The Japanese were convinced that Dolittle's raid was conducted by submarine launched bombers to such an extent they spent an enormous amount of effort developing them.

Like many such items during the war - these subs attempted too many innovations in one jump and were not reliable. The Germans and the Japanese had a penchant for attempting to produce super weapons as opposed to incremental improvements in existing stuff. Some of what they produced was incredible, but none of it was really ready for prime time, or available in sufficient quantity to significantly have any effect on the war.

One of the most draconian decisions of the war was on the part of the US - it was recognized that the Sherman was no match for the heavier German tanks. There were some improvements, but the US counted on the fact that we were producing and delivering tanks at a rate that outstripped the Germans ability to destroy them or replace their own.

If you had read the article - you would know that there were pieces of a large number of individuals found.

You can assume carbon testing was done, it's routine.

There's also the issue of associated plant and animal material in the fossil layer - which tends to give credence to the find.

I don't know about local driving rules where you are, but in NY State it's illegal to drive w/o having one ear "free" - so not a good solution for driving.

An no, I don't think this is more convenient than a button either.

Actually the ideal would be to cover the purchase of the device and the software, but not additional services - there would be no need to pay for internet or cell access- although you could probably make a case for services in the case of some conditions.

The issue is that the accounting rules require that the funds be used for a device for medical purposes only, so a multipurpose devices is deemed to include items that can't be paid for with those funds.

The "specialized" devices in many cases are consumer gear whose general purpose software (OS) has been crippled and a specific app loaded. A netbook, iPhone or PDA with the same app would do the job just as well (possibly better), but includes non-medical apps and features.

The insurance companies/medicare/medicaid think they're paying for additional functionality (even though the consumer product is usually much cheaper) and will force a client to buy the more expensive, more limited item.

It is one of the more stupid aspects of a law that was originally designed to limit waste, by making sure that only the features needed by a patient would be present on the device. There are numerous other laws and regulations on the books that work the same way and have the same effect. The rules have not kept up with technology and now work to the opposite of their intent.

I did say rare - not unknown.

The universities and some companies were good about accepting changes and re-issuing,

I did get a lot of card decks and paper tape while I was in college (early '70s) and at my first couple of employers(same time frame), but a lot of it came 3rd hand or later, and there may not have even been an indication of where it originated from.

Also a lot of the software came along with a programmer (that is, when someone joined the staff they brought code.) it may not have been theirs originally, they might not know the originator - and at that time another fork would take place - you'd copy it and make your own revisions, which might or might not get incorporated back into the code from the provider. You might encounter variants of the code later at other organizations, and they would be vastly different (not necessarily better) that your own version.

You're right in that a lot of "public domain" software was distributed as source, but there were no repositories - you could get the original version (or the latest version from the originators) or you could get varients from other developers, but it was rare to have a mechanism in place to submit changes anywhere or pass updates to all the users (remember - no internet, few modems, source mostly passed on 7 or 9 track tape reels).

When Bulletin Board Systems came into vogue in the late '70s, this started to change. In the original article what was unique was that changes could be submitted to IBM, who'd include them in later releases or distribute them as additional code with the source. The same was true of my own ealier post. If the code did not originate with Datapoint, they would forward submitted changes back to the author, who could incorporate them in later versions or allow Datapoint to distribute more than one version (early fork?).

It was not true OSS, but it was a clear pre-cursor.

Actually there were IBM "clones" after the DOJ forced unbundling of OS and apps from hardware, you could get the code and run it on a number of mainframes that were specifically designed to look like IBMs.

I'm old enough to have been active in this timeframe (you don't have to get off my lawn).

Interestingly there was also a budding OSS type effort in the minicomputer world - mostly with a vendor called Datapoint. There were quite a few apps and utilities that had been developed by end-users whose source was distributed for free by the vendor (or passed along by developers). The architecture was similar to the IBM PC (look here for more details wiki article on Datapoint ) and when the PC arrived the compiler and many apps were ported to that platform. I personally worked on a "Turnkey" system that eventually was ported to the PC using a 3'rd party compiler. I was also an author of some of those early pre-OSS apps, and I ported and distributed them as well.

Squatters' rights are not universal and vary from place to place. In some locales the test is harder than others. In most squatters' rights can be challenged. None of the examples in the article clearly indicated a case where squatter was involved.

In the case of season tickets - you're essentially a leasee, and subject to the terms of whatever rental contract you have with the actual property owner - you can be "evicted" w/o refund and have privileges revoked for a variety of causes. Read the fine print on the tickets.

In the case of "beautifying" a park - there have been cases where such actions have lead to charges of vandalism and destruction from the property owners - in my home town such unsanctioned beatification has often lead to removal of the modifications or even chain link around the property in order to avoid event the whiff of a squatter case. Even in the event where changes are sanctioned by a locality there is no guarantee the local authorities won't decide to sell or alter the property after you've invested considerable time and effort.. There are usually caveats when the permissions are given. They may allow you to use the property or even alter it, but will not relinquish ownership and disposition rights.

If you RTFA (pardon me, I forgot this is SlashDot) the same effect can be gotten by mixing salt water with more highly salinated water (made by evaporating sea water - say, using a solar evaporation pool) or lightly polluted water (non-potable).

I could also venture a guess, based on the fact this is a solution postulated for coastal locations, that the process could also be sited at or near the mouth of a river - say one the empties into the sea or ocean? In that case only fresh water that was destined to end up mixed into salt water would be used.

Where needed the banks buy cluster solutions - but usually from whoever has the contract for hardware. If IBM has the overall contract they'll get that contract as well. But the reality is the vast majority of systems are not clustered. There can be thousands of non-clustered servers in some of the banks, maybe 100 or so clusters (plus back-ups and DR facility in equal quantity).

The problem is that even the megabanks have cost concerns.

I worked for one of the largest international banks and the overall plan was to ditch Sun and other non x86 hardware in favor of a "sea" of uniform blades that could run virtualized images of XP, Windows Server 2003 or RHEL.
Only systems that used 3rd party components that required Solaris or AIX would remain on non-x86 platforms.

IBM got the contract for the racks and blades. As of this time, over 85% of the apps have been migrated to the new environment. No new Sun hardware has been bought for a couple of years - old hardware has been recycled for those systems still on Sun. Sun has lost millions of dollars in sales and maintenance fees.

Sounds like someone can't find their un-kosher salt...