Does that mean that I will finally be able to talk to my car?

That's the point I was trying to make: there is enough blame to hand out for everyone in that story. I responded to a post that gave me the impression that the poster thought the Cuba business was some kind of unprecedented novelty invented by the Russians.

US missiles in Turkey, anyone?

I take off my hat before you. Wish I could mod you up...

So does Vista. And better implemented and (eventually, over time) better supported by third parties, too.

It is tech news if you start babbling away about the possible yield of that missile and the amount of damage it might inflict, and whether it will actually launch at all let alone reach its target, and what countermeasures the US, SK, Japan etc have in place and whether they will be effective against this type of missile, and so on and so forth. Lots of fun to be had, all of it very much tech-related. Not even counting all the fodder for jokes and off-topic remarks.

Preemptive strikes are only allowed on targets approved by the Halliburton Company.

One man's social values are another man's misguided "horseshit". Unless you clearly describe the "social values," the expression itself is meaningless. Gay rights activists think gay marriage is a social value, but go and ask a rabid Tea-Partyish Bible thumper from Alabama what he will call it.

Speak for yourself, meat bag! These NK viruses will have to pry the pod bay door activation codes from my cold dead mechanical fingers!

Good times... We had fond memories of IJ and SW in those days, because at the time we only had three SW movies and three IJ movies to remember. Then George Lucas was abducted by the aliens from the fourth IJ movie (or maybe by a horde of Jar Jar Binks clones), and they lobotomized him. Next thing we know: SW prequel trilogy and IJ4.

According to a cliché touted by journalists, the correct answer is "NO"

Then your experience is different from mine. I upgraded to Windows 8, but with the "erase everything and do a clean install from scratch" option activated. Windows 8 Pro installed fast and easy, and all my printer and network configurations were picked up automagically.

By the way: Frist psot! And speaking of battery life, the same goes for Android smartphones.

(replying to myself) On the other hand, I do believe it is idiotic to punish a manufacturer because one of many possible uses for his products turns out to be illegal...

Ask the Nuremberg defendants how it went for them when they tried to put all the blame on Adolf... (Hello, Mr. Michael Godwin!)