Are we in a declared war, then?

For that matter, can you declare a war with al-Qaeda?

Not that I particularly object to this guy's death, but the legalities are potentially troubling.

A very large hammer

That's what I came in here to say.

But then, given the number of smartphones people are using, you could conceivably get an app to remap the softkeys on the phone's face into the proper alignment.

US Military pilots have other means of navigation than GPS. During times of actual conflict, these systems are used in order to prevent just these sorts of situations.

During peacetime, though, there's the possibility that the military's use of these resources could interfere with civilian flights--so unless there's an actual war going on in the area, they'll stick with the peacetime stuff.

That's not to say that these other methods are jam-proof--but anyone attempting to jam them will have to work hard enough to make themselves a target for an anti-radiation missile.

Even kids these days know not to feed the trolls.

With proper implementation, you could build chips that essentially are functional programs with this, and swap between programs as required. Fans of Haskell would likely realize some interesting benefits.

Perhaps the idea can be refined.

If Google were to partner with Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon and buy up the whole shebang, it could be reformatted into something more useful for everyone--say, some kind of not-for-profit venture (and hence not interested in competition, meaning that the smaller labels wouldn't be squashed) that focused on distributing music to people and money to the artists, and promoting the work of various artists of merit.

You know, like how the RIAA was originally supposed to be.

Providing standard, known licensing terms to everybody as part of the setup, so everyone could compete on the same ground, would probably do more to help the music industry than anything else.

The reason I suggest a 'partnership' of this sort is to prevent any monopolistic tendencies--regardless of the intent to not be evil, owning the vast majority of the music industry does more or less amount to a monopoly, and the SEC won't like that.

NaCl has some possibilities here. It offers a framework for more or less arbitrary x86 code inside a browser framework--so yes, you can have your 4X or your RPGs or even your FPSs inside a browser just fine.

Wasn't Microsoft Bob the source of "clippy"?

Perhaps if I make a rage-face at the computer, it'll run away and delete its system files...

If you have to ask why it did that, then you either need to learn more about how computers work or pay attention to what you're clicking.

So given that sousveillance (not a typo; look it up) has emerged as a counter to the prevelance of CCTV, is there a way to detect the use of XRays in public fora?

There's some not-too-terribly effective geiger counters out there, but I don't think those do XRays too terribly well. Film badges, while effective for measuring a daily dose, are hardly going to tell you where you got it from.

I'm fairly sure there were stories like this going around when email became popular, and people started using it to, y'know, communicate with each other.

Before that, cellphones--telephones--hell, I bet even the telegraph was implicated in adultery.

(WHAT.ARE.YOU.WEARING.STOP
SIX.SKIRTS.HOOPS.CRINOLINE.BUSTLE.CHEMISE.HAT.STOP
NO.GLOVES.YOU.NAUGHTY.WENCH.STOP)

And back before that, it was letters.

Anything people have ever used to communicate has been implicated in adultery, because that's sort of how to set up a liason, ain't it?

At least atmospheric-noise-derived one time pads will still be valid. Pity to have to go to that, though.

Never said I'd live to see it in person. Be nice to know the species, with adequate preparation, could conceivably continue.

\O'course, if some more research went into cryogenics...

I find this somewhat comforting. The Earth is becoming less and less 'special' with new worlds being found nearly every day now--worlds that may sustain life. Now it turns out that the universe is 'flawed' from our perspective, too. In a way, it's sort of optimistic--there's a way that it could be better, and the possibility arises that maybe it'd be possible to find a 'better' place.