That's not an accurate analogy. It would be more accurate to say the government wants a copy of the key to your house. Not only that, but they're not responsible for what happens to your stuff and your family if that key is stolen, copied from them, or misused by someone working for them. They also plan to use it, in secret, without your knowledge. A government agent will be in your house planting cameras and microphones, using the key you provided.

Still okay with that?

I'm not even concerned about that. If the US Government has the key, that alone is bad enough. This is the same government that has systematically attacked developers as a group. Not terrorists. Software developers. They've launched the digital equivalent of a drone strike on users of this very site. They've developed malware that looks like developer tools. Coincidently, just such malware showed up to attack Chinese developers.

I am just gob smacked that Obama can show up at SXSW for any other reason than to apologize to us. He wants us to dig our own mass graves. Here is your shovel developer. Start digging.

Doesn't Chrome ship pre-installed with Adobe Flash?

I don't see it that way at all. I find that the maintainers are there because the code is useful to them. It's far easier to take what's there and fix a few bugs than start a whole new version just for the sake of having written it yourself.

Sometimes starting a project is simply implementing something from one language in another. The 'starter' is only interested in getting it to the "good enough" stage that he can use it. I don't consider that cool at all. That's just work. And the starter is just a porter. I'd rather have an existing library that does what I want to do in my language.

Starting a project can happen for more reasons than, "Look at me! I'm reinventing the wheel!" Sometimes, there's one bug that simply can't be fixed in an existing implementation, because it would break literally all the code. Take the '+' operator, for instance. What's 100 + 100? -56 of course! You can't just fix overflow in C or Java or whatever. You have to start something from scratch that does things differently.

ca-se-et-te-ta-pe

12 letters :)

It could be so much more fun than this though. Think about it. They are MAILING the letters. Anyone can stick something in the mail. So drive your car down prostitute lane until you get one on purpose. Once you get one, scan, shop, print, mail to all the people you don't like. Hell, get one just to put together a web app and charge $5 to send them. Just enter a name and address of an LA resident. Web app will handle the rest.

Not really, but I'm sure there's nothing I can say to convince you otherwise.

Is there any way to get a download of /. comments along with moderations? It could be an interesting way to train machine learning to recognize forum trolls.

It's only expensive if you buy it there :) Go to an Asian grocery and look near the tofu in the fridge. You'll probably find the Konnyaku there. It comes as noodles or in a brick that you slice. It's a hard jelly.. a bit like agar, but more firm. It doesn't really have any taste unless you have one of those delicate Japanese palettes, unspoiled by sugary American snacks and hot sauce.

Just curious... How do you blame him for failing to do a job when he was being told bald faced lies? This was the impetus for Snowden's whistle blowing.

Pfft, this guy. I don't even have a TV. Turn in your /. paranoid card.

;)

Four times what? Are these ranges measured in the meters, or in miles like LoRa WAN?

Yes, this. energy drink and Starbucks. People aren't drinking fewer caffeinated beverages, they're generally drinking stronger ones. Whether it's carbonated or not doesn't really matter.

My favorite commercial of course, is 5-hour energy. "Get five hours of energy with only 4 calories!" I got a news flash for those guys... calories == energy. No calories means it's a drug, not energy. I wonder if I could sue them for blatantly false advertisements?

Stopped reading. Bullshit detector went off. Questionable math. Lacking citation.