He's a child rapist. He's not going to be prison-raped, he's going to be killed.

I couldn't resist: http://xkcd.com/676/

I think we will be looking at a proxy that detects blocks and has a variety of proxies in different countries to go through. Visiting an alqueda website? It detects the block then redirects through Iran. Visiting an Israel has a right to exist, then it redirects you through Israel.

These types of bans will hardly hurt us, only slow us down. NOW, if they make encryption illegal and check at the packet level we are fucked. But I think that won't happen with the political climate. However I do think if big engines like Google get sued enough we will see the internet shrink, even if they are accessible I imagine sites won't really surface if they aren't indexed. Perhaps if Google is forced to index things locally and users are restricted to their version then it would end up the same.

At the current rate all that will come from the firewalls are nice automated proxy tools. Or something like TOR will actually become popular.

Nope - you are duty bound to disobey an order which is against military law. If you don't, you can be tried and found guilty of a crime. See U.S. v. Keenan.

Yes, I agree, indeed this is the whole point of an LLC. LLCs are horribly abused quite routinely. I often observe that chemical companies should really be charged with manslaughter for some of their pollutants. *But* a serious research project that happens to "break a few eggs" should really be let slide.

A reasonable compromise might be awarding shares in this company to the damaged cities and the Swiss national science funding body, so the company current backers face dilution as punishment, but no immediate funds change hands, and any IP becomes closer to public property.

The baby didn't cry at first. Then it realized that its own father had just used a user-editable, non-authoritative guide to performing a life-and-death medical procedure, and it hasn't stopped crying since.

His emotional attachment to his network would look bad in bar lighting. This guy was a nutcake.

Sadly, that's the real issue. This nutcake (who did his job without problem and they fired for his "attitude" rather than anything related to his ability to actually do his job) is being persecuted because he's weird. I mean who wouldn't give up a password when guys with guns were demanding it and threatening you with jail if you didn't? It mattered to him that they weren't on the authorized list. But to the police, that's contempt of cop. To his boss that wanted him to just disappear after she was caught performing audits in direct violation to policy, it was contempt. He wanted to give the information to the proper authorities, and did, it's just those that thought they were the proper authorities and what he thought didn't agree. From what I can tell from the papers released so far, the boss was not authorized for those (no need to know and not a technical position). Yes, it's job suicide to say no to your boss, but he'd rather lose his job than screw up his network.

That's why he's a nutcake, and that's why authorities hate him and everything he stands for. No one should ever stand up to the police or his boss. It's unamerican.

the reason for this is they live in democracy: their government is composed of people of their choosing. this means the american government is a legitimate representation of the will of the american people. so there's nothing to rebel against, because who is in the white house is who the american people want to have in the white house

meanwhile, in nondemocracies like cuba, north korea, china, and iran, the people are not consulted as to the composition of their government. so there is the agenda of the ruling class, and the agenda of the common man, and these are two different agendas. therefore the government has to oppress the people, because it fears the people will rebel

that's some intellectual charity for you. try to understand the fucking obvious next time. because currently, your inability to see obvious huge crimes by truly horrendous oppressive criminal regimes because you are so obsessed with prosecuting the usa's crimes only makes you look like you have some tribal hard on for the usa, and that you don't actually fight for anything like principals or a sense of justice in this world. we're glad you have a burning vendetta against the usa. who the fuck cares. when you are so blinded by your rage against the usa that you are ready to embrace far worse evil in this world, that just makes you pathetic and useless to whatever you think you are fighting for

Yes, perhaps in 200 or 300 years after all of the permafrost has melted and and the bogginess has gone away we could settle the frozen arctic waste. Of course if it warms enough to make these frozen arctic wastes habitable it will probably mean enough ice has melted or is at least on the way to melting from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to raise sea level in the 50+ foot range substantially reducing the available area of dry land. Meanwhile the acidification of the oceans from absorption of atmospheric CO2 will likely disrupt the ocean ecosystems that humans depend on for a substantial amount of food. Areas that are now being farmed may become deserts disrupting the supply of food. A bunch of species are likely to go extinct and who knows what we're losing because of that.

The earth is a complex system and the changes may cause any number of unexpected results that we will have to try and cope with. It's not likely to be easy like you seem to think.

So it's only 3000.00 USD per person per year BFD

They do - "We offer our engineers “20-percent time” so that they’re free to work on what they’re really passionate about. Google Suggest, AdSense for Content and Orkut are among the many products of this perk."

Source: http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/lifeatgoogle/englife.html

Any body working at google care to comment on it?

Well, please explain then, if possible, why panels-watts per dollar, are just not getting any cheaper. People really don't care that much about watts per square meter of modules, they want watts per buck deals. Watts per square meter are more a metric for spacecraft arrays, because of launch costs, folks in suburbia couldn't care less if they have to cover half their garage roof or all of it, as long as it gets much cheaper watts per dollar.

    Near as I can see, we hit a plateau of affordability around 2002 (last year I bought any myself, started in 99) and they are getting more expensive, if anything. I know all about the fabs and how they were forced to use silicon rejects for so long, the demand for microchips has been so high, etc, but seems PV demand would have increased enough by now to overcome that limitation, along with all these thin film "printable" cells we keep hearing about. Nanosolar allegedly ships some cheaper stuff, but it is pure unobtanium retail inside the nation they are manufactured in, they go to Germany last I knew because of the guaranteed grid tie pay back figures, which are really good for the owners there. That leaves everyone else with still expensive stuff as the only option.

Like I said, hundreds of articles about new amazing breakthroughs over the past *decade* but it ain't hitting retail yet, same with any amazing batteries except for real small cheap gadgets, and even those are spendy, many dollars for a replacement cheap tiny bare bones cell phone or laptop batt still.

Luckily my old golf cart lead acid batts are still doing OK, I installed a desulphator to keep them clean, etc, but if I was to go shopping today for replacements..it would still be 18th century tech level lead acid as by far and away the best deal out there for bulk storage on the cheap. All these amazing breakthroughs with PV and batteries are not translating to anything joe six pack can get retail, so that's the question "why not"?

    Ten years ago I really believed that by by now we would be able to slide on down to home depot and be able to grab 100 watt panels for 100 bucks, from a variety of makers. I thought it would be a lot more common and less expensive by now. I thought we might be able to grab NiMH or whatever for around 1/4th price they are still today, yet we can't, either product. And LiIon...just outtasite, ridiculous to even think about it for a home solar battery bank unless you are rolling in cash and don't know what to do with it. All the other exotic chemistry batteries..same deal, LiFe and so on, zinc/air, all that stuff, stuck in R&D land, while we potential consumers are still waiting for next week's amazing breakthrough article. In this same ten years, computers got three times as powerful for one third the cost..or is that not a fair comparison? PV is still around five bucks a watt retail, more or less the same as it was ten years ago. You can get marginally cheaper deals than that occasionally, scratch and dents, that's it. Where's the buck a watt stuff?

Oooh, I am *ALWAYS* hesitant to put that much control into something that would have (effectively) very limited failover capability. Semi-autonomous vehicles in combination with said centralized oversight (eg: malfunction notification of a specific unit that the vehicle's software could try to navigate around) would be the far more sane way to do it, IMO.

Mercedes and BMW are both heavily investing in stuff that will make the autonomous vehicle a reality in a few years. Some things are already making it to the production line as we speak, like automatic brake control (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensotronic_Brake_Control) and automated parking systems (http://gizmodo.com/196551/lexus-self-parking-car-video-and-review) just to name a couple.

figured they're just foist extra fees on their customers when it started to be a problem because they know anyone wanting an iPhone can't jump ship to a competitor.

Sure we can. If they foist extra fees that are not included in the contract I signed, then the contract is void and I can leave immediately.

Bullshit. That was the invaders' mothership. Everyone will regret not scrambling their military forces when giant saucers appear over every major city. Quick, someone ready a Powerbook with a virus we'll upload to their computers!