Our whole human existence is built around time, specifically morning, noon, afternoon and evening and midnight. How would you fix the title of the movie 'High Noon'? All the languages I have studied have names for these times and more. No, just because an idea is good and practical does not mean that everyone will like it. Still, if the idea of universal application of UTC has merit, then natural social pressures will bring about the change. To facilitate this conditions for change, we should quote times in the local window and include UTC reference in all communications using local time in the media. Until you get people educated and using UTC, you will never bring about the change unless we lapse into a world dictatorship and the dictator likes UTC.

The internal synthesization of the cannabis chemicals would be a disaster for our country. Consider the revenue the government makes from tobacco. That in itself ensures that tobacco products will never be banned, and they are more destructive, more addictive than marijuana. It is only a matter of time before marijuana gets legalized and establishes another money cow for our government. Why, legalization of maryjane might even resolve our national debt issues and weaken organized crime. Don't any of our legislators have the balls to recognize this and propound legalization accordingly?

Yes, there are now many different kinds of personal computers from smart phones, pads, tablets, laptops, desktops, build in the wall-car-reefer-toilet-, I have them all and I use them all. but the one outstanding good factor about the desktop PC is........size. The little things work great but my fingers and hands are the limiting factor to speed and accuracy and comfort. I like a keyboard that I can place my hands on one spot and spread my fingers to reach any key without having to move my hands but plenty of room between keys so I don't push down two or three at once. PCs are comfortable, easy to use, easy on the eyes. Face it..doing a Word document or spreadsheet on a tablet or pad, let alone a smart phone, is just too damn hard on the eyes and the control of coordination. Each device-smart phone, tablet, pad, laptop and desktop has its very special 'comfortable usefulness' window.That's why I don't think the PC will ever go away-no, we'll just have more and more choices of devices to use and adapt to our very own and individual life styles, and that's a good thing.

Another good reason to move out of the country! America is rapidly becoming a police state. Freedoms we once took for granted are now abrogated in the name of 'homeland security'. I travel to the states once or twice a year and the entire time I am there I feel like I am being watched, restricted and at the mercy of the whims of whoever is in charge. When I land back home I feel safe again.

The cops are upset because they have been burned so many times by videos of their actions. That's the ONLY reason they got upset and arrested the photographer. However the comment made about the privacy of the person arrested has merit, and if I was recording the incident, I would be looking for police brutality and other miscarriages of justice. If it was a simple cut and dry arrest and all parties behaved like adults, I would not use the recording out of principle. Also the recording would not be anything to show off anyhow. If the 'perp' had the audacity to try resisting arrest and the thing turned into a brawl and the police were justified using the force necessary to control the situation, then that's some great footage at the expense of the perpetrator, not the cops. As for how the police treated the photographer, if they changed their name to 'Gestapo', there would be no case. Everybody would understand their mission and their 'modus operendi'. Hell, we're already more than halfway there!

The action of this mob is reminescent of the story of the ignorant idiots with torches and pitchforks going after Frankenstein's monster. That there have been no arrests and prosecutions is regrettable. These terrorists trespassed on private property and destroyed that which was not theirs. They had no right to do it, no matter how against genetic modification they are. As for the GM experiments, I don't understand why some people are so afraid of it. The products created from these experiments are the ones selected as successful modificaitons and the others are rejected as failures or unusable. There are no insecticides or poisons, no radiation, no gasses or biohazards. The end result would have been ordinary potatos that were resistant to potato blight. The previous commenter's concerns about cross-fertilization are legitimate, but can be addressed with simple and effective precautions. The hysteria of anti-GM activists is similar to the religious fanatics against stem-cell research in the U.S., both based in ignorance and superstitious fear of the unknown. Genetic modification is now producing better foods, synthesizing medicines and other chemical substances which were previously hard to manufacture or extract, and many other benefits. The activities of scientitists and growers to selectively breed and cross polinate plants in efforts to emphasize good genetic traits and minimize traits that are not desired. Is this not GM, but approached over generations of the plants or animals being modified, so is this not GM too? Humans beings now have the ability to speed up the selection process and the quickly weed out unsuccessful modificaitons, and this is just another extension of the growth of our technology in this industrial age. The bottom line is that I am all for designing and breeding plants that can survive and thrive in adverse conditions, produce more edible material than non-modified plants for higher yields to better be able to feed the growing human population. The people doing this research may not be as altruistic as they are seekers of profit, but with each successful accomplishment that betters the human condition, I say, God bless them all-they are unsung heroes.

Another example of the new United States- Dictatorship of the Proletariat, or is it 'some are more equal then others'....?

When I was young in the 50's and 60's, it was 'cool' to be into science. Naturalists and scientists were respected and so were their opinions and findings. My work took me out of the United States for nearly 50 years punctuated by visits to the U.S, about twice a year average. In that time I have seen a disturbing change in the attitudes of people in general, away from the factual and data-specific and more to the emotional denial of fact and logic. I have seen a rise of religious extremism and their encroachment into the social and political arena than ever before. When I was in a kid in the '50s they changed the 'Pledge of Allegience' by adding 'under God' to the pledge that we all recited in school. Even at the age of 15, that irritated me and I refused to comply (which earned me a lot of harassment) as I felt that, even though I was a Catholic, that it was unfair to the people who did not believe in God. This was just the beginning. When I entered the military, I declared myself an 'atheist' to the clerk who was building my personnel file. He snarled at me 'We don't have atheists in this Air Force! What religion was your father?' and I answered 'Catholic' (I should have said 'none of your business', but I was intimidated, young and naive), and so he put down 'Catholic' in my records and issued me 'dog tags' with that as my religion. (I threw them away when I left basic training and got ones that said 'no preference' because the Air Force during my entire 20 year career would not let me declare myself as an atheist.) I have seen this attitude of religious discrimination intensify as the years passed. One of the byproducts of this has been an attitude of rejection of things scientific and factual, I have watched from the outside as our society has become more and more anti-intellectual, anti-logical, (as one of the comments stated) and more prone to belief in things emotional, things magical, creationism, intelligent-design-ism, pro-life-ism. Kids no longer value science and seeking facts as much as they value the winner of American Idol, the sports, the top singers and movie stars, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, vampires and werewolves, other non-consequential crap. Along with this I have seen an 'establishment' trend in 'justified' erosion of individual freedoms. My last visit to San Diego, in 2008, I felt I was in some kind of third-world country, not the United States, as I was driven away by the police from watching a peaceful political demonstration against the governor. I thought ' I put in 20 years and a veteran to protect the freedom of political expression and now even I am being denied that right?' I have decided to live the rest of my life overseas because, regretfully, the U.S. is no longer the 'land of the free and the home of the brave'. It is a myth now. The children are being educated with pseudo-scientific BS, a mixture of mysticism, creationism and intelligent-designism, a belittling of evolution and scientific evaluation by putting them on a equal comparison of those non-scientific beliefs. The religious fanatics and politically-correct mob-think have taken over our country. I have taken shelter beyond the border.

To truly delete or protect the info on the SSD, after copying all the pertinent data, remove the SSD from the slot, place it on a solid object (such as a brick) and administer a strong concussive blow with a nail-driving device (ie Hammer). The SSDs are cheap enough and if your data is as valuable as you think it is, there is no great loss (of the SSD). If you think this is a waste, then perhaps your data is really not that valuable after all......

I bought the damn thing and I'll do anything I want with it! Get a life Sony! If Sony would just look at what the 'hackers' are doing with the device, they would be thrilled at all the new ideas and ways to use it. Then if they adopt and incorporate these 'hacks' into their next version, it would mean more $$$ for Sony and more enjoyment for those who use the product. Everybody wins!

Paybacks will be sweet..... Don't just sit there! Hack 'em back! Get the best minds (if you still have them) together and devise a wake up call to the Chinese government. That's the only language they understand and it doesn't need any translation!

The tracking device, if given to me, would end up in the closest storm sewer!

After 9/11, we all were willing to give up some freedoms and protections in the interest of protecting the country. It has been 10 years and its time to get back to 'normal' before the current state of affairs becomes the new 'normal'. Hosni Mubarak declared a state of emergency in his country 30 years ago and let it become the norm, making the suspension of individual rights and protections the new norm. It took 30 years for the people of Egypt to say 'enough is enough'. It is time to remind our leaders of who hired them and who can fire them. This is a principle that transcends political borders and cultures. Government against the mandate of the people will not stand. Ask the Soviets all about it.

The Internet is truly the first border-less society, a super nation, a first in the history of humanity, the first great step to 'one world-ism', truly a new social order. Governments will naturally resist its evolution; it scares th s..t out of them! You see this resistance all around us today. How successful have they been? Tunisia, Egypt, Myanmar... No matter what any government does, they can't put the genie back into the bottle.... Long live the Internet, long live Wikileaks, long live Twitter, Facebook and their successors....As long at there is an Internet, people will be able to communicate, so what Obama and China, and any government attempting to put a leash on the Internet, their efforts are to no avail, so don't worry, everything will be ok!

"Hackers" are GOOD for business. Pay attention to what they are doing. They are showing you new ways to use your product. If there was no demand, nobody would do it. So consider the 'hackers' as a freebie addition to your R&D department. There are so many good minds out there with original ideas and they will make money for you if you would just loosen up a bit!