For all of its flaws, that odd artifact of Richard Gere's film career, The Mothman Prophecies had a couple insightful things to say about how a truly alien species would react to us. Both of them were in the form of a dialogue with the author of the book on which the film was based. They went:

Richard Gere: But they're more advanced than we are: why don't they just explain themselves?
Author: You're more advanced than a cockroach; you ever try to explain yourself to one of them?

Richard Gere: but what do they want?
Author: [something something] and their motives are not human.

I think that's going to be the truest indicator of alien intelligences: we won't even understand them on a basic psychological level, let alone be able to have debates and conversations and cheesy expositional dialogue with them.

I call dibs on the weird artifact that grants wishes. You get +1 for super-obscure soviet sci-fi literary references.

So, does this one, like the previous, require an always-on Internet connection to Blizzard's authentication servers, the ones that are tied to all their games? Because I really don't like the idea of not being able to play a single-player game just because some recent update to WoW is overloading their servers.

Well, I'll concede confusing "trademark" and "copyright," but it's not as easy as you imply: businesses may not refer to the game unless they have rights to do so (so, for example, a bar cannot say "come watch the [big game] on our flatscreens!" even though doing so in no way implies endorsement. So, the US military saying "we're broadcasting the [big game] down to our submarines, so our submariners can watch it" might indeed cause problems.

I'll also concede: I mostly just want to see the NFL file a lawsuit against the US military for trademark infringement.

FTFY. The combination of the words "The," "Super," and "Bowl" is copyrighted by the NFL: anyone not paying royalties is commiting copyright violation by using it (which is why everybody refers ambiguously to "the big game").

/OT-rant

They're going to increase the profitability of manufacturing in the US by eliminating most of the costs of labor, thereby allowing more of the means of production to remain under the control -- and work to the benefit -- of capital.

I really can't imagine a move like this being unpopular and/or economically suicidal in any way whatsoever. Nope.

Every computing/programming abstraction is improved by reference to a bunny metaphor. This is true facts.

Well, in the sense that the Republican party - or, more to the point, the supply-siders and teabaggers - have the dismantling or the New Deal, and the managed decline of the federal government as an explicit platform of their domestic policy. Since, in their argument, goverment is inherently dysfunctional and harmful, it really doesn't matter *how* they burn it down, so long as the objective is achieved.

However, I'd agree with you to the extent that the only substantial discussion going on right now in Washington is how fast and drastically social spending is to be slashed, since the Democrats have completely abandoned their core principles (namely, that government plays a positive role in the well-being of a society) in favor of the Republican position.

The problem with the sequestration deal is that it was essentially a suicide pact: if Congress can't agree to a more-balanced budget, then savage austerity measures take effect, crippling government functioning across the board.

That's great as a motivator, except that one party is motivated by an ideology that actually wants that kind of austerity. In short: it's not a very good suicide pact if one side already has a death wish.

Also, don't worry about it being a mutual self-immolation: the Republicans will demand that only social spending (and not military) gets cut, and the Democrats will cave at the last minute in the name of compromise.

whoops. I got Dotcom mixed up with, uh, Julian Assange (who I believe is an AU citizen, yes?). I'll just go back to nursing this booze now.

That's where the FBI's case is going to go. Everything I've read tells me that the FBI, their Australian exponents, and the other parties involved broke too many regs to be able to bring a real case against Megaupload. This is just one more nail in the coffin.

... is dog-whistle for "I really wish I could get away with being open about my racism/sexism/homophobia/whatever." You should really avoid hiring those people, if that's what you really mean. If you just mean "Yo, we shouldn't knock qualified applicants off the list for a pot bust ten years ago," then maybe you're on to something.

Well, I'm not entirely sure of that. For example: I do audio work, and video work, and like gaming, and compile my own software. All of those things take a robust desktop architecture to do well. You're not really suggesting that I'd switch to a tablet running BOINC in the background 24/7 while I process high-def audio files, are you?

So let's discuss alternatives. Say AMD goes down. What are my options as a consumer in, say, five years if I want to avoid Intel, but want all the horsepower I can get my hands on for a desktop workstation? I really don't thing it's going to be Qualcomm, if they're targeting low-wattage mobile devices. Are there any other CPU manufacturers who are positioned to step into that market?

fo reals, though. Where I live (Germany) *nobody* is selling capped internet. Providers are in bidding wars to offer faster and cheaper internet than the other guy. I get a real rate of about 4.5MB down/150k up, with no monthly limits beyond that, for €20 a month. My cell phone plan is the cheapest I could get, and it doesn't cap, either (but throttles after 50MB a month), and it costs €10 a month.

This article needs to be re-summarized to "broadband service in the US is slowly but steadily regressing."