I just can't believe how many such comments I'm seeing here. Where are the nerds?!

Selective breeding is based on positive feedback, where a human being selects the specimens with a desired trait and breeds them to get more of the same trait in the next generation. That's how you get house pets that do not stand a chance of survival in the wild.

What happened with the cockroaches is the same process conducted by mother nature; only the surviving ones can breed.

Now, here's the kicker for all of you high school dropouts. Both cases are essentially evolution according to the definition in wikipedia.

The equipment looks pretty lame, although I'm no expert at what is effective in avoiding surveillance or implication.

What I wonder is if the FSB thought this guy was a spy and found no evidence (which is likely), but wanted to expel him (which is reasonable), why would the FSB not plant some grotesquely obvious evidence during the arrest? Would the CIA complain? How would they prove anything?

It would be more likely the US would complain about an unjustified request for deportation, meanwhile this is an open and shut case.

Off topic.

I know I wouln't pay for triple-play, but if my wife got two of her friends to cooperate, I'm sure I wouldn't say no to having it for free.

It's sad, if so many actually do. 1984 was just barely fiction, when it was written. It was thinly veiled Stalinist USSR and many other places. Getting to a 1984 state of things is easier than you might imagine, and the moment you think it's absurd is the moment a bunch of goons will succeed in trapping you in just such a system.

I wouldn't draw conclusions based on some cameras beside the road, as covert surveillance is nothing new. What has me worried is ubiquitous surveillance in the hands of a few. The infrastructure for that is already in place. The battle for freedom is in the courtrooms and legistlatures. Slashdot is already on top of this one though.

As it stands, this story is uninteresting, unless technical details of this box were revealed to be unique in some way.

Driving straight is not the challenge. The failure mode is much more severe on a highway, and extreme conditions are probably just as difficult to manage for an autopilot as city traffic, if not more. For example, what does the AP do when
- the car hits a big pothole and perhaps blows a tire? There's too little time for a human to take over. Sometimes you need to make a choice, whether to stop abruptly or not.
- lane markings disappear because of prior construction? Construction detour?
- truck blows a tire in front of you? (happened to me twice)
- some animal/idiot wanders into the road? Hint: avoid is a better maneuver than hitting and holding the brakes. You don't want to stop dead on a highway.

Give me city traffic with a 50km/h speed limit any day.

Stephen Hawking is probably a good deal smarter than most of us. How quickly most folks here discount that and assume that he hasn't considered some basic and obvious fact or evaluated some assumption. 1000 years is a heck of a long time for a civilization. If this guy thinks on that scale, he's obviously not considering the constraints that are true for us today.

If you think that the will to live makes no difference then you are making no sense.
The self organizing nature of life has nothing to do with the belief and will to survive?

Slashdot is deteriorating by the day. The amount of shallow deriding remarks here is quickly approaching the internet status quo..

Basement-dwelling usually does not go hand-in-hand with making useful stuff. There's a certain rough nature to proper engineering and being coddled in a space without a proper shop and ventilation isn't conducive to creativity in the physical dimensions. The builders of our civilizations usually are not basement dwellers; even the introverted asperger types.

Mod up. It's important to remember that Vietnam doesn't live by the same social rules that we are used to. To assume that they do is dangerous.

There were replies to this above. JPII was actually quite progressive, as far as Popes go. Judging his progressiveness based solely on the way the church has handled homosexuality or contraception is quite a narrow view. Consider that popes before JPII didn't venture outside the Vatican very often, didn't address the faithful in their own language and didn't so openly help bring about the fall of the most dangerous and destructive evil empire in history (USSR: 30M+ intentionally starved citizens + countless political murders hell-bent on eliminating the thinking classes).
You're griping that he didn't react to gays quickly enough? Give him a break. The guy had more important things on his mind, like saving the friggin' world, where he had some ground-breaking achievements. You want to judge JPII? You must be out of your mind.

Phone 1: Hello, how do you do?
Phone 2: How do you do.
Phone 1: Shake?
Phone 2: Shake.
Phone 1: Let's get down to business.
Phone 2: Give it to me.
Phone 1: I just sent you an email, can you please check it?
Phone 2: Ah, got it. Wow, it's 10MB.
Phone 1: Yep.
Phone 2: Thanks, see you.

No bandwidth necessary. You can do it with text to voice and voice recognition and still fit 10MB in 20 seconds.

Distance.

So, if you want to sell to large orgs, you need to pay a license fee to some NGO. Sounds like a racket. Personally, I don't believe the current "green" computers are that green. If you think stuff gets recycled after you toss it, you might be in for a surprise. The only practical green computing move I've seen is one where instead of a 500W desktop I can do with a 60W laptop.

Has anyone tried to pry the battery from the case with a spatula? It might be quicker than unscrewing one and might not rupture it. Although it will break some wiring.