No one could figure out what was wrong with the kid, even as far as making the kid take more of it. The kid died. That's how you accidentally overdose.

[citation needed]

Actually, that's interesting. Who is America's worst historical figure?

James Buchanan

And that will be the end... when we stay home because we prefer a machine. We'll give up on loving our own kind not because it is superior, but just because it is less "work".

How many men in the world will *need* a robot girlfriend, given the skewing of the male/female birth ratios towards boys. Too many men, not enough women...that doesn't bode well for social stability. Perhaps some sex bots can fill the gap...so to speak.

I've never met a Solaris cultist either. I'm counting myself lucky.

That's because they are SunOS cultists!

I meant SMS as in, the end user will see it as simply an SMS. The implementation on the network level of course will be a fair bit different I'm sure.

Even if they did sign up they might be hundreds of miles away where the alert is not relevant.

That isn't necessarily true, as you may have family/friends/property etc in that region as well, all things that alerts could be relevant for as well...

Long story short - why do they want a separate chip, exactly?

Nowhere on the fcc.gov site linked in the story does it say anything about phones requiring any sort of chip. Basically the important part of the system is the secure interface between government and the wireless providers. In short this is more like the EAS system, but for mobile phones. Chances are most network carriers *will* implement this over SMS.

These aren't public water supplies, these are private water supplies via wells drilled into the ground. I'd be surprised if most well owners have their water tested once a year, let alone every three months.

The German citizens said the same about the Nazis prior to 1941

The CEO of SONY in my eyes is no better than Honsi Mubarak right now.

Really? You equate Sony messing with people's PS3s with the evils of the Third Reich or the oppression of the Egyptian people? Nobody has died at the hands of a Sony updated PS3. Sure this is a dick move, but there is something to be said for PERSPECTIVE.

Because most public IRC networks actively go out of their way to rid their networks of channels used for C&C. They don't want botnets either.

Sometimes when you need a beer, a free one is a good choice.

Yes, something sure does seem fishy around here....

What counts as porno? What is considered tame in Western culture might be considered pornographic in Saudi Arabia for example.

Replace Linux with Windows and "Open a term, we need to edit a conf file" with "Open the registry editor we need to fix some registry keys" and watch her run away then as well. People who are scared of computers are scared of them regardless of which operating system is on them. Computers and the operating systems they run are complex beasts and not everyone is going to understand everything about them. When things break on computers for non-computer experts, typically they will go and seek out someone who is. Mind you it sure easier to find someone who deals with Windows instead of Linux, but that is another issue entirely.