The patent is from 1995, and Netscape only created the Mozilla project in 1998, so I'm not sure how that would be relevant?

Perhaps the GP is using a more modern OS ;)

AFAIK, in Plan 9, everything is a file, as a logical continuation of the Unix philosophy. You mount the other machine as a network filesystem, and then access its resources like the CPU and network (for NAT). I have no experience on it, so maybe someone can elaborate.

"Drilling" is fun for the first few times, but at the end of the day, it's just boring.

Don't expect the cost to stay constant. Even the next time could be a lot cheaper, as the software has been written, and computers have gotten faster and cheaper.

OTOH, there are probably limits as to how cheap it can get. I'd be really surprised if it got cheaper than $500,000 during this century, unless there was MASSIVE deflation. That would additionally require robotic surgeons doing and examining the slices, as well as better algorithms (probably rewritten to be more extensively parallel) running on the cheaper computers.

A definite point, even though I don't agree with the grandparent. He's right that energy *IS* a constraining factor. Even worse (currently) is our inability to maintain a nearly closed ecosystem. I suspect that accelerations in space will always be slow, and I suspect that FTL is actually impossible. That still doesn't close off even meat-organisms to space (except that we haven't learned to maintain a nearly closed ecosystem).

Since once you're in orbit, low accelerations suffice to reach any other location in orbit anywhere, the only problem is to maintain sufficient energy flow during the transition (and after you get there). For solar space, out to around the orbit of Jupiter, solar cells should suffice. And there are plenty of asteroids in that area. Beyond, out as far as the Oort clouds, fusion power should suffice. For propulsion the best current technology appears to be to use ion-jets. And you don't economize on living space, because you don't want to go crazy. Also, you need a radiation shield, and you need water anyway, so you carry a sizeable weight of water. This all means that transitions are SLOW. So you'd better have enough people along to keep you sane. 12-13 adults seems about right for a small habitat. Scale upwards as you learn more.

Note that this is all doable TODAY, given the intention, except that we can't maintain a nearly closed ecosystem. And learning to maintain a nearly closed ecosystem can be done (well, mainly) at ground level for cheap prices.

TOR is a great tool but you can also set yourself up with a SOCKs proxy very easily say on Amazon AWS (or any other cloud service) meaning, your encrypted traffic would go to their data center and exit out whatever local network pipe they use. It's not as sophisticated as TOR, where multiple hops are used but at least with Amazon's recent statement, they may resist secret demands for your info.

Come on now. A SOCKs proxy to a single host is a great solution for evading snooping by your own ISP (or IT department). But it's not even close to anonymous.

If you're trying to hide from the NSA, you cannot rely on anyone to protect your identity. The only way to be secure is for it to be impossible for anyone to divulge your identity. Tor comes closer to that than any other solution.

That's a decent analogy, but it leaves out that a bunch of the structure of the brain is driven by environmental stimuli.

You assume that people who are hiding from federal law enforcement are engaged in misdeeds.

Have you seen this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4z09el30f8

Personally, I think that is the bomb. It would be great to see that blow up, like semtex in Times Square delivering the wrath of God down upon the heads of the apostate and infidels.

Praise be to God and His prophet who has now shown us the way in these dark times; and let us hope that this knowledge engulfs washington, like a great fireball!

Yes...and? Sometimes people need to deal with hard times after decades of bad decisions and waste. We allowed this situation to happen, we supported it, we deserve the consequence of fixing it.

"Its going to suck for me" is not an excuse to continue doing the wrong thing and digging deeper and deeper. Simply put, tank manufactuers may not decide tomorow to make bicycles, but, if you don't cut them off, they will NEVER stop making tanks.

You know, if the NSA fucktards lifted a finger to remove or kill Spammer machines (or spammers themselves) all this shit would go away over night.

NSA: "We killed spam forever."

Populace: "How?"

Nerds: "Who the fuck cares how! Let's go back to farting around with bash scripts!"

The courts have already ruled that taking something existing and "doing it over the internet" isn't patentable. By extension, taking a URL that could be sent on a printed letter and "doing it over the internet" isn't patentable.

That said, the patent isn't actually about sending URLs in an e-mail, it's about automatically displaying destination content of a URL in the e-mail itself. For example, how gmail has an option to replace any YouTube URLs with the actual YouTube video in the e-mail. While that also doesn't sound patentable to me, I can't point out precedence like I can with the "doing it over the internet" patents.

Or, more likely, Apple built a back door for the feds, or is simply mistaken, or more likely, lying about it.