Rep. Alan Grayson on the NSA: American As Apple Spy

Seems to me that wifi-enabling the light switch would be more useful and cost-effective (for most people) than doing the same to the bulb.

Hopefully he doesn't fall into the "been here, done that" groove that so many older action hero actors seem to fall into (I'm looking at you, Bruce Willis). It's not exciting to watch. Make it a fresh challenge and put your soul into it.

If the NSA don't tell people what they're capable of or their algorithms, the problem space for criminals becomes much larger than if they know they have to avoid doing X, Y, and Z in order to avoid getting caught. I'm not trying to defend this huge spying dragnet, but perhaps that's part of the thinking behind keeping it so secret. The IRS doesn't publish its algorithms to find tax cheats, either, otherwise it would be much easier to get away with it. You could call that security through obscurity, I suppose, so maybe there's a way to improve security by allowing wider scrutiny, identifying loopholes and closing them.

How about forced declassification of any policy/program involving more than, say, 5000 people. That way actions on targetted individuals stay secret but actions on a populace (local or foreign) must be made known.

Someone's got their Microsoft hate-on with this "rape joke" insinuation. They should be sued for slander and/or defamation of character.

6,199,076 and 8,112,504

Just because a private company was smart enough to protect its own business by investing in appropriate infrastructure for its chosen location doesn't mean the rest of the area (let alone all us yankees) will follow suit.

Power, Internet connections, food, water. They've built a castle (complete with inner walls!) and a tornado is providing the siege. How long can they last?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7576357/Muslim-staff-escape-NHS-hygiene-rule.html Pretty outrageous, but if they change their sleeves/gloves religiously, it's possible they will actually be cleaner than the doctors and nurses who only wash their hands 30% of the time.

I've been tempted to ask a doctor whether he's washed his hands but that seems a little like criticizing the chef who is going to cook your meal. Maybe he'll spit in your food.

Just an anecdote, but I've found that Civilization Revolutions crashes much more often on PS3 than on XBox. Porting between systems takes effort and a lot of testing, even if you can target their CPU and compile the code. There could be different race conditions triggered, a bug in a piece of hardware uncovered, etc..

The Multiverse uses one tab per universe.

This year I've heard 3 people I know say in passing "so much for global warming" because of the abnormally cold weather we're getting this season. Can someone offer a short and simple explanation for why abnormally cold weather doesn't mean "global warming is a myth"?

Some people can turn a lemon into lemonade. Some can leave the lemon alone. Others turn a lemon into a rotting, worm-infested lemon, like it seems this guy has.

There are tons of inequities in the justice system. People who steal money without hurting anyone get 20 years and people who murder get 5. It's always been stupid.

I wonder how many homes are on one 'collector': bchydro