They want to be provoked or attacked. I'd like to believe they wouldn't be stupid enough to pull the trigger, but this is the closest they've ever gotten.

The other thing that confuses the hell out of me is that we are so bent on preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons yet, NK has been working on this since the beginning of the Bush (duh-bya) terms and we have YET to take them very seriously. We are sort of taking them seriously but it's still nothing like what we do with Iran.

So, is it that we don't think they'll do it OR do we think they will and we can go in and flatten them and setup right next to China? But, isn't SK close enough for us?

Now to the paranoid stuff... Who's behind this? Is it an attempt to get another war started? We have a LOT of interest in that area, Japan, SK, Malaysia, Philippines, etc. What is the point of this for NK to do this? and why aren't we taking this as seriously as we do Iran?

We have seen in the media that NK is portrayed a whining baby with dangerous toys.

China probably doesn't want to do anything because they are so close but if they felt threatened they could just run over them and be that much closer to SK.

So again, what is the deal with this? I hope that it's just saber rattling and NK will back down but they've done it enough that if they back down again it will only prove to most of the other nations they are a joke.

Oh and another thought occurs, is this a diversion? Could they be in league with Iran and/or Syria? I know we as Americans tend to have the attention span of a goldfish but still... This is really a threat we shouldn't be totally scoffing at.

I know this didn't come out exactly as I intended but it's the culmination of a lot of thoughts I've been "noodling" around for a while about NK.

Thanks.

You can still patent genes???

The UltraViolet movement of the movie industry is an attempt to control your ownership of the DVD you purchased.

According to three of the articles I read the paths (vectors) of the inbound meteors are very different.

Stop the hysteria and read before you start freaking out.

But if they can show that virtual reality and games can have a positive affect on the mental state of people, you can't tell me the reverse isn't true.

this is what "We the PEOPLE" have ALLOWED to get this far!!!

The stupid and scared people(sheep) of this country(Animal Farm) who have sacrificed freedom for "security" and allowed the continual erosion of our rights.

It is reversible but it takes a movement to do it.

It's disgusting and I agree with the people here who are pissed off but it's the continued apathy of these same people who don't vote and don't run against the current congress who are just as much a part of the problem as the TSA dick heads.

The hero (heroin) is Andrea Abbott who fought the good fight. There should be more support for her and her legal battle than talking heads. There should be more people fighting the 1% who are the PIGs of the "Manor Farm".

Like the preps/jocks/etc. when I grew up didn't affect how arrogant I became after post-grad?

It's life. The dumb-asses who poorly treated the geeks and nerds (not just computer geeks and nerds) get to become the whips of arrogant intelligent people when they graduate.

The problem is how long it takes those to grow out of that phase of life. Hell it took many years to reduce my own arrogance in my field. I still struggle with it from time to time.

Watch The Big Bang Theory, it's a really good analogue.

It doesn't look like there is any local deformation of the Martian ground where that shiny object is.

So, to me it doesn't seem like it's something that "fell off" Curiosity nor it's landing contraptions. This doesn't mean that it's not but just saying it's rather odd that there are no "crater-like" rings or dirt moved around the shiny thing.

Granted a gust of the Martian atmosphere may have re-covered the "crater" but there would still be some sort of visible change in the soil around it.

I think it might be Martian "ore" of some sort.

Only now it's mutually assured destruction via patent law.

The only winners are lawyers, judges and monopolies.

The rest of us suffer the wounds and sores of stagnating technology and lack of innovation.

I knew I should have studied to be lawyer.

Sigh.

It took this long for people to realize that Apple has never been nothing more than a cut-throat Capitalist company?

Really? Steve Jobs was NEVER a Saint nor was he ever nothing more than Bill Gates (in his Microsoft days) with a "cool veneer".
I'm sorry to all you Apple distortion field loving fanboys and girls out there but Steve was ALWAYS a vicious business man.
The difference between Jobs and Gates (besides the obvious) is that Gates changed over time and became an amazing philanthropist. Even in Jobs’s dying days he was still cut throat, admirable if you’re a business person but that’s it.

I’m tired of the rhetoric. Apple is just another company that since it’s driving force (Steve) is gone has been reduced to pissing matches with patents.

I hope Samsung wins.

Yeah, but Steve Jobs always thought he was God's gift to technology so that was never an issue. ;-)

I bet Steve had a pretty big shock when he passed.

Make some insanely stupid comments of a technical nature and post it on /.

Sit back and watch your site get millions of hits.

So that's what they need the Sharks with freaking Laser beams for...

Extra Crispy!!!

Need a Jump??

Yeah, just keep drinking the apple flavored cool-aid.