Yes we are in the Milky Way galaxy, so technically any nearby stars you can see are part of the Milky Way. However, the Milky Way they're referring to is a dense band of distant stars you see when looking towards the galactic core. It's visible as a band of white across the sky. There's some photo's in the Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way

The fact that you seem to not understand what they're referring to clearly illustrates their point. (I'm assuming that your question was serious.) Apparently you've never seen (or at least noticed) this band of stars. Do yourself a favor and go out to the mountains or desert. The beauty of the night sky in areas away from the cities is well worth the trip.

I would agree with you as long as the workings of these devices are totally transparent to the public. That would have to include open source for all of the S/W and algorithms used to determine what material is evidence of illegal activity. If it's not transparent, then they could claim that anyone's computer shows evidence of illegal activity and there would be no way to defend against it.

From TFA:

"To generate the dice rolls, I have used Math.random, Random.org and other sources, but have always received numerous complaints that the dice are not random enough. Some players have put more effort into statistical analysis of the rolls than they put into their doctoral dissertation."

So, basically it was to quiet complaints about the randomness of the computer generated dice rolls. I question whether it's really better, but the players think it's better and in this context I guess that's all that matters.

Well, I think both the Verizon people and the Police were idiots. Verizon should have turned on the phone for as long as it took to find the guy, even without the bill being payed. Once Verizon decided to be assholes the cop there should have just whipped out his wallet and paid them the $20. If I thought that someone's life was truly in danger I would pay $20 to find them. Now if they wanted $200 and the cop had kids to feed etc, etc maybe it would be different. But for $20 this shouldn't have taken 11 hours.

EA is a small, recently hatched fish?

Thanks. Now that song is stuck in my head, probably for the rest of the morning.

Most of the scams seem to rely on you having an account on at least one of the social networking sites. They use the info from that site to impersonate you on another site. If you didn't use any of the sites then it would be much harder for them to get the info needed to impersonate you convincingly. They might still be able to convince strangers, but people who really know you, and thus trust you, wouldn't be fooled.

Also, if you totally ignore these sites (like I do) then it would be doubly hard to convince any of your friends and family. Anyone who knows me would probably laugh if they got a friends invite supposedly coming from me on Facebook or some other social site. They would either assume it was a joke or a scam, or they'd call my wife to ask if I was feeling OK.

So, I agree with FreakyGreenLeaky that ignoring these sites solves this problem for the most part. Knowem.com is solution to a problem that doesn't really exist for many if not most of us.

I think he meant the Equal Rights Amendment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment

I know Slashdot geeks have a rep for not getting out much, but *you* really do need to get out more. :)

Utah has a huge tourist industry. Zion National Park is one of coolest places I've every been, and Bryce Canyon, Capital Reef, Canyonlands, Arches are very nice as well. The skiing in the Wasatch mountains east of Salt Lake City is some of the best in the world. There's nothing like gliding through knee deep "champagne" powder. In short the state in an incredible location for scenic beauty and outdoor activities. It's a pity that there's so many bigots there, but it's still a pretty nice place to visit.

Also, regarding your "hikers not partiers" comment - personally I like to relax with a couple beers after a hard day of hiking, so the groups are not mutually exclusive. Also a lot of the people who visit these areas never stray more than a 1/2 mile from their cars; there's still plenty to see. Then in the winter, skiers are famous (notorious?) for their drinking. So, I think that plenty of the Utah tourist are affected by these kind of rules.

Yes, we do. Try reading this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/006097771X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229720621&sr=8-3

Also, what makes you think that the cables are always in water that deep? They have to come ashore some time, so they always enter shallower water at some point. Ships don't carry 20,000 foot long anchor chains either. Regardless of how they were cut, these cables were cut in relatively shallow water.

While it was no doubt lots of fun to put some egg on the face of the US Navy, I have to wonder why the Chinese did this. Why tip your hand? Now that the Navy knows how sophisticated they Chinese subs are they'll be much more careful in the event of an actual conflict. No doubt there's people thinking of new counter measures even as I type this.