We could also do things like genetically modify food to make it grow better (faster, in areas usually inhospitable to crops)... but people are nuttily against things like that (and nuclear power).

Absolutely. I routinely carry a sidearm. If somebody threatens my life and I believe the person has both the motivation and the means to immediately follow through, I will drop him immediately, even reflexively. If I observe that somebody else, whether I know them or not, is being threatened with what I believe is the intent to kill I will do the same. In either case, if I have behaved rationally, the justice system will give me a pat on the back and everybody will move right along with their lives.

Defending against the initiation of force is one the most basic principles of human society. War is simply that idea writ large. (What follows is admittedly an oversimplification:) A nation that initiates force is wrong, a nation that reacts and defends against force with force is justified.

Let's reintroduce concubinage the way it was back then, then have the last thing you see before you're killed in a raid be the rape of every woman you know, and as the blood pours out of you you can reflect on how that will be their fate for the rest of their lives. Yeah, the Bronze Age was fun times. (Rape of course still happens in modern wars, but it's more marginalized and is not 'institutionalized' as it was in the Ancient period so that possession was not passing but permanent.)

Gutenberg didn't change war, and honestly I think the influence of Walter Cronkite is overplayed. War has changed more the in last century on a tactical level than it has on a 'civilian experience' level. You'll find that sacking hordes were obsolete long before 'mass media'. 'Mass media' didn't stop any of the mass killings of the last century. Where was your popular support then? Social events under tyrannical regimes have proven that all you need is sustained fear, a well-balanced carrot/stick system that rewards collaboration and has everybody scared witless not to be the 'odd man out' of whatever the system says is right.

If you suspend ethics to win a war, why reinstate them afterward? This question has been answered over and over by tyrannical governments throughout history, and the answer is the death of millions outside the parameters of any 'war'.

This kind of data collection is (relative to other digital data gathering, at least) fairly labor-intensive. Nobody from the FBI is going to pretend to be your friend on Facebook unless your name has already come to their attention for some other reason. You're not worth their time otherwise.

That's the way all government investigation should be. Unless they have a good reason to believe you have committed a crime, your name should never come up and data about you should never be gathered. If they do have a good reason to believe you have committed a crime, the reason should be good enough that a judge will grant them a warrant. This is how you deal with crime without the extreme danger to society that unfettered police power represents.

Where this breaks down is when surveillance is so widespread and can be cheaply done on massive scales that the cops can go on fishing expeditions. At that point, it's not so much about whether you have something to hide, it's about what they want to find. This scenario has to take place first before people can easily be targeted and harassed because of their political views, opinions, religion, etc. If you don't want the police to be little more than state-sponsored thugs, then the goal is to prevent them from ever obtaining this capability. The idea that they can have this capability and any regulations about how they use it will be more than temporary speedbumps as we go down the road of the gradual erosion of civil rights is absurd and counter to any good reading of history.

Yup. Originally, that would have meant Congress has to declare war, and then Congress has to pass a law enabling the quartering of troops. Since the advent of the atomic bomb, Congress de facto relinquished its power to declare war and left it to the President. The War Powers Act codified this, basically allowing the President to wage limited war without congressional approval, while escalation or extension required approval from Congress, though not a proper "declaration" of war. I'm sure constitutional lawyers would have a field day if Congress passed a law allowing quartering today, since we're de facto at war. The question is whether it would count legally.

Yes. We still have the freedom to own a firearm, choose where to live, express religious and political opinions without being jailed, choose our own doctors, choose whether to buy health insurance, and choose where to go to college-- this week anyway. Next week? Who knows.

I work in an environment where we use Serial connections on Sprinkler controllers to Intersection battery backup and even traffic counters. We have multiple devices in which the usb to serial does not work. "multiple brands" Fortunately since most of our guys doing this type of work are outside daily in all weather. We started buying toughbooks around 6 years ago. As they are mil-spec they require that port. Imagine my surprise when I got a newer model HP 6730b and it had a serial port but no hdmi/displayport etc? It's the first serial on a brand name corporate laptop I've seen in a long while."However we are limited to which mfg's we can buy from most of the time" Serial needs to go. It's the fault of the obscure hardware mfg's that keep it around. Instead of designing something around USB.

I work in a place where we use the g'zone phones in a construction/highway maintenance environment. Absolutely crazy what we've put these phones through. Some dont survive but MANY do.

People driving over them, Dropped from an overhead sign onto a freeway getting hit and spun to the side of the road, Scuffed up but still working. Pretty rugged.

roof reading hat's that?

Umm, why should they have all the fun?

http://gigaom.com/2009/02/01/by-2012-koreans-will-get-a-gigabit-per-second-broadband-connection/

As difficult as it might be to roll it out. There is NO doubt we would find a use for it.

I for one live in a house with a fiber box on my property.. and Lovely ATT only wants to use Copper "mind you I have a conduit from the box to my house!!" as well as giving me less speed than Comcrap and charging more. Seems like the competition is no competition at all.

Thanks, Think this is my new sig..

"Using a game for the first time is getting to be as bad as doing taxes."

The need for glasses with straps holding them to your head would be a requirement.
You know.. with all that shaking going on the glasses will come right off.

Myself, I was thinkin WooHoo, Self Powered Strippers!

The Ice must Floe... See whut i did thar?

Which frankly is perfectly fine with me. OCR scanning works good enough. People will demand e-books in the next few years. Authors and publishers won't have much choice. Do it or starve. DRM on ebooks attempts to keep people from doing that which they do with real books. SHARE! I for one will not give that up.

Yea, He stuck his Flame Broiled meat between 2 buns."eww"

  I'm not sure I can stomach BK/JitB/McD's Out here in California we like in-and-out as it tastes more like a burger you'd make than any of the others.
That doesn't mean of course that it's good for you. But if I'm in a fast burger mood they are my top choice.