Not everywhere...

Oops. The quality of poster on Slashdot is going down. Read the article. The real mac address is used once you attempt to join a network. Its only whilst the device is looking for networks that the randomised MAC is used. It won't impact DHCP leases etc.

Wish I had mod points for the above.

I disable my WiFi until I'm somewhere I want to use it. The only people that can track me are my cell provider and those people within range of a WiFi network I want to connect to.

That would depend on how often you used both ...

I think you've missed the point here. If I post information explaining why Mr X shouldn't be trusted that's my information. Mr X can request Google to remove my site from their index by providing proof that he is Mr X. At no point does Google have to talk to me about it.

The whole scheme provides an extra-legal mechanism to censor the web. Its an appalling overreach of secrecy law and needs to be removed forthwith.

I used my Palm V and a Nokia 6130 all the time. It allowed me to keep track of expenses using a database, and sync them back to my office. It allowed me to keep track of my email, using the IrDA connection between the devices. It allowed me to reboot servers when needed from a restaurant using SSH. It allowed me to edit code remotely from another country, again using SSH.

I had a need and a use for my Palm. It wasn't a toy to me. I have a need for my current iPhone, though in many ways its not as flexible or capable as my Palm/Nokia combination was.

This is complete and utter rubbish. It may not be time now, but that doesn't mean that it won't happen. Media is converging, we are beginning to see a move away from traditional broadcasters towards creators dealing directly with the end users. It's going to take a little while before its possible, but it will happen.

The evidence? Youtube for one. The production values are increasing, more content providers are releasing via YouTube and surviving on the advertising revenue generated from there. WWE for another, they're in the process of going direct to customer, cutting out the middle man. More content providers will go this way once there is a reliable revenue stream.

If content providers go this way they will want their content to be available across all of these devices to maximise their reach. Perhaps it'll go the way of gaming, with the manufacturers paying for a small subset of exclusives initially but will that be sustainable in the long term? It's doubtful.

Just a requirement? Ah, that's it then. Everything is possible, it just needs a requirement. Isn't that requirement someone coming up with the idea of what they want to do? Couldn't this be considered inventing it? You now see how a patentable idea comes about.

Hindsight is always 20:20. In fact the best ideas, those that become second nature, are often considered obvious after the event. The real question though is, if they were so obvious, why didn't someone else do it before?

I disagree, ensuring that your population doesn't starve is the proper role of government. However we've been trying to stop people starving in the same spots in the world for the last 40 years with charitable efforts. Its about time that we admitted that the current approach has failed. Instead its created a gravy train of NGO executive posts and kept people in a near starving position, all the while excusing the local government from fixing the problem in a vaguely racist manner. "They can't solve it themselves, they need our help".

There is a further argument that the actions of the NGOs, and developed government aid, undermines the local market preventing the poor in these countries from rising out of poverty and aid dependence. What price can you get for the grain you buy if much more is going to be shipped in for free by an NGO?

Money makes the world go around. We've yet to reap the peace dividend that should have resulted from the end of the cold war. It turned out that finding other ways to employ those people that were making arms to combat the Soviet threat was too difficult for the politicians. Instead they have identified new threats so as to keep the arms business going.

That said the cost of this is minuscule compared with the UK maintaining its *independent* nuclear deterrent, though who we are deterring now I've no idea.

That's not 100% true. The majority of phone boxes in cities have been replaced by see through ones, you still see the red phone box in rural areas. In some villages the red phone box is considered a listed building and cannot be removed, though some of them are no longer functioning phone boxes.

I've not taken a flight in the last couple of years, between a number of European countries, that I've not used a QR code on my phone as the boarding pass. Given that its a QR code even if you take a snapshot of someone else's how are you going know what details to swap out? The other information there is for the user only, its not used by the scanner.

We can't even guarantee that building football stadia here on Earth. Given that any colonisation would be taking place in a hostile environment your requirement absolutely rule out any attempt.

Given you believe that we have to start getting off the planet your requirements will have to be relaxed, in which case it becomes a question of what is the acceptable risk. There is an assumption being made in the negative comments that a one-way mission would be a short one that would involve a premature death. I'm not so sure that this is necessarily the case. A mission that involves no planned return is different from a suicide mission. If you sent a one way mission that relied on re-supply from Earth you would, in all likelihood, get an increase in funding to ensure that no one was responsible for the explorers dying due to lack of supply. Could you imagine the backlash against a politician that even suggested cutting off the supply lines?