If you read the article, the police got a search warrant based on other evidence. The dog was subsequently used to locate the device which led to an arrest warrant.

The other comments pointing out that the shells are launched from a minimum safe distance to prevent the shells from making it into a populated area are good points - and I agree with those (except perhaps the operators themselves) . However, applying statistics is a little off the mark I think. The alignment of a few unlikely events is usually what causes unexpected accidents.

It's dangerous because the copter could have collided with the firework before it reached proper altitude. Subsequently, this could have altered it's trajectory such that it went somewhere it shouldn't (such as the spectators) or detonated at a lower altitude than it should. Maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy, but you don't add uncontrolled elements to a dangerous environment that is supposed to be highly controlled for public safety.

While it was cool, I can see how this could be considered dangerous. I don't know much about fireworks, but I can imagine that a collision between a UAV and the firework itself could potentially alter the trajectory of the firework leading it to go somewhere it shouldn't. You get enough senseless idiots flying these things around pyrotechnics, something bad will eventually happen.

Of course the usage hasn't changed. Takeoff and landings are the most exciting parts of a flight. You're either a) not yet gone crazy because of being stuck in a sardine can with crying children and big, fat stinky people or b) you're getting close to escape from the same crying kids and fat, stinky oafs. Why would an electronic device be more interesting?

I can't help but wonder how much formic acid would be generated to reduce the excess CO2 we create in any significant measure.

Yeah, you're probably right - most of them are there all the time. But it's likely they were there doing something not related to their 9 month "professor" salary. They could have been working on research funded by a grant, writing a book (make more money), writing papers/proposals (good for promotions), or teaching summer school (I'm guessing there is financial compensation for this, but who knows...probably depends on the school), etc.

Check out cra.org - it's a better representation of salary data for academia (comp. sci. specifically). Salaries are comparable with the private sector. Keep in mind that salaries in academia are typically for a 9-month period. Professors have 3 months to do what they wish (more or less). Your last comment depends a lot on the advisor and perhaps the culture in a given institution. Certainly what you describe exists; to what degree I don't know. But I also know plenty of profs who genuinely care about their students and do not abuse them in this manner.

A Comp. Sci. professor is not low paying position - especially at a top university. Some of these places pay more than the private sector. You also have the added bonus of possibly getting tenure.

No, that's not it at all. The article didn't say they *only* hire from those schools - it's just skewed that way and you have a better chance if you do get your PhD from one of those schools. I'd venture a guess that a top 10 school will probably consider an individual that has done some exceptional research as well. Furthermore, there are hundreds of other universities, the private sector, and consulting jobs for people that don't get their PhD from a top 10 university.

Certainly this will fill a niche market, but it's too bulky to replace tablets and too restricted to replace laptops. It seems like one of those products trying to cater to multiple consumer markets but ends up not being satisfactory in any of them.

In theory, they'd be immortal. They can wait if they're interested in what we're saying. That may be they real question...are they interested in what we think?

Need to explicitly add -Wunreachable-code. Annoyingly, "-Wall" doesn't catch this particular error (at least on the versions of gcc I've used).

It's remarkable how many organizations don't enable aggressive compiler warnings (or worse, ignore or disable them). One of the best practices I've learned is to turn on every warning that you possibly can and use the option that treats all warnings as compiler errors. The code from Apple may have been properly unit tested. However, if this was the result of a bad automated merge, unit tests are often not repeated on the resulting code base headed for system test. The GCC "-Wunreachable-code" option would have caught this type of error.

This, I think, is the general reason why CS isn't popular. CS *is* math and logic. It's also a difficult subject that not everyone can or wants to learn. You can't learn the awesome things in Computer Science without first understanding these core concepts. If you just want to make a pretty web site or fancy mobile app, you probably don't need a CS degree. The awesome stuff requires an understanding of the "nuts and bolts" (including sorting algorithms from the 70's).