http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?20677-Vaunted-Patriot-Missile-Has-a-Friendly-Fire-Failing .... But after the war, congressional and independent analyses concluded that the Patriot may actually have missed every Scud it targeted....

The patriot missile had a beginner level programmer's bug in it which caused it to miss every scud:

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~downing/papers/PatriotB1992.pdf

An old man once told me that age and treachery will always trump youth and skill...

But this is exactly what happened:

http://newsbizarre.com/2009/04/giacchino-giuliani-italian-predicted.html

An Italian scientist, Giacchino Giuliani says he tried to warm the people in the earthquake devestated city of L'Aquila that a massive disaster was imminent only to be told he was an "imbecile".

An alarmed Giacchino Giuliani reportedly strapped loudspeakers to cars and vans and drove around the city in late March warning people that an earthquake was imminent due to increased activity involving radon gas.

"There are people who must apologize to me, and they must have the weight of what occurred on their conscience," Giacchino Giuliani said.

Observations of underground water before Sundy nights earthquake were also observed by Giacchino Giuliani but the man employed by a physics institute at Gran Sasso said he felt helpless as he knew Italian police would arrest him for further scare mongering.

And this is why only Homeland security should be allowed to edit your /etc/hosts file!

--jeffk++

Most likely no one DID connect a computer that controls industrial machinery to the internet.

They probably connected a DIFFERENT computer on the same network to the internet.

Apple already "innovated" that size in the Newton back in 1993: https://www.msu.edu/~luckie/gallery/mp100.htm

But I can't figure out the exact size of the screen - all the old articles just show pixel counts.

--jeffk++

I haven't tried the OpenRISC cpu but apparently it takes more gates than the MicroBlaze soft-cpu that Xilinx provides. BTW you can already run linux on the Microblaze in many Xilinx devices; see my github repo: https://github.com/jdkoftinoff/mb-linux-msli

--jeffk++

Where can I get an OpenRISC CPU and a motherboard that will support it, and how much do they cost compared to Intel/AMD CPUs of similar performance?

OpenRisc is a soft-cpu, defined in the Verilog language, suitable for implementing in many different types of FPGA's of varying price/performance/power.
Here is one source for boards of all types:

• Xilinx Boards and Kits

--jeffk++

How much power does the 1.7 Ghz P4 system require vs the Kal-El Quad Core ARM at 1.0 Ghz?

Everything they may replace it with is worse...

Also relevant photos showing the airplane was damaged before impact: missing elevator

Another photo series: impact

--jeffk++

Here are some interesting photos which may show that there was mechanical failure: Elevator trim tab missing

Another scary series of photos: Impact

--jeffk++

You know, all the device needs to do is LOOK like how a dangerous device might look like to an untrained individual. Then the person would wave it around and threaten things. Also, why does it need to be looking like an improvised explosive device? it could be looking like an improvised GPS/Radar/Radio/Cockpit jammer.

Rule #1 in first year engineering courses should be "Don't take your prototype on an airplane"

--jeffk++

No, it means when a your anti-theft device is compromised via a hack and your care is stolen, the insurance company will not believe you and will tell you that you are trying to defraud the insurance company by faking a theft - since the anti-theft device is, by their analysis, "unbreakable". There is already precedence for this.

--jeffk++