I still don't understand why religion and science are always at each other's throats. Personally I see it as 2 halves of the same coin. If you actually read genesis with an objective mind it actually supports the theory of macro-evolution. God created man "from the dust of the earth," and the order of creation follows the believed evolutionary order. Also, everyone assumes a 100% accurate translation from the original old Hebrew. Language doesn't work that way. "Day" in the original language of genesis is actually a much more loose term and the actual translation depends heavily on context. It could very well mean just a period of time. A more accurate translation would be age or era. Zealots on both sides tend to discount all evidence that contradicts their personal belief system. This goes against all scientific principles along with the biblical admonition to "be humble." The conflicts between religion and science are imagined and played up by the radicals on both sides, and do more to harm humanity's search for our origins than help it.

Ok, in the real world what's going to happen is that they're going to keep both gas taxes and mileage taxes. So you have more bureaucracy, higher tax rates, and more invasion of privacy by keeping tabs on how far a person drives every year. And you know they're not going to just read odometers to get the data. It's the same thing as why even have license plates? Every vehicle has a unique identifier already built in (VIN).

I couldn't have summed up the modern corporate philosophy better if I had tried. When in doubt, sue. How dare they do something innovative or convenient to their customers?

Aside from the obvious legal challenges that are going to arise from this, the cost of enforcing this is going to be astronomical. Mileage counters would effectively have to be installed on every existing vehicle on the road. The cost of that alone is going to be insane. Plus, what's to keep me from removing said device as soon as I get my car home from the DMV? Or say that the device runs into mechanical problems and stops recording? Ignoring the legal and moral ramifications of this idea, it just doesn't seem practical to me.

I think this is where desktop linux is screwing up. Android is going to be the ipod for linux, or the community is going to screw it up. Personally I think the traditional PC is going to eventually fade into obscurity, or at least be transformed into a mix of your home entertainment center, tablet, and smartphone. I'm just remembering Scotty's line from ST4, "A keyboard? How quaint."

Ok, let me preface this by saying that I am a military man, and somewhat skilled in IT and computer systems. So I have something of a unique perspective on this debate. The problem is that information warfare goes beyond simply trying to secure your site/server against remote attacks. You can have the greatest armor in the world and someone will eventually breach it. True cyberwarfare involves both defense and offense, just like traditional warfare. The offensive portion is essentially black hat cracking. The problem is is that in this country, we've marginalized even the white and grey hats to such an extent that their natural distrust of authority and independent streaks are intensified to an even more ridiculous extent. Especially with the current trend of DRM and locked systems with corporations trying to sue you or throw you in jail when you actually do manage to take them apart to see how they tick. That either drives a young hacker to back off and do what he's told, in which case he loses the necessary mindset for cracking, or to give them the middle finger and try to skirt the laws and stay hidden. But this also drives them into a "you can't tell me what to do" mindset. The problem is that to someone like that, the military is the absolute last place they want to be. And, unlike your typical street thug who wants out of the life and the military becomes their last chance, the typical cyberthug has lots of legitimately marketable job skills. Therefore, they can chose to go the civilian route while doing their hobby on the side.
Also, the military, even today, is a very "Jock-centric" culture, for lack of a better word. Doesn't matter how good you can do your job, if you can't do X number of pushups in Y number of minutes, you'll never get promoted or even be able to re-enlist. Very often PT failures are even subjected to disciplinary action. While this might be fine for an infantry unit, it also serves to drive away the people who are more concerned about how a new OS is put together than how much they can bench. And even within the military, people in non-combat units are often looked down upon as not being "real soldiers." Basically, until the military mindset is adapted to foster a more geek-friendly culture, the people we truly need on the digital front lines will never be there.

I agree. We need to build colony bases centered around a central command facility. This "command center" should also be able to lift off enabling the colonists to evacuate in case of emergencies. The primary goal should be to first set up basic necessities and then proceed to conduct research into new technologies. Also, we would need to ensure that the base has ample amounts of harvesters in order to mine random blue crystal deposits and geysers spewing a green colored natural gas. The research should be geared toward military advancements in order to protect the colony from possible invasion by an insect like alien race, or possibly more intelligent life set on some religious crusade. I vote for battlecruisers...

All an app store is is a software repository that you pay for.

The US military has had a system in place like this for quite a while now. All currently serving military personnel are issued what's called a common access card (CAC). It doubles as our military ID. On it is a digital signature and you have to have one to log onto any DoD secure network. The digital signature is also often used to sign documents in lieu of the old pen to paper method. It works great until it gets damaged and you have to get a new one.

You're right, actually. The United States has always viewed the right to keep and bear arms as inherent. It is, in fact, written into our Bill of Rights, second only to the right of freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. The idea being to ensure that we have those most precious rights, and secondly to ensure we have the ability to defend them. America's system of government is based on a system of checks and balances. An armed citizenry is the final check against a tyrannical and runaway government. And before you say that farmers with hunting rifles can't hope to stand up to a well equipped army, look at Iraq and Afghanistan. They seem to be doing alright over there. Too many people on either side of this debate get overly emotional about the issue. Personally, I disagree with the belief that firearms and weapons cause violence. Outlawing weapons ensures that only the outlaws, and the government, will have weapons. Some will argue that the right to bear arms is an archaic notion. But in the grand scheme of things, 250 years isn't that long.

Note for the record: I actually do not own a personal firearm, and I am a serving member of the US Armed Forces.

How much you want to bet that this is going to bring up the whole law enforcement backdoor issue again? Where they try to get laws passed requiring all makers of encryption software to put in law enforcement backdoors so they can instantly get at your personal files. This issue seems to keep popping up whenever they run into problems like this. And, btw, what is the FBI doing going after a brazilian national anyway? Isn't that slightly out of their jurisdiction?

With USB, that's theoretically possible. Also, remember cell phones initially had the same issues. And look at how far they've come in the last 20 years.

With cloud computing and the massive proliferation of the Internet, and wireless networking, it seems we're moving back to the old terminal/server model for computing, albeit on a larger scale. If all your apps are run in a web browser, there's no need for high powered hardware, thereby making it less expensive for the end user. The only advantage desktops ever had was higher power than your average laptop, and less expensive. That's changed quite a bit in the last couple of years, and now you can buy a $300 laptop that is perfectly adequate for doing what most users use their computers for. About the only thing desktops are really good for anymore is high powered gaming rigs. And eventually even that is going to change. I fear the desktop is going to go the way of the old landline wall telephone. Some people will hold onto them, but by and large the population is going to all end up with laptops and netbooks.

I really don't have a problem with this. We've already been to the moon several times and have found that it is, in fact, a giant rock. I really see no reason to go there again without some kind of purpose in mind. For example, constructing some kind of permanent base there.

And this right here is the problem. When a for profit corporation engenders more trust than our supposedly representative government. Anyone else see a problem with this?