it's a recipe for disaster. Contrary to what this firm and many of the general public believe: IT is not a cash cow, nor is it glamorous work. Working with computers is emotionally draining, and long hours can be physically demanding. That attention to detail that's so sought after may be great for programming, but it's absolutely horrid when you have a team of people all like that; There's a reason we all have different skillsets and personalities -- too much of any one thing on a team leaves critical weaknesses in thinking that can lead to disaster.

... Like paying back your government loans instead of yelling "Too big to fail! ahahahaaha..." and running to some tropical island to take daily wealth showers and drink out of gold-lined cups. :/ They should be commended... it's a decidedly unamerican approach to business. Fiscal responsibility? It's like an F-word in Congress.

Anyone who ever looked at this already knew this. Obama is about as conservative as anything the Republicans can get into the presidential election, with a few twists thrown in that move him slightly left of the standard republican.

The fact that Obama was the most liberal politician that could get elected to the national office should tell actual leftists/socialists/liberals exactly what they're fighting against.

For the record, I'm ok with with Obama being fairly conservative. I can live with his brand of conservatism, even if it doesn't exactly tickle my fancy. Do I wish that he'd actually be a liberal? Sure, but then I'd have to live with McCain/ Palin and Romney/Ryan as presidents. It's the cost of living in the US.

TFA said nothing of his religion, and the guy didn't look Arabic. So WTF does the tenets of Islam have to do with it?

I'm offtopic here (wish the 'no bonus' buttons worked), but I just wanted to say that you fellows have my thanks. IMO you're the most important of all city employees, and I say that as the son of a retired lineman that worked for CWLP (the city owns the electric company here). I've had need of paramedics more than once and you fellows do great work. Thank you.

And you're right about perception, one bad apple does spoil the whole barrel.

Of course it can, and it doesn't need a supercomputer. A competent programmer could do it with a 386.

It's even noticeable when you have sex with another partner who has a different PH.

I can only imagine the blank looks on the faces of Slashdot users reading that sentence.

Arthur Prysock.

Linking to Prysock gives you credibility.

Linking to a Fox News poll does not. Do I have to remind you just how far off Fox's polls have been when it comes to Obama?

This is a moral discussion.

it's worth noting that what Apple does is probably considered morally acceptable by Apple. Why should I give the original poster's opinion on moral acceptability any more weight than Apple's?

If you were to explain exactly what Apple has done to 100 Americans chosen randomly from the phone book, I bet you'd get 90-plus to say that Apple was acting immorally.

Apple doesn't have a defined share of taxes.

They kind of do. It's called the "corporate tax rate". Further, on the moral side, at least you could say that Apple's share of taxes should be enough to cover the expense that the US government goes through to protect Apple's patents, no? Given the number of government organizations that are charged with the enforcement of intellectual property (everyone from Customs, Dept of Defense, CIA, FBI, State Department, Justice Department, etc), we can come up with a number of what the government is giving Apple directly. You don't believe Apple should be getting welfare do you? Or do you? And that doesn't even include the use of the infrastructure and the legal system (of which Apple makes very profitable use).

The problem with my "representation" is that it is diluted by a lot of other people.

So, you admit that you don't like the American system of government and the Constitution. It's good that we get that out of the way because now we're actually having an honest discussion.

I'll just leave this here:

http://www.ibtimes.com/obama-approval-rating-not-suffering-benghazi-irs-ap-scandals-cnn-poll-1269577

Robotic maintenance was considered for SAGE in the 1950s. Robots were never built for that, but the SAGE racks were designed with easy-to-handle plug-in rack modules with all connections on the back.

(Vacuum tube failure wasn't a major operational problem with vacuum tube computers. For the UNIVAC I, normal procedure was to power up the machine and set it to 10% overvoltage mode for 10 minutes. This would burn out any tubes near failure. Those were replaced, and the machine would then run for the rest of the day without another tube problem. Since the machine had a dual CPU for self-checking, any problem would cause an immediate stop.)