Yeah, the size of the universe is interesting from a purely academic standpoint but isn't it meaningless? I mean it's still the whole universe, right? Although toward the end of the article we have the implication that it WASN'T the entire universe - just what we can observe. So there may have been volume beyond the soccer ball. And if there was, does it matter? Does it affect our universe initial conditions?. And what's up with the superluminal expansion? And not just a little superluminal - it makes the USS Enterprise look like a slacker. At what point did the speed of light limit kick in and why? What changed? Something just doesn't make much sense. Can universal laws just change? Obviously they did - superluminal expansion wasn't just a feature, it was a necessity since density at that point had to make your run of the mill black hole look like a dense fog. So escape velocity was way over light speed. This implies things were weird as hell.

No, they aren't. They are telling you what they are doing. Anyway, who in this world thinks ANYONE gives away software? It's getting paid for somewhere. The problem is the cheap buggers who think a few bucks if a horrible thing, and that all software should be free because they are an entitled jerk. So AVG comes up with a way to monetize their product which, after all, THEY paid to produce. Newsflash; Coders like to eat too. Some even support families. They tell you upfront they are doing it. Don't like it? Use something else and pay for it.

I can see it now, a drug resistant plaque that starts by eating your teeth, then progresses to the rest of your head. Sweet! How about dental hygiene and a bit less reliance on magic bullets?

Statistically it's safer here in the US than ever. But you'd never know that by the news or the panic mongers in government.

He was probably wondering why you didn't have leashes on them. What a moron.

The response seems a little extreme. When I was that age I was in the woods all day, getting banged up and dirty. Somehow I survived it without CPS taking an interest. And pretty much all the kids on our road did the same. CPS and government are getting just a little too involved in things they are better left out of. Letting a kid walk a mile is just not an issue that needs government busybody concern. Beats the hell out of keeping them cooped up or under mommy and daddy's thumb all day.

Ah well, that makes it ok then! Since there is already a risk of birdstrike, then it's fine to add the risk of a drone strike too. Freaking brilliant.

Let's see - drop the voice connections. Decreased operations cost for the provider. Don't pass the cost reduction to the customer. SCORE! Use more bandwidth, making people either go over data caps and get penalized or have to buy larger data allowances and pay more for service. SCORE AGAIN! Tell them how awesome the new service is, when the old service worked and sounded just fine, making you look like a hero for screwing them over. TRIPLE SCORE! Use the extra income to build out your network! Oh, wait. No. Can't do that - daddy needs a new Bentley.

NASA could have put us on the moon any time they wanted to over the last 40 years. But funding dried up because the PEOPLE didn't care any more. If people don't care, they don't deserve to go to the moon.

That's like saying some company like General Motors owns the Bow Tie badge and no one realized it. There can be no instrument company in the world that is not familiar with Fluke products and their color scheme, and if they design products using that scheme then it's pretty clear they are hoping to use the scheme to entice buyers because it's associated with high end equipment. It doesn't matter if Fluke or customs blocked it. It was still a stupid thing to try.

I guess I'm surprised that this had to be tried at all. If it's on the internet, on a publicly available web server and not locked down - say, behind some sort of security barrier that requires a username/password or similar - then no one should consider linking to it a problem. If that's not what you intend, then perhaps it should not be accessible in that way at all. After all, that's what the whole web thing is all about.

NSA/TSA//WTF-SA This guy is presupposing NSA is going to be able to stop an attack, assuming anyone is planning one. The only results they have to show are nulls - "All these horrible things didn't happen because we were watching! What horrible things? We can't tell you. It's secret. But truly, they didn't happen. Remember, all that bad stuff that didn't happen? That was all us! So we don't need anyone to watch us, just trust us. We won't turn on the webcam on your teenagers laptop, we pinkie-swear!"

Intelligent people can blindly believe incredibly false ideas. Isaac Newton is an excellent example. I think few would argue that he was smarter than more or less anyone on /. But he went ended up following some pretty fallacious paths, which I am sure he would have defended fiercely and intelligently. This may be understandable given the times he lived in, but it is not today since so much of what people believe is so demonstrably false. Yet people persist in the belief that opinion is as good as proven fact (clue - it's not), and that anyones opinion is as good as anyone elses (another clue - it's not. As an engineer, my opinion, say, of a bit of code or circuit design is more well founded than, say, my wifes, who is a teacher. On the other hand her opinion on teaching is more well founded than mine.). What is missing in the US is being taught to *think* and to think *critically*. Instead we allow pressure groups to dictate what is taught and what is not. I do not have a problem with organized religion, but I do have a problem when schools of thought are dictated by people who are so shallow minded that they are afraid to use the intelligence they were born with. It seems as if you scream and stamp your feet loudly enough, and hide behind good old freedom of speech, you can force any harmful creed down someone elses throat.

Right. So, how would that catch this sort of thing? Let's assume the guy was a nutjob. Nutjobs like that aren't exactly known for their civic mindedness. So why would he have been nailed by the health care system? Unless everyone is forcibly psychoanalyzed (and the analysis has to be 100% effective) before being let out of the house, mental health care isn't going to be the answer either. The correct answer here is no society is ever going to be 100% safe. But we are going to overreact because that's how it is these days. I'm sorry the shooting occurred, but advancing the police state mentality isn't going to fix anything. There actually isn't a lot that will.

The price of a good handgun lately? And ammunition costs! On a 30K salary? No way.