More concerning to me was the uninformed speculation that lead to those concerns. As one physicist quipped here on Slashdot at the time, "You misunderstand what motivates physicists. If the LHC did get sucked up by a mini black hole we would not run from the building in fear, we would run towards it with notebooks at hand".

If they can figure out how to reprogram fat cells to be muscle cells, we can eat McD's for an entire month end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Bootup happens so infrequently now (even on W7 I might cold boot once a month) that time is fairly minor. When I switched from spinner to SSD, the difference in minute-to-minute operations was significant, and that's with 24GB of RAM installed. Then again, I work in CAD with large models, and very large printed (PDF) files (Often TIFF scans 30x42@300-600dpi), so I run through a lot more RAM than the typical person.

Actually with a continuous backup system, you may only be out several minutes of work. AutoCAD, which I work in, autosaves every 5 minutes, and I work on a local-with-cloud-backup that backs up as files are changed. Worst case, I'm out 7-8 minutes of work.

The delay is, of course, if the SSD craps out that the work environment is gone and has to be rebuilt from scratch or from backup (which, honestly, can take hours even in the best scenario).

Most Libertarians (both big and little "l") don't want state sponsored corporations with special privileges not afforded their individual members.

Let me add that to the list of positions which Libertarians claim both sides.

I have been following the NSA revelations with keen interest. I am not a cryptologist. Advanced math escapes me. But I have understood enough to know that the NSA has been poisoning the well for our entire society. They, not Al Qaeda, not Iran, not China, pose the most existential threat to American freedom and the ability of my kids to grow up in peace. So I ask my fellow Americans and freedom-loving foreigners alike, can we not resolve to resist and bring down these criminals in any way we can? Whether it's better encryption, darknets, ostracism of the actual flesh-and-blood human beings practicing this tyranny on the rest of us, or many, many other measures, can't we all commit to doing what we can, where we can, to putting an end to them?

What the NSA, White House, Congress, and Judiciary (ie. FISA courts) are doing is un-Constitutional, meaning you can't get more illegal and deserving of maximum penalty than that. Murder is terrible and wrong, but it does not rise to the level of undermining the basis for our very society and the social contract that binds people to government and vice versa. With murder, one person dies; with undermining our system of government you get chaos, civil war, deprivation, demise of the rule of law, and masses of men, women, and children dying. Which is worse?

So what we're looking at right now, folks, and I mean all of us on the political Right and Left, is an entire government that has colluded to violate the Constitution, that is, the social contract that separates our country and society from Malthusian consequences. There can be no penalty harsh enough to punish them for what they have done. If we do not, as a People, levy that punishment on them now, immediately, then we deserve the misery of the slavery that meek acquiescence consigns us to.

Doesn't matter, it'll just be yanked out a few months in anyway. ;)