because it is what it is, and if the phones where being stolen and never used as phones again then your comment would be fully valid and they wouldn't even need to do this because well they arn't being used as phones. But the stolen phones are being used as phones, not ipod's, sure you could use it as such and i'm sure some would, but based on past usage my bet is that if a stolen phone could no longer be used as a phone, it's less likely to be stolen for that purpose.

If i was the judge i would have responded "fine if it's not on there in 48h you can just turn the site off till you get it on there", but i do like inviting the CEO to justify it.

Even that one requires that you pocket it from the government, if you just go and purchase them there is nothing illegal about it.

From how i read it that would be true if you where to pocket it from the post office. But if you where to buy a box of pens online, say from amazon, the purchase of them would be the authorization to use them as you see fit based on first sale, unless there is a constraint on purchase say how and were you can use them.

Please note that Buddhism isn't a religion, it is a way of life. Don't confuse the two

still limits the resale value, even criminals don't want to walk around with an phone that doesn't work as a phone

The blacklist/database is at the infrastructural level, it uses the MEID or ESN which is cell radio equivalent to a mac address except that it is truly global (zero collisions). The rest of the world already is using this, its good to see the US come into play on it.

But the basics of it is that if a phone is added to the list it can not register it's self on a carrier network to receive service, meaning that the phone no longer functions as a phone which should drop the usefulness of a stolen phone to near nothing and curb the crime rate for it.

while they might have just got the price & performance to the same point as everyone else, they have far exceeded everyone in quality for a long time.

The last in house controller was on the 320's,, and in overall use i still continue to buy the Intel 320 series drives for enterprise use. They are absolutely rock solid.

Agreed, while you can't see whats under the water, based on the shape i see, i know i wouldn't want it to take it into any real ocean.

i would't insult Picasso by associating this with any of his work.

i never said anything about the US government, i was talking about the country as a whole, government and companies here in the US both seem to be focus so much on short term profits that they never seem to make any type of long term investments.

agreed, but given the US's lack of ability for log-term planning, i feel this will be a constant problem for us when it should be a no starter.

while the higher price for this commodity can and should spur investment in other sources, the requirements to be productive in mining Rare Earths are steep and you can't just put up a plant and have it producing quickly. China already has the mines and plants, they are just idle now. If they want to ramp production they can. This is threat to anyone who wants to start producing this commodity. China could easily just sit back and wait till people start investing then start production again and crash the prices, which would make the investments wasted as that plant can no longer produce competitively.

that was a great game