These days it won't even be staffers who will fix it, it'll be PR companies and they most definately do know a lot about Wikipedia pages etc... They'll know for example that if you change it before an election, it'll most likely take time to be fixed, so it'll only show back up again after an election. So gives them the effect they want. Whitewash before the election, then next election, play the same game again.

It is a problem because a lot of people won't see the truth in time, then will forget it by the next election.

@"Kill yourself, now. Your family won't be saddened"

Your words (AnonCoward/Cluster B) will have no effect on me, but your words do show what kind of human you are. I clearly got too near the truth, which you don't like. The irony is, the more you speak, the more you reveal your kind so clearly prove how you lot are the real enemy of us all, which is why your kind need to be sidelined in society, which is exactly what your kind don't want.

Re-read your post and notice how you are hostile towards even the idea that others can attempt to help you (which has the unfortunate side effect of preventing you getting help). You think they don't understand and can't understand why you feel so low. At times you can't even explain it to yourself, you just know you wake up some days even struggling to find the will to do anything. On your worst days you can find yourself standing back at a railway station which you then realise is to give yourself long enough to talk yourself out of jumping to end it all. Even on your best days, you can sometimes find yourself wanting to make others laugh to try to cover up how your really feel and even use it to deny to even yourself you are so low and then you feel like you are being crushed by how low you feel inside.

You think I can't understand, you're wrong, I'm describing myself. I've lost count of the number of times I've thought about killing myself. Looking back I've now struggled with depression for over 35 years. The difference between us is less than you realise. Perhaps the only real difference that matters is that I've started to notice (and you need to notice) how we can deny it to even ourselves which has stopped us seeking enough help.

You're strong enough without ever realising it to not even really be afriad of even your own death, so is asking for help really beyond you? ... Its not, you just at the moment denying it to yourself.

The fact is the best psychologists have heard it all so many times before, nothing you say to them can really shock them any more and they can help you. At the very least they can give you an independent viewpoint to help you see and compare your thoughts with and so help you find a better way forward. And anyway, knowledge is power. The more you learn the more it can help you in all sorts of ways. You just have to take the next step to ask for help. The one's who deny its needed, (and will tell others that) are really trying to convince and deny it to themselves that its needed. Its all part of the denial. So many ways to deny it, but once you cut through the denial and realise you already have the strength to find help, it really can help you.

Plus as you say, as you are someone on the autism spectrum, (that's something else we have in common) that means you've got the capacity and interest to study subjects in great detail. That's a strength, not a weakness. Also being different from most (not all) but most other people isn't wrong, even though you're heard it is wrong, so many times you can't even count it how many times you've been put down for standing out from the crowd. We are pack animals, we want to fit in and the one's who want to be the pack leaders, don't like it when we don't follow what they want the pack to do. They also don't like it when we speak about our interests, because then they are not the centre of attention. Like I say, knowledge really is power because the more you learn about psychology the more you'll see all sorts of behaviours from others, some of which from others that have caused you great harm in your life. (For example, the one's who want attention, want to be different, so they can stand out and don't like you naturally standing out from the pack. The irony is they want what you've always had. Remember that the next time some tries to put you down for standing out through no fault of your own). This is just a small glimpse of what psychology can show you and many will try to deny it, because they fear, hide or simply deny it for so many reasons. Learn to see the reasons and its amazing what it'll show you over time. You can get help and it will really help you.

@"it might have been even enough to deter him from doing it"

Sorry, but you haven't understood at all how a suicidal person thinks (and they are not "wackos"). When someone has decided to kill themselves, they are not going to be deterred by the thought they could get in trouble ... The fact is, at the point they are about to kill themselves, even the thought of their own death isn't enough to deter them! ... When someone has lost even the fear of their own death, there's really not much that’s going to stop them. If they are only going to kill themselves, you can try to talk them out of killing themselves, showing them there's reasons to keep on living and things really can get better for them in the future. But then most suicidal people are only a danger to themselves, and they need help and need to seek help and be made aware there are people in this world who can really help them.

But there's another kind of suicidal person, the person who is angry at suffering harm from either the abuse or the ignorance of others. They are much harder to reason with. This kind of suicidal person is angry at other people and wants to punish them back (even indirectly by harming e.g. their businesses etc.. or even harm the wider society around them). (You see this for example with Spree Killers). If they want to kill themselves, but are also intent on harming or even killing others as well, then they are also showing great anger at others and so if you can't talk them out of it, they have to be physically stopped to save others, but there are even times that being stopped is what the suicidal person wants. Its what cops call, "Suicide by cop" or "death my cop".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

This is when the suicidal person wants the cops to kill them to end what they feel is their suffering. They need help but its hard to help someone so angry at others. This guy sounds very much like this angry at others latter kind but was determined not to let others stop him.

No, not a spacecraft. The patent looks more like a very loud sound wave generator, so needs to be in air. It would take a lot of power (and sound) to defect the shockwave of an explosion. If it can stop an explosion shockwave, then the concussion wave (it would need to generate) would also kill anyone near it, but then sound proofing the vehicle enough (to protect it) would be a hard engineering task as well (although I guess achieveable). But then sound that powerful could also be used to destroy nearby buildings!

Its certainly not however a stealth technology, because the RF it'll generate will be very easy to pickup from a long distance away.

I'm waiting for rock bands to start using it for speakers! ;)

Right along with waking up and saying "I believe in the *insert name* party leading the country" and "two plus two equals five".

Its true the more powerful the language the more of good and bad you can have, depending upon how its used, but there's another side to it. How its used (and expected to be used) is very often driven and controlled like a fashion and just like fashion it has its own over zealous even hostile types who often enjoy denigrating anyone for doing things that don't follow the current fashion. There has been times where questioning current *insert programming language* doctrine is treated almost like heresy.

Of course all too often these loud denigrating Prophets of the new way, as they want others to believe, ultimately profit from being seen as the leaders in their field and so don't want rational discussion to get in their way.

Veterans of programming who have been around for a few decades will know what I mean, because they will have seen how what is seen as in fashion changes over time and then we also at times even get reinventions of older ideas under new names and new spins on old ideas.

Programming more than any other area of human behaviour should be about logic, not fashion, but sadly all too often, that's not how some programmers treat other programmers. I guess for some, manipulative career advancement takes precedence. Of course, they will be the type of people who'll be most likely to deny that's how anyone plays their power games over others.

But then that's no different from just about every industry and every walk of life.

That's why its called office politics ... which is well named and has been recognised for a very long time ... (and you'll usually find the one's who deny there's office politics where you work, so often turn out to be the biggest office poltics power game players behind people's backs).

@"Kind of like how jobs figures and GDP are fudged in western countries to make it seem like it is better than it is"

That's the same game policians play in every country. They want to keep their jobs so they want everyone to "think" things are better than they are. That's why there is such an interest in censoring and controling the news and when they can't censor there's always distraction tactics, such as releasing bad news when other high profile news stories are taking all the headlines. (One PR droid famously suggested the day after Diana Princess of Wales died was a good day to release bad news for the British government).

All the politicians are playing this game. Its all distraction and control tactics over the people they claim to represent, because if too many people suddenly heard bad news, they may well stand up against the people in power. Its why the politicians never want us all to know the truth. Its the real reason why the politicians feared the first wiki leaks stories. Simple fact was with so many people with that level of access any government could have had as many spies as they liked with that same level of access. So the only people who didn't know the truth were the people the governments claim to represent. They don't represent us, and never have, they represent themselves. We just get to make a binary (Hobson's) choice once every 4 years to choose between two groups of power hungry people who want to control us (for their own gain) and then we get no more say in how our lives are run, because they don't really want us to know the truth ... and so their Game of Thrones goes on. We are just pawns and always have been and always will be.

Don't believe me? ... don't worry, there will be some more news along very shortly that'll make you forget everything you've just heard me say and almost every bit of bad news you've heard this week will soon be forgotten as well. Welcome to our future, our Brave New World, where we are even less able to influence the power games over us than we have ever been, all because everyone is getting so distracted by so many news stories.

"solar+batteries"

Maybe they used old laptop batteries. ;)

"JTAG isn't only used for downloading firmware to your device"

I never said it was. You are playing a straw man argument, misrepresenting me then attacking that misrepresentation.

@AC, "some new trend" and "someone goes on blabbing about JTAG" ... No its not a new trend, people like you who don't really know about JTAG, have always trolled down comments they don't like (oh the irony). The fact is JTAG is about as near to a standard as we have with embedded CPUs and all developers of embedded systems know about and use JTAG. Also how do you think the initial bootloader firmware gets on the embedded systems during manufacturing? ... I'll give you a clue, JTAG.

"As far as I'm concerned, if it's orbiting a star, and it itself isn't another star, and it's got, or had, enough mass such that it pulled whatever it is made of into a spheroid, it's a planet"

So what about a Rogue planet. :)

Yes +1 to you. I was going to post the same kind of thing, so instead, I'll add to what you said. Automation frees us from doing the work ourselves, but its only now increasingly larger numbers of people are starting to see the end game. Like it of not, automation will eventually free everyone from work. We have been brought up to believe in a career even to the point where many sacrifice large parts of our lives for our career (often in the hope of making our lives better by earning more etc..). But that way of life is coming to an end. Within the next few decades the global get ever richer game is going to have its ultimate winner or winners, who take all. Its an inevitable consolidation of wealth that any kind of legislation will only delay or play into the hands of someone else in the world winning the title of the worlds richest person. The rest of us have always been pawns in this game, but that's not mattered to most of us because we just need money to live.

We need to look to ways to live as this game plays out its final moves. None of us want to be pawns for someone else, but we still need money to live and for many, its only the hope of raising enough money to even just partly escaping the life of a pawn that drives us on to put so much of our lives into our career. When a career is no longer possible, how will we escape or even dream of escaping the finacial burdens that control and shape so much of our lives?

Your glibly dismissive attitude overlooks so much, but instead of answering the points you play affronted, thereby not answering the points raised. You know damn well you were wrongly dismissive.