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Sorry, neither of the products you mentioned fit in the conversation. The Netgear Stora is a NAS device - hell it doesn't even have video output, while the Pandora is a handhold game system on par with the Gameboy's and such. No way is that thing going to replace a tablet, much less a computer. With enough hacking, I'm sure you could put linux on a Gameboy DS, that doesn't mean you can use it in place of your laptop.

The OC was talking about the difficulty in changing the OS on the current line of tablets with the OS installed in firmware insted of rewritable storage (micro SD or an ssd drive) and the lack of storage (16 or 32 gig micro SD), and I was pointing him to the more powerful slates (or tablets, because yes, the terms have become interchangeable) like the HP Slate 500 or Acer Iconia Tab.

OK, I'll be generous and give you this link because it's interesting that they use the words "slate" and "tablet" almost interchangeably - which actually proves that you accept the limitations of your tablet device by virtue of having to invent some new category of device that isn't any different.

OK, you're going to have to explain your logic on this. What in that (poorly written and hard to understand) article proves anything? What category of device have I invented? The terms tablet and slate have been around since the beginning of the technology. Originally, tablets were convertible laptops (revolvable keyboard or a screen that spun around and folded back on top of the keyboard) and slates were less powerful devices and had no keyboard. Now, however, they are beginning to reverse, and tablets are now becoming the low powered dedicated devices and slates the "laptop replacing" power devices with a full blown OS.

Sorry, neither of the products you mentioned fit in the conversation. The Netgear Stora is a NAS device - hell it doesn't even have video output, while the Pandora is a handhold game system on par with the Gameboy's and such. No way is that thing going to replace a tablet, much less a computer. With enough hacking, I'm sure you could put linux on a Gameboy DS, that doesn't mean you can use it in place of your laptop.

The OC was talking about the difficulty in changing the OS on the current line of tablets with the OS installed in firmware insted of rewritable storage (micro SD or an ssd drive) and the lack of storage (16 or 32 gig micro SD), and I was pointing him to the more powerful slates (or tablets, because yes, the terms have become interchangeable) like the HP Slate 500 or Acer Iconia Tab.

OK, I'll be generous and give you this link because it's interesting that they use the words "slate" and "tablet" almost interchangeably - which actually proves that you accept the limitations of your tablet device by virtue of having to invent some new category of device that isn't any different.

OK, you're going to have to explain your logic on this. What in that (poorly written and hard to understand) article proves anything? What category of device have I invented? The terms tablet and slate have been around since the beginning of the technology. Originally, tablets were convertible laptops (revolvable keyboard or a screen that spun around and folded back on top of the keyboard) and slates were less powerful devices and had no keyboard. Now, however, they are beginning to reverse, and tablets are now becoming the low powered dedicated devices and slates the "laptop replacing" power devices with a full blown OS.

Palin is the rock star of GOP politics. If she decides to run, and she'll do it as late as she can get away with and still get on the primary ballots, her candidacy will have a similar impact as Trump would have had. The crowds in New Hampshire and some of the early states will get larger and larger and will steal all the headlines come January and February. The story will not be what Palin says or stands for, but the reaction of the voters going to her rallies.

Imagine you're her campaign manager... you get decide what rock music to fire up the crowd with before Sarah hits the stage. Maybe it'll be the obvious choice. Or perhaps a chick oldie crossover. It's an embarrassment of riches, you'll look like a genius almost whatever you do. Michelle Bachmann is a passionate and good looking woman but she doesn't have anywhere near the same effect on people.

Palin is the rock star of GOP politics. If she decides to run, and she'll do it as late as she can get away with and still get on the primary ballots, her candidacy will have a similar impact as Trump would have had. The crowds in New Hampshire and some of the early states will get larger and larger and will steal all the headlines come January and February. The story will not be what Palin says or stands for, but the reaction of the voters going to her rallies.

Imagine you're her campaign manager... you get decide what rock music to fire up the crowd with before Sarah hits the stage. Maybe it'll be the obvious choice. Or perhaps a chick oldie crossover. It's an embarrassment of riches, you'll look like a genius almost whatever you do. Michelle Bachmann is a passionate and good looking woman but she doesn't have anywhere near the same effect on people.

Not only have I looked it up, I've read books about it, Government by Judiciary, written by Raoul Berger, (from the Wikipedia article), an attorney and professor at The University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University School of Law. While at Harvard, he was the Charles Warren Senior Fellow in American Legal History. I find Berger's research to be very thorough and superior to the work of others. The 14th was never intended to do what the Supreme Court has decided it does. You should read the books and decide for yourself who you agree with.

Not only have I looked it up, I've read books about it, Government by Judiciary, written by Raoul Berger, (from the Wikipedia article), an attorney and professor at The University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University School of Law. While at Harvard, he was the Charles Warren Senior Fellow in American Legal History. I find Berger's research to be very thorough and superior to the work of others. The 14th was never intended to do what the Supreme Court has decided it does. You should read the books and decide for yourself who you agree with.

Your point assumes that the end user doesn't just decide to use the Amazon Cloud Drive for free, instead. We're talking about people that have been resistant to change or cheap enough to stick to a 10 year old OS. We're not talking about people that like to waste money on a new iProduct or want to figure out a different UI. Apple will be lucky if their existing users move over to the service, much less use it to encourage new customers to spring for the expensive walled garden.

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

Simple, I only buy low budget, excellent movies (The Man From Earth, [REC] and [REC]2, Primer, Moon, Ink, Tambien la lluvia, El Secreto de sus Ojos — not so low budget, 9 Reinas, El Aura, L'auberge espagnole, Russian Dolls, Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain, Monsters, most things from Woody Allen, The Blair Witch Project... I could go on) and don't buy nor go to the cinema to eat over expensive popcorn and endure awful blockbuster shit (Michael Bay, I shit in your general direction).

I suspect even Ehrlich's 1.2 billion is too high an estimate. A strictly sustainable world population makes no use of fossil fuels, as they do not get replenished nearly as rapidly as we use them up. We last had 1.2 billion people about 1820, when coal was already part of the mix, not to mention peat. We can argue over how long oil, coal, and natural gas supplies will last us, but at the end of the day their use does not count as sustainable. We can currently feed a sizeable portion of the world population, but that is thanks to the green revolution of the twentieth century that basically came down to an intensification of production (and transportation) through an increased dependence on fossil fuels. Take fossil fuels out of the equation and precious few of us will survive another year. The problem is that whenever we develop a major new technology, we increase the size of the population to the new maximum carrying-capacity resulting from that development, and thus we become painfully dependent on that same technology (as argued by Craig Dilworth).

I did a back-of-the-envelope computation a while back to see what it would be like if there were one trillion people. It would not be anything like what we see now, but it could actually work. Many things that we consider essential would be gone - but that is also true of how the earliest explorers to the Americas would think about our present life.

IIRC, population density would average about 14,000 per square mile - about twice the present population of Bangladesh. Of course, that counts deserts, mountains, etc. but does not include expansion into floating systems on the oceans. (The Pacific Ocean alone is more than twice as large as all the landmass combined.)

The energy computations would be quite different but not impossible to contemplate. I don't recall the details, but it would work. The Sun provides a lot of energy, and oddly enough, the more dense the population the less energy each individual needs.

I personally do not like big cities. I grew up in a semi-rural area, and I get uncomfortable in a crowd. But a college friend from China told me that he got nervous any time he _wasn't surrounded by many people! So the people who grew up in that environment would be reasonably adapted to it, and would consider my present lifestyle (outside the range of 4G) something akin to orbiting an asteroid - an alien, scary environment.

So, bottom line - it's all about what gets lost, not what survives. Many species will not survive, many cultures will disappear by absorption. New species will become part of this new very different ecosystem. In the US for example, I could see most if not all present national parks still in existence, but admittance restricted to research personnel, and the borders surrounded by high rise buildings filled with people who eat food grown in a vat (synthetic yogurt?) from recycled waste. I'm not the first to foresee such a high density lifestyle.

Probably the biggest problem will be management of infectious disease, and social disease (such as gang warfare - a kind of localized inflammation in the social body.) Behavior and travel will become increasingly restricted - it may well be a 'hive'-like environment where most people never leave their locale - much like cells in a body. That is what we will have, really, a large 'body' composed of individual humans and integrated organisms, some of which may well be hybrid carbon-silicon entities.

Again IIRC, at present rates of growth it will take 1400 years to achieve 1 trillion people. In that time, we might well have populated near-earth orbital space. That will not move a large number of people off the Earth, but it will provide an outlet for the minds of those who remain. And, since shipping things down from orbit is much cheaper than sending things up, it may be cost effective to grow food in orbital farms (using materials from the asteroids?) and drop it down to the hungry mouths on Earth - in return for up-shipments of hard-to-get minerals, perhaps?)

All of the above is speculative, but the lesson is that every argument about the limits to growth makes critical and false assumptions about the failure of adaptation, technology and social patterns. Life is _very_ adaptive, and in that sense we are life^2. We are replacing classical bio-evolution with social and technical evolution, which will drive bio-evolution. I suggest reading Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon (at Amazon - does /. get paid if we link to Amazon?)

do you keep your books on some sort of bookshelf? that is hardware that you purchased to support storage of books. the last bookshelf i bought cost ~$150. nice bookshelves cost even more. and the space for said bookshelf (or stack on the floor) is also a required prerequisite. your $100+ hardware investment for reading covers storage as well.

there are vast numbers of out-of-copyright e-books available for less than your "$2-$3" price range (see project gutenberg and/or free kindle book section). you also have the ability to buy large/~complete collections of out-of-copyright for <$5 (verne for $3, poe for $0.89, shakespeare for $2, etc).

e-books aren't the end-all solution to reading, but they certainly have their place.

do you keep your books on some sort of bookshelf? that is hardware that you purchased to support storage of books. the last bookshelf i bought cost ~$150. nice bookshelves cost even more. and the space for said bookshelf (or stack on the floor) is also a required prerequisite. your $100+ hardware investment for reading covers storage as well.

there are vast numbers of out-of-copyright e-books available for less than your "$2-$3" price range (see project gutenberg and/or free kindle book section). you also have the ability to buy large/~complete collections of out-of-copyright for <$5 (verne for $3, poe for $0.89, shakespeare for $2, etc).

e-books aren't the end-all solution to reading, but they certainly have their place.

do you keep your books on some sort of bookshelf? that is hardware that you purchased to support storage of books. the last bookshelf i bought cost ~$150. nice bookshelves cost even more. and the space for said bookshelf (or stack on the floor) is also a required prerequisite. your $100+ hardware investment for reading covers storage as well.

there are vast numbers of out-of-copyright e-books available for less than your "$2-$3" price range (see project gutenberg and/or free kindle book section). you also have the ability to buy large/~complete collections of out-of-copyright for <$5 (verne for $3, poe for $0.89, shakespeare for $2, etc).

e-books aren't the end-all solution to reading, but they certainly have their place.

It's the publishers who demand DRM. You can sell books through Amazon without DRM. For example, if you buy my book, Chasing the Runner's High, it has no DRM.

Stallman posits only 2 possibilities, but there are really 3:
1) Buy the ebook, and subject yourself to the relatively draconian and arbitrary 'ownership' limits granted by the ebook vendors
2) don't buy the ebook

Of course the other option is to
3) steal the ebook (and logically, strip it of DRM)

Granted, there is a significant question of morality here - is the author getting compensated, or are you simply stealing?

I believe that in any society, the wants of a people will be fulfilled. If they cannot be filled legally or at what the public deems a reasonable cost, a black market will develop. In this view, the "sins" - gambling, drugs, prostitution (and now apparently, reading ebooks cheaply) are absolutely endemic to a large enough group of people. Parochial attempts to ban them only raises the price in the black market, they never go away.

It's not irrelevant to note that by any measure, ebook sellers are pricing their books unreasonably. Take a popular title, the first Game of Thrones book:
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Thrones-Song-Fire-Book/dp/0553386794/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1307543608&sr=8-2
Massmarket Paperback: $8.99
Kindle edition: $8.99
(Your link may vary, it's no secret that Amazon 'adjusts' prices based on your cookies and how much you've been "shopping".)
Considering that after the author is paid and the book laid-out for publishing, replication and shipping (which are huge costs for the physical book) are nearly zero for the Kindle that's nonsense. (Go ahead and argue, it's been exhaustively and conclusively discussed @ http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?threshold=-1&mode=thread&commentsort=0&op=Change&sid=2047898 )

I still doubt that absurd pricing justifies stealing, except in the case of profiteering critical goods. But (in my view) it certainly weakens the argument that the seller is 'entitled' to the fruits of his labor, if he's charging $10 for an apple. That's capitalism - if he can get it, great. But if he's colluding to fix prices and prevent the free market from pricing goods fairly, then he loses any moral high ground at all.

But I'll offer this: my local library has ebooks for loan, which is INCREDIBLY convenient. It's a great service, saving me the hassle of physically GOING to the library and checking it out. However, they only offer it for the Nook and a few other readers - not the Kindle. I would have no hesitation to check out these books and strip them of their DRM in order to convert to kindle-readable if that's all I had. As long as I delete the book within the 21-day loaner window, I don't believe anything illegal has been done. However, I'm sure that according to law, it would have been.

"if someone is bitter at the United States because it allies itself with wretched hives of scum and villainy, as we do on occasion, that is legitimate"
"The United States blocks numerous Arab actions against Israel in the UN, and people hate the US in part because of that. That is less legitimate."

The United States doesn't just block Arab actions against Israel, it blocks world actions against Israel. I'll start by saying that I'm an Arab, specifically, I'm Lebanese(and Christian, this matters as a Lebanese person as Christians have tended, historically, to be more pro-Israel). However, I've grown quite detached, emotionally, from the issue.

Read some of the writings of Robert Fisk, David Hirst or Noam Chomsky on the Arab-Israeli struggle. You will see, that despite the western media picturing it otherwise, the case of Israel and any of the other regimes which oppress people and cause hatred is not really that different.

As for it making an easy target, again, I'd have to disagree. It doesn't. People here are actually attracted to western lifestyles(and I'm not just talking about Lebanon, but all the Arab states, I've been to Egypt quite a few times and have been living as a missionary in Syria for the past year) and do not hate the west because of those(except for a minority of fundamentalist bigots, and again, despite the media picturing it otherwise, they are a minority).

It is solely and fundamentally American and Israeli policy that has alienated the region from you, that has created tensions and given birth to Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism in their modern forms. Islamic fundamentalism was born as a result of American tampering in Iran(even pro-west sources such as this book: http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Cold-War-Conflict/dp/0786717319 will tell you as much). It was sustained by the US in Afghanistan and it has now spread to many regions in the middle east. Hezbollah, also as an example, was born of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Internationally condemned with many UN resolutions to testify for this but US(Reagan) backed.

This: http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Olive-Branch-Violence-Middle/dp/1560254831 is a good book to start from if you want to read about the history of the region. Check the author out if you don't think he can be trusted to be objective or knowledgeable on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hirst_(journalist)

"if someone is bitter at the United States because it allies itself with wretched hives of scum and villainy, as we do on occasion, that is legitimate"
"The United States blocks numerous Arab actions against Israel in the UN, and people hate the US in part because of that. That is less legitimate."

The United States doesn't just block Arab actions against Israel, it blocks world actions against Israel. I'll start by saying that I'm an Arab, specifically, I'm Lebanese(and Christian, this matters as a Lebanese person as Christians have tended, historically, to be more pro-Israel). However, I've grown quite detached, emotionally, from the issue.

Read some of the writings of Robert Fisk, David Hirst or Noam Chomsky on the Arab-Israeli struggle. You will see, that despite the western media picturing it otherwise, the case of Israel and any of the other regimes which oppress people and cause hatred is not really that different.

As for it making an easy target, again, I'd have to disagree. It doesn't. People here are actually attracted to western lifestyles(and I'm not just talking about Lebanon, but all the Arab states, I've been to Egypt quite a few times and have been living as a missionary in Syria for the past year) and do not hate the west because of those(except for a minority of fundamentalist bigots, and again, despite the media picturing it otherwise, they are a minority).

It is solely and fundamentally American and Israeli policy that has alienated the region from you, that has created tensions and given birth to Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism in their modern forms. Islamic fundamentalism was born as a result of American tampering in Iran(even pro-west sources such as this book: http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Cold-War-Conflict/dp/0786717319 will tell you as much). It was sustained by the US in Afghanistan and it has now spread to many regions in the middle east. Hezbollah, also as an example, was born of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Internationally condemned with many UN resolutions to testify for this but US(Reagan) backed.

This: http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Olive-Branch-Violence-Middle/dp/1560254831 is a good book to start from if you want to read about the history of the region. Check the author out if you don't think he can be trusted to be objective or knowledgeable on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hirst_(journalist)

Check out some of Sudhir Venkatesh's stuff. He's done some close sociological work with gangs, and the results are quite surprising. The rank and file drug dealers on street corners would be better off at McDonalds: the pay is about the same, and you have a lot less chance of being shot. It's only a few of the serious kingpins who bring in a good income, and at that point you're working so hard keeping all the balls in the air you'd again be better off trying to go legit- anyone who can manage that many people in a high-risk environment could probably do very well in management.

Really, his price on this flashlight is quite good, if you remember the thing is capable of 500 lumens of output. Compare it to a flashlight like this: http://www.amazon.com/EagleTac-T20C2-MarKII-XM-L-Flashlight/dp/B004NEKA8Q

Not only this, but they want $440 for that thing.

I've no idea what the market is supposed to be for it. For $500, you can get a dual-core Atom with 2Gb RAM and Nvidia ION (which means very decent graphics/video perf) running Win7 - in which you can run Chrome, so it's just as full-featured. And get twice as long battery life.

Or you can get a cheapo bottom of the barrel netbook for $250, which will likely still be powerful enough for anything you could do on a Chromebook...

Schneier hasn't written a "hard" CS book since that first one because it turns out that the crypto solves only a tiny part of the problem. People are a much bigger part. I think Schneier felt he had to write these later books because he kept seeing software developers ignore the people problem.

You may say you really get this problem. Maybe you are right. The evidence, though, tells us that most people really do not get it, and need to be beaten over the head with it several times before they do get it. Much better to receive that beating at the hands of a benevolent master, rather than watch your carefully-built perfectly-designed cryptosystem fall to social engineering, or to a kid peeking at a stickynote under a keyboard.

For more stories of this sort, read Mitnick's book. It is not an especially enjoyable book, and Mitnick is not an especially good hacker. That's exactly the point, though. These are real stories of how real systems get compromised. Mitnick describes your actual enemy, not the one so many people seem to imagine. (The NSA, et al.).

All the digital clocks I have will keep the wrong time if they lose power. Lose power, comes back and clock says "12:00". One hour later, clock now says "01:00". That's a broken clock that's never right.

80's technology did have its draw backs. But here in 2011, for just $11.99 you can fix that problem: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-ICF-C218-Automatic-Clock-Radio/dp/B000MXWSWI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307379350&sr=8-1

I'd urge you and anybody else involved in the decision to read Rework first.

There's a chapter in it called 'Everyone in the front lines'. The bottom line is, that everyone should be involved in directly solving the problems of those whos money the company is running on. I.E., the customers. Everyone should be scheduled in a few hours front-facing time, and if it only is in the companies callcenter or as a protocollist in a sales meeting.

I personally think in a company worth while working for everybody should know a bit about everything. At least the fun parts. Nobody needs to know the mess we go through when version X of software y doesn't run on system Z and we try to figure out what's wrong. The messy and tedious parts are for the pros of the field in question.
Likewise I needn't know where exactly the janitor keeps the window cleaner and what a fuss it is to get the installation company to finish the newest CAT5 layout on schedule, but I should be able to operate the dishwasher and know where the stuff is I need to keep my desk and monitor clean. I also needn't know every single sales statistic in the industry and whether the market we're currently aiming for is worth the 15% discount our current pitch is demanding.

But I'd actually expect a CEO of a software company to be able to understand the difference between a web and a native client UI and the ups and downs of both. I'd also expect a programmer to know where the company he's working for is currently getting its money from, and whether his work is directly related to that or he's currently prototyping for the next round of products. And I'd expect him to know what colorful buttons or neat features the sales-team needs to be able outsell the competition or justify a version upgrade to existing customers.

In a Nutshell, I'd expect everybody in a company to actually give a shit. If that's not the case, then the politics and x-department bickering starts. That's usually the time to leave and look for a new job.

Truth be told, your technical analysis is above my pay grade. I don't say that to dismiss your point, but just to say I won't comment on the specifics of the skype protocol and what it offers for the internet. With that said, I believe you've missed the forest for the trees in my comment. I was merely taking the position that innovation is driven by networks of people, not superior technology. The position that I illustrated was not born from any research I did, but the research done by a professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management. I saw him speak on this very topic and he had a very compelling argument for the conclusions he reached during this speech.

Andrew Hargadon
His Book

And I am soon to be a student at UC Davis, GSM. I don't bring this up to toot my own horn (and it's only a very good business school not an elite one), but rather to say that there's a possibility that I may have begun drinking the kool aid :)

Such sequences are called hailstone sequences because the values typically rise and fall, somewhat analogously to a hailstone inside a cloud. While a hailstone eventually becomes so heavy that it falls to ground, every starting positive integer ever tested has produced a hailstone sequence that eventually drops down to the number 1 and then "bounces" into the small loop 4, 2, 1, ....

It lists as one of its sources this book on the etymology of math terms in English. It looks interesting. Maybe I'll get a copy myself....

Think he's be best starting with Cryptography for Dummies: http://www.amazon.com/Cryptography-Dummies-Chey-Cobb/dp/0764541889

Then on to the other suggested books...

I remember reading about an interesting concept a loong time ago in in Dave Duncan's book "Strings".

Basically, the computer took a sample of your normal talking voice, then a sample of what they called 'command voice' or something. When characters were communicating to the central computer they'd simply use their command voice instead of their regular voice. The computer was able to tell which user was requesting what action based on voice identification, and would ignore regular speech unless instructed not to (e.g., "Start dictation It was a dark and stormy night...")

It seemed a pretty elegant solution to the whole 'how does the device know you're talking to it' issue, as long as the computer is able to a) positively identify your voice when compared against others and b) positively identify the difference between your 'normal' voice and your 'command voice'. I have no idea if such realtime discrimination will ever be possible, I just thought it was a cool idea.

Of course, looking at the current fail rate of simple voice command recognition, I'd suspect that the software has a longer way to go than does the hardware...

I wasn't using AWS at the time, so no first hand knowledge... So far I've just been messing around with various setups using various AWS tools / features / products.

I highly recommended this book if you are looking into it.

It may be a bit outdated, but it does a great job of going through everything. Just enough code to show you what is going on and how to create stuff with AWS using the command line, but also a real in-depth look into each tool and some suggestions on how to combine them.

(1) If it's shared hosting (many clients on one system), do the world a favor and just go bankrupt before launch.

(2) If it's something at least somewhat reasonable (VPS, etc), follow some basic precautions:

- DON'T write shitty code that allows SQL injection. If you don't know what SQL injection is, go to (1) - seriously, this isn't something that can just get "tidied up" pre-launch, you've either got good code or you've got a future security hole.

- DON'T store anything worth stealing. Sounds sarcastic, but this frequently comes down to (a) unsalted and/or cleartext passwords and (b) credit card / banking information. (a) is bad because users frequently reuse passwords; thankfully there's wide support for things like bcrypt that produce strong password hashes - don't roll your own, unless you've neglected to mention a degree in cryptanalysis in your posting. As for (b), there are plenty of solutions for avoiding that storage (CC tokenization, etc) - let the people who build *those* services worry about the details.

If you *really* need to be sure about security, you're likely going to have to step beyond a generic "hosting service" and get something more dedicated (colo, etc). You may also want to consider checking out EC2, as they were certified as a Level 1 PCI Service Provider; I also suspect they've got way more datacenter security than Bob's House of Colo and Boiled P-Nuts can manage....

And the harsh reality is that, since we started the "get tough on crime" attitude in the U.S. back in the early 80's, violent crime has seen a steady decline.

1. Citation needed.

discussed at great length in the easy-to-read pop-sci book "freakonomics"

Indeed. I've read it. It seems to have a somewhat different conclusion than what the GP suggested, as already pointed out by several posters in this thread.

And the harsh reality is that, since we started the "get tough on crime" attitude in the U.S. back in the early 80's, violent crime has seen a steady decline.

1. Citation needed.

discussed at great length in the easy-to-read pop-sci book "freakonomics"

The contenders could be two songs about working on the chain gang: Sam Cooke's original and the sequel from the Pretenders.

The contenders could be two songs about working on the chain gang: Sam Cooke's original and the sequel from the Pretenders.

And Amazon.com is selling it new for $41.63 so this must make it the bargain of a life time.

The nice thing about Android is that you're free to choose the walled garden if you want.

So its not a course book but Code Complete http://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook-Construction/dp/0735619670/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306930229&sr=8-1 is an excellent read to understand the overall programming process before getting into actual coding. Starting with language syntax and thinking you understand programming is backward to me when you first need to understand developing software and then you can use any language you want to for implementing the program you designed.

As far as intro to programming goes, when I took High School Computer Science, our textbook was the Dietel & Dietel C++ How to Program. It was definitely aimed at the beginner to intermediate level programmers ...

Lucky you, C++ didn't exist when I went to High School. Hell, the first real book on C had just come out, and certainly wasn't in use in my high school.

That said, Steven Prata's Primer on C++ was pretty useful for OO concepts. It's now in it's 5th edition. Sigh. But it all depends upon what you want to learn. In the Java language (my current meal ticket) I wouldn't even know what to point you to since all the books I originally used are horribly out of date and I haven't bought one in at least 7 years. I can tell you that most of the grads out of college don't know a lick of true CS concepts though, they barely know Java syntax. Makes you wonder what happened to colleges over the past few years? (many years? 5s of years? decades? Let's just skip that thought.)

All that said though, perhaps you want to look into Objective-C if you're interested in the Mac/iPhone/iPad world.

Honestly, I'd work on concepts, and start with C and then add an OO language such as C++/Java/Objective-C. It will teach you many things and adding any other language afterwards should be relatively trivial. Assembly remains its own forte, however. That's a different beast, also worth knowing, but mastering it is worthwhile as mastery can apply broadly. Note the key: mastery. Just "knowing" assembly doesn't gain you much.

I really would start with C for 6-9 months, then add 3-6 months of assembly just for exposure, then about a year or 2 of C++/Java/Objective-C for OO concepts. They should be more ready than most for the market after that.

Its probably way too late for my comment to be modded up for the submitter, but here goes.

I've taught "Into to Word Processing" and "Intro to Spreadsheets" type courses at some local adult education colleges. The best books I found were the Shelly Cashman series, such as "Microsoft Office 2007 Introductory Concepts and Techniques". Good explanations with screenshots, and good exercises.

Here's an Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-2007-Introductory-Techniques/dp/0324826842/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306895933&sr=8-1

Its fairly inexpensive for a used copy.