No it isn't. It's impossible to do it with better than 50% accuracy, which will make the man-in-the-middle very, very detectable. None of the useful information is ever sent using quantum bits, it's only one-time-pad style key. If a man-in-the-middle is detected, the key is not used and no secure information is breached. I mentioned it in an above post, but the best that a "hacker" could ever do is get a few random bits of information out of every hundred, even with this attack. That isn't enough information about the key to extract any information about the message.

Alice and Bob compare measurement results before send the message. There is theoretically no way to intercept and resend bits or eavesdrop without introducing errors.

Sonic booms smashing windows is an event mainly confined to the movies. It is possible for it to happen, but the craft would need to be flying insanely low -- Which is obviously illegal for a number of other reasons.

Our ears are incredibly sensitive instruments -- what seems like an excruciatingly loud noise is actually a rather low energy wave.

How do they handle boxing then? Does it have an explicit exemption? Or is it just a matter of ignoring it because it is more socially acceptable?

If sex offenders are mentally ill, which caused their behavior, and are still ill that way when their sentence is up, then they shouldn't be released. They probably shouldn't be in jail, either. They should be in a psychiatric jail.

The law in the US regarding sickness vs criminality is so screwed up that there's little chance people's rights will be protected when their illness creates either harm or risk to other people.

Yup. And neither of us have any experience (perceived or real) with the actual terrorism and sabotage. I bet a determined pro can come up with three dozen workable plans within an hour.

I disagree with the '97 ruling, but powers like this given to the Federal government disturb me even further.

They can put you away for good for being "sexually dangerous" but not for being a mortal danger to the lives of others?

Not that it makes it any more right, but it isn't the commerce clause. It's their second favorite misused clause.

Well, I and other non-American slashdotters are curious.....when Texas periodically calls to secede from the Union.....why isn't the rest of the country jumping up to help them along their way? ; )

iTunes on Windows is pretty badly coded, I know enough people who've had it either attempt to take over their media or in one extreme case, deleted the DVD-ROM drivers (don't ask, I have no idea how). Therefore as they require the program to access the store, it's 0-2 as far as access to decent mp3 stores goes.

Exactly! Oh, except Amazon won't let me pay for their mp3s because I don't live in America. Plus I run Windows so putting iTunes on it is one of the less clever things I could do.

This is what I don't understand about the whole debate. Why can't the browser vendors just build their tags to use the *built in* codecs that are available on the underlying platform? All users of (modern) Windows and Mac systems have these codecs. Built in. They are licensed to use them - full stop. They *paid for it* with their Windows & Mac OS license. Why do we need to even talk about re-licensing them? Just use the damn things, that are *already there*. If they are not there, show the user a nice page about software patents and how evil they are.

We don't argue about the fact that FireFox relies on the user having a graphics card that is probably patented from top to bottom to display the graphics FireFox renders. Or an audio card. Or an OS that can display windows etc. These all exist at the layer below the browser. So should the video codecs.

Just turn the monitors off, turn the iPad off and make it dark!!!!!

Citation needed. You're saying it's silly to investigate the likelihood of cell phones or microwaves causing cancer because you're more likely to get it from the sun. What is that based off of? Gut feelings about the relative likelihood?

In science and especially health-related scientific questions, you test a hypothesis, you don't just assume. At some point someone thought the question of "could the sun's rays be causing cancer" was silly because obviously the sun, giver of all life, could not be causing ill effects aside from some sunburn. We needed to investigate whether or not cell phones were causing cancer because we didn't actually know.

Furthermore, even if the sun did cause far more cancer than cell phones, you might want to take all the steps you can to avoid cancer, as most of us do. If cell phones -were- linked to cancer, you could stop using one and still reduce your threat of cancer, much like how we've taken steps to ensure we don't get skin cancer from UV rays.

While admittedly my cheap-ass netbook struggles a bit with videos, it's only the higher-def ones that trip it up. I don't use my netbook for "proper" TV watching (I have larger screened computers for that), and it handles YouTube et al just fine.

The more expensive ones certainly perform better, and I'd be willing to bet that you hit ones that can handle the full gamut long before that whole price difference is eroded.