"Cry for help?"

I didn't see any "cry for help", just someone whining about the quality of the stories on slashdot.

Again.

Nobody is forcing you to read the articles. You're welcome to stick your head in the sand or cover it with a towel at any time.

You're in fantasy land.

Working for a union just means more and more onerous paperwork than any other job I've ever worked. Shuffle this, shuffle that, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.

Even AT&T and Bell Canada didn't have as much paperwork as I got stuck filling out and filing while working a union job as a programmer.

Hated it, big time!

But in all practicality, how do you seize back control from the likes of the three-letter agencies?

It's not like there is any party in the US which hasn't been complicit in granting them ever-greater powers. It's not like a Canadian like myself can vote against the bullshit. It's not like Canada is about to invade the US over the issues, nor anyone else, seeing as their three-letter agencies are doing the same god-damned thing.

Zimmerman was patrolling a GATED community in which Martin himself also lived as far as I know. I don't like the idea of gated communities but if you live in one, you basically agree with neighborhood watches.

Zimmerman HAD the right to play cop given to him by everyone who choose to live in that GATED community, including Martin.

And Martin only lived there because he was a thug wannabe and had been kicked out by his parents.

It is clear where you loyalties lie, you believe Martin should be able to do whatever he want, up to and including crime and nobody has a right to say "not in my neighborhood". Zimmerman was patrolling for a reason, crime had gone up. Oddly enough just after Martin moved in, Martin who on his phone had evidence of several crimes.

Just redacted enough to make them useless.

The US should stay the hell out of Syria's civil war. Both sides are vicious, dictatorship-prone fanatics. There is no "good" side to support. It's either the existing brutal dictatorship or an Al-Queda inspired bunch of Sharia nutbars.

I feel sorry for the people of Syria caught in the middle of it, but bombing the shit out of the country isn't going to make a decent democracy emerge.

You can't underestimate the power of clusters the size of the NSAs, especially the dedicated/custom hardware components.

Most of the encryption standards supported by TrueCrypt would fall to the NSAs clusters in a matter of hours or days at most. Only the "hardest" of encryptions like AES256 or RSA2048 have any hope of keeping them out. And that presumes they don't just install a backdoor on your computer to steal your keys.

Not in the heyday of "Byte" they weren't.

I've been tempted by the Surface Pro --- things which have kept me from purchasing:

  - Windows 8 (maybe now w/ 8.1 that'd be okay)
  - battery life (v2 addresses this)
  - lack of a daylight viewable display

It's the latter that kills the deal for me. I'd be replacing a Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4121 which I use as an ebook reader and map viewer when travelling and also as a controller for my hobby-level CNC mill (a ShapeOko for the curious) when I use it on my back deck. I also use it out at the archery range as a chronograph / notetaker, so daylight viewability is an essential feature for me.

Wacom just introduced something close to that, the Cintiq Companion --- your choice of Windows 8 or Android: http://cintiqcompanion.wacom.com/CintiqCompanion/en/

Press release: http://www.wacom.com/in/en/news/971

Same size as the ModBook Pro which has been out for a while: http://www.modbook.com/modbookpro-specs

Unfortunately, the iPad and Android Tablets pretty much killed off the Tablet PC, so there aren't any new tablets that I'm aware of in the 15--17" size range. There is the Sony Tap 20 if one wants to go larger, but it's not really portable:

http://store.sony.com/c/VAIO-Tap-20-Touchscreen-Computers/en/c/S_J2_SERIES_PAGE

*whoosh*

You'd think they have learned from Blackberry's experience with their tablet to realize just how uninterested people are in "companion" devices.

I think it's more important that it's not a standalone device, but an accessory for an existing one.

What's the point of a super-portable "smart watch" if you still need to carry around your phone, or worse, a bulky tablet?

Didn't we know this ten years ago? How is this news?