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The PlayStation 4 is x86-64 based now rather than Cell-based, which makes it easier to use FreeBSD

Funny how Sony tried to woo Apple over to the Cell architecture, even offering Apple Sony authored PS3 games for the Mac.

As it happens, Intel's was not the only alternative chip design that Apple had explored for the Mac. An executive close to Sony said that last year Mr. Jobs met in California with both Nobuyuki Idei, then the chairman and chief executive of the Japanese consumer electronics firm, and with Kenichi Kutaragi, the creator of the Sony PlayStation.

Mr. Kutaragi tried to interest Mr. Jobs in adopting the Cell chip, which is being developed by I.B.M. for use in the coming PlayStation 3, in exchange for access to certain Sony technologies. Mr. Jobs rejected the idea, telling Mr. Kutaragi that he was disappointed with the Cell design, which he believes will be even less effective than the PowerPC.

source: What's Really Behind the Apple-Intel Alliance / NYTimes / 2005

Other sources I am too lazy to dig up cited Jobs as stating that his main mover for this decision was that he in no way wanted any Apple product associated with a gaming console. Call it Platformism, but if that citation is correct, it was very solid reasoning from Jobs. Every PC pundit on the planet would have had a field day with that one. Never mind that the US DoD (and likely the NSA) has found the Cell architecture in PS3s most useful for clustering, since the Cell architecture is so very cheap and so very good at that. citation

There have been other attacks of course, but this has been the deadliest, and most famous against the United States.

2001 9/11 attacks - 2,973 dead. Two skyscraper towers destroyed, heavy damage to Pentagon.
Estimated damage to US economy: ~ $100,000,000,000.

Attacks against the US embassies in Africa is another example.

1998 Bombing of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya - 224 dead, est. 4,000 injured, both embassies heavily damaged

It's true that more than a thousand U.S. citizens have died in Afghanistan, but that's the result of a misguided and disproportionate "action against terrorists" rather than of doing nothing.

The campaign by the US, NATO, and other allies in Afghanistan is neither misguided nor disproportionate.

Too bad. Pravda used to be a pretty good newspaper under Gorbachev.

Now it sounds like the Wall Street Journal under Murdoch.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/business/media/14carr.html

Under Murdoch, Tilting Rightward at The Journal
By DAVID CARR
Published: December 13, 2009

The pro-business, antigovernment shift in the news pages has broken into plain view in the last year. On Aug. 12, a fairly straight down the middle front page article on President Obama’s management style ended up with the provocative headline, “A President as Micromanager: How Much Detail Is Enough?” The original article included a contrast between President Jimmy Carter’s tendency to go deep in the weeds of every issue with President George W. Bush’s predilection for minimal involvement, according to someone who saw the draft. By the time the article ran, it included only the swipe at Mr. Carter.

Greetings comrade! All hail Marx and Lennon! I hope you are well rested.

I will be at least mildly surprised if former career KGB officer President Putin does not fete him.

Four laptops of American secrets arriving via air courier is plenty of reason to celebrate.

As a foreigner bringing secrets to Russian, I image he'll be popular with at least some of the women. With Pussy Riot, probably not so much.

Philby's name is prominent in the history of espionage. Eventually Snowden's name will join it.

That is such a wonderful irony. Just as Snowden has broken the law, betrayed his country, and falsely justified his actions, in that scene of the movie, Colonel Jessup makes statements that prove he had been lying and had in fact ordered a brutal assault on a marine under his command who died. In the next scene, Colonel Jessup is arrested, and defends his actions much as people are defending Snowdens, claiming he saved the country from grave danger. I can handle the truth, you either can't figure out what the truth is, or worse, condone a man who fled the country with four laptops full of American secrets. In the movie, the good Lieutenant is correct in his assessment of Jessup, which applies equally in the other case.

No mention of Red Hat or IBM either.

This is starting to resemble the Unix wars of the late '80s, which itself was modelled after 19th century geopolitics.

Full text below (copied from page source)

US whistle-blower Edward Snowden has left Hong Kong and is on a commercial flight to Russia, but Moscow will not be his final destination.

The fugitive whistle-blower boarded the Moscow-bound flight earlier on Sunday and would continue on to another country, possibly Cuba then Venezuela, according to media reports.

The Hong Kong government said in a statement that Snowden had departed "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel".

The 30-year-old left from Chep Lap Kok airport on a flight scheduled for 10.55am. He is believed to have boarded Aeroflot Flight SU213, which landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport at 5.03pm local time, according to the airport's website.

"Snowden left Hong Kong on his own will," a government source told the Post, adding that the Hong Kong government had not provided Snowden with any assistance or protection during his whole stay. The source dispelled media claims that the government had provided him a "safe house".

It was understood that Snowden's departure was a relief to the Hong Kong government, which had been making all legal preparation to deal with new developments regarding the case.

Regina Ip, former secretary of security, told the New York Times : "I think [the US] government will be upset for a while, but I hope that they will shrug it off, because our government acted in accordance with the law. Our government officials can breathe a sigh of relief."

Final destination?

Russian news agencies Interfax and Itar-Tass reported Snowden is booked on a flight from Moscow to Cuba on Monday. Itar-Tass said Snowden would fly from Havana to Caracas, Venezuela.

“A passenger under that name will arrive in Moscow from Hong Kong today on flight SU213, and tomorrow, on June 24, he will fly to Havana on flight SU150,” the state news agency ITAR-Tass quoted a source at the airline as saying. “Also tomorrow, he will go to Caracas from Havana on a local flight.”

There is no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving Hong Kong

--Hong Kong government

'No legal basis'

The Hong Kong government said it had notified the US government about Snowden's departure.

Snowden is wanted by the US government after he disclosed classified documents detailing the clandestine cybersnooping programmes carried out by Washington’s National Security Agency.

The US government on June 14 filed espionage and theft charges against the former CIA technician, and the US National Security Council confirmed that it had put in a formal extradition request to the Hong Kong government.

The Hong Kong government said on Sunday that it had requested more information so the Department of Justice could consider whether to go forward with the US extradition request.

“As the HKSAR government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving Hong Kong,” the statement said.

Later on Sunday, China's foreign ministry said: "The central government always respects the HKSAR government's handling of affairs in accordance with law."

WikiLeaks' role

WikiLeaks, whistle-blowing website founded by Julian Assange, said on Twitter it had helped Snowdwn secure political asylum in a “democratic country”. It also said it had arr

From NYT:

"Russia’s Interfax news service, citing a “person familiar with the situation,” reported that Mr. Snowden would remain in transit at an airport in Moscow for “several hours” pending an onward flight to Cuba, and would therefore not formally cross the Russian border or be subject to detention."

Give it a rest. The Soviet Union asked the US if they (the Soviet Union) could attack China with nuclear weapons in the 1960s to take away China's nuclear weapons and prevent them from getting more. Guess what the US said?

If you think the Japanese were ready to simply surrender, you have been getting bad history.

Let me know when China stops trying to take territory from Japan, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, and other neighbors, and then it will be easier to discuss security arrangements.

What do you call it when "tourists" travel to another nation explicitly to steal technology and import said technology when its against the law?

Let me think....

Chinese Espionage: The Risks Within U.S. Companies
Chinese Espionage Campaign Targets U.S. Space Technology
China’s Spies Are Catching Up

The solution is to let the gov't know we won't stand for this. If a large enough number of people protest, the government will listen but yes the question is whether Brits & Americans have become too pussified for this to happen. But just because something doesn't seem possible today doesn't mean it isn't possible. Just look at the protests in Brazil:

Just a few weeks ago, Mayara Vivian felt pretty good when a few hundred people showed up for a protest she helped organize to deride the government over a proposed bus fare increase ... But when tens of thousands of protesters thronged the streets this week, rattling cities across the country in a reckoning this nation had not experienced in decades, she was dumbfounded, at a loss to explain how it could have happened. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/world/americas/brazil-protests.html

Millions protest in Brazil
Brazilian girl calls to protest (english sub)

Just hire the computer whiz kid with nothing but a GED and a couple of certs! I'm sure everything will turn out fine!

Exactly a month ago, New York Times had an article on how mundane a tactic this is in China.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/asia/in-china-hacking-has-widespread-acceptance.html

ForeignPolicy.com did a piece on US IP piracy from Britain when it was the emerging power like China
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/05/we_were_pirates_too

No one is a saint.

Freakanomics did a great study on the effectiveness of fines that seems especially relevant to your comment: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/books/chapters/0515-1st-levitt.html

Shit, use the T-word now and you can get rid of all sorts of annoying problems. It's like that scene from "Cheech and Chong's Next Movie" where Paul Rubens (of Pee Wee Herman fame) is on the phone trying to get the police to come and arrest 'Los Guys' because they are doing a B&E to get the luggage.. (Funny Scene) anyway the cops are paying him lip service and he finally says "Look I think they're Iranians!" .. All of a sudden SWAT shows up with dozens of squad cars, megaphones blaring.... This was 1980, the embassy hostage situation was front page news everyday... Man, we're still having problems with Iran, after over 30 years, WTF. Anyway...

The point here is that I just read this Article today and it's about a local water official who at a meeting where customers were vetting complaints about the quality of their drinking water (cloudy, yucky, filthy shit) he blurts out and repeats to a stunned crowed:

“But you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there’s no water quality issues, that can be considered under Homeland Security an act of terrorism.”

So our society has now determined, or this poor misguided retard, that complaining about your water is a possible act of Terrorism? WTF.. We now treat common criminal as Terrorist acts now, if you live in New York it seems. I'm sorry I'm going to do a Farnsworth and get the fuck off this planet!

Actually the second "Silicon Valley" is Boulder Colorado.

Sure it is, everybody knows that.

Everybody seems to have some place they like and claim it'll be the next SV because there are a few tech companies there. But here's a hint: it ain't gonna be Boulder. I don't think it'll be NYC either, or certainly not the full scope of SV. NYC is a good place for various business service startups and related software - there is actually nothing new about that. Maybe it's good for social networking garbage as long as that bubble lasts, since NYC is a place to find cool kids. Don't forget that Google bought the entire Port Authority building for $1.8B. It's in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, which is definitely a cool kid place. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/business/at-google-a-place-to-work-and-play.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

What the NSA is doing goes well beyond the authorization of the Patriot act.

Obama Supports Extending Patriot Act Business Records Snooping
Court Affirms Wiretapping Without Warrants

But as there is a player (i.e. the elephant/donkey on the room that is US), everyone lose.

So you're dumb enough to ignore something like this and put all of the blame on the US. Let me guess, you're not from the US, yet you'll use the Internet which WE invented (and don't get me started on Berners-Lee; he simply wrote an implementation of the ideas and research of Bush, Engelbart, and Nelson).

Yes, it's always the Yankees fault. Quit using the net if you don't like it and move back to your cave.

replying to myself...bad form, I know.

But FYI, grandparent, Sony is being hammered for its contempt for its customers. A finance analyst caused a small stir recently by suggesting that Sony's consumer electronics business has negative value, and that Sony should sell it, and stick to what it does well: selling insurance.

Here's one that's a little less slanted:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/monsanto-executive-is-among-world-food-prize-winners.html

Also, Robert Fraley holds a National Medal of Technology, awarded by Clinton in 1999.

[Facial recognition software] will probably NEVER achieve the reliability standard of a fingerprint, let alone DNA.

Fingerprint matching has no "reliability standard" to speak of, and is likely far less reliable than you may have been led to believe.

Actually, its far more reliable than you have been led to believe.

Whereas I gave you the benefit of the doubt, (and provided a source to support my position,) you've somehow definitively assessed the reliability of fingerprinting, and conclusively determined that I've been misled. As such, I provide the following sources discussing the poor reliability of fingerprinting (in chronological order, 2001-2013) so that others can steer clear and avoid being misled like I was:

Fingerprinting's Reliability Draws Growing Court Challenges
Will Fingerprinting Stand Up in Court?
Investigation: Forensic evidence in the dock
The Real Crime: 1,000 Errors in Fingerprint Matching Every Year
Study questions reliability of fingerprint evidence
Forensic Tools: What’s Reliable and What’s Not-So-Scientific
Deeper into forensic bias
Fingerprint [Validity]

Its just that the numbering system was only intended to allow a computer sort of likely
candidates for manual inspection, but because manual inspection takes some time
and training, some jurisdictions will go just by the numeric analysis, and further
they will accept fewer and fewer actual features to match, especially when partial
prints are all they have.

It's "just that," hm? Sounds legit — though I fail to see how this demonstrates that fingerprinting is "far more reliable than [I've]have been led to believe."

Defense lawyers delight in bringing in their own fingerprint expert and showing up
the state, especially when its as easy as showing the jury two full sets of
prints. Things become very obvious very quickly.

What has this got to do with the reliability of fingerprinting? You wanna know what I'd delight in, is you providing some evidence that supports your claim that fingerprinting is far more reliable I've been led to believe.

[Facial recognition software] will probably NEVER achieve the reliability standard of a fingerprint, let alone DNA.

Fingerprint matching has no "reliability standard" to speak of, and is likely far less reliable than you may have been led to believe.

Actually, its far more reliable than you have been led to believe.

Whereas I gave you the benefit of the doubt, (and provided a source to support my position,) you've somehow definitively assessed the reliability of fingerprinting, and conclusively determined that I've been misled. As such, I provide the following sources discussing the poor reliability of fingerprinting (in chronological order, 2001-2013) so that others can steer clear and avoid being misled like I was:

Fingerprinting's Reliability Draws Growing Court Challenges
Will Fingerprinting Stand Up in Court?
Investigation: Forensic evidence in the dock
The Real Crime: 1,000 Errors in Fingerprint Matching Every Year
Study questions reliability of fingerprint evidence
Forensic Tools: What’s Reliable and What’s Not-So-Scientific
Deeper into forensic bias
Fingerprint [Validity]

Its just that the numbering system was only intended to allow a computer sort of likely
candidates for manual inspection, but because manual inspection takes some time
and training, some jurisdictions will go just by the numeric analysis, and further
they will accept fewer and fewer actual features to match, especially when partial
prints are all they have.

It's "just that," hm? Sounds legit — though I fail to see how this demonstrates that fingerprinting is "far more reliable than [I've]have been led to believe."

Defense lawyers delight in bringing in their own fingerprint expert and showing up
the state, especially when its as easy as showing the jury two full sets of
prints. Things become very obvious very quickly.

What has this got to do with the reliability of fingerprinting? You wanna know what I'd delight in, is you providing some evidence that supports your claim that fingerprinting is far more reliable I've been led to believe.

Are you seriously citing a supreme court justice for whom it was newsworthy when he attempted a sentence during arguments as some source of common sense?

Well -- I seriously hope you did not --

As a result of the January agreement, the administration said that the National Security Agency’s domestic spying program has been brought under the legal structure laid out in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court-approved warrants for the wiretapping of American citizens and others inside the United States.

But on Tuesday, the senior officials, including Michael McConnell, the new director of national intelligence, said they believed that the president still had the authority under Article II of the Constitution to once again order the N.S.A. to conduct surveillance inside the country without warrants.

So basically the NY Times claims that McConnell says that FISA didn't change the president's constitutional authority. I'm not really sure I follow his logic, but then I've been provided with neither a transcript of what he actually said, nor do I know the written contents of FISA. Everyone summarizes everyone, but I guess no one does transcripts anymore.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/us/after-profits-defense-contractor-faces-the-pitfalls-of-cybersecurity.html?hp&_r=2&

For years, the Carlyle Group has tried to shed its former reputation as a second home for government officials and a specialist in buying defense companies. But the recent fracas over the National Security Agencyâs surveillance programs highlights the private equity giant's remaining ties to government work: its majority stake in Booz Allen Hamilton, the employer of the whistle-blower, Edward J. Snowden.

For years, the Carlyle Group has tried to shed its former reputation as a second home for government officials and a specialist in buying defense companies. But the recent fracas over the National Security Agencyâs surveillance programs highlights the private equity giant's remaining ties to government work: its majority stake in Booz Allen Hamilton, the employer of the whistle-blower, Edward J. Snowden.

For years, the Carlyle Group has tried to shed its former reputation as a second home for government officials and a specialist in buying defense companies. But the recent fracas over the National Security Agencyâs surveillance programs highlights the private equity giant's remaining ties to government work: its majority stake in Booz Allen Hamilton, the employer of the whistle-blower, Edward J. Snowden.

Sometimes the police do recover stolen phones:

"High-tech" method:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/nyregion/crime-scene-chasing-down-a-gps-blip-to-a-stolen-iphone.html

"Low-tech" method:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/apple-ring-stemmed-nypd-busts-iphone-thieves-article-1.1359534

As much as I might like to disagree broadly with what you have written, I can't, because there is clearly a lot of truth to it from an evolutionary perspective. It's quite true that young people (teens, and twenties, especially, but also later as you point to) do try to show off in various ways to impress the opposite sex as part of human mating rituals. But, let me try to at least surround that truth would some additional options and nuances as a ramble.

First, as an example of a way to deal with this. In James P. Hogan's sci-fi novel "Voyage From Yesteryear" about a post-scarcity society, he addresses this by the notion that people compete to demonstrate excellence in their chosen skills. Showing excellence in helping the community become a form of "Wealth". Material goods are given away freely, including to those who make no contributions to society, in part because, if someone is "poor" (not contributing, so socially disrespected), why heap additional problems on them by not letting them have material goods? So, while you have outlined a truth, how society chooses to deal with that truth, how these urges are directed, is an aspect of culture and circumstance.

From another direction, life on this plane of existence seems to consist of both cooperation and competition, arrayed across a mix of both meshworks and hierarchies. As E. O. Wilson points out, organisms often cooperate within some defined social boundary (like an ant colony) and then compete outside of the boundary (like ant wars). Humans historically have cooperated within tribes, even as they fought other tribes to define essentially property line boundaries between tribes. Many people enjoy team sports where you cooperate in your team but compete against other teams. Even Genghis Khan's command organization must have had some sense of internal cooperation even as it may have attacked other communities. So, the healthy human brain is able to navigate this social landscape (at least withing historic boundaries and the "Dunbar's" number of 100 - 230 tribe members). So, again the issue becomes, how does society direct these impulses within the limits of human potential?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number

Freud had some keen insights, but he also overgeneralized and was a bit nutty. (People might say that about me, too? :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/08/10/reviews/970810.10boxert.html
"Freud may have been bad. But can he really have been bad in so many contradictory ways? A sampling of recent books suggests that after a century of Freud flogging, the critics still haven't finished with him."

G. William Domhoff goes into detail about differences between the left and right:
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/left_and_right.htm

One aspect not there is perhaps that the left tends to emphasize the cooperative aspect of society -- that we are all in this together, and if we all cooperate, we will all be better off, and that included caring for all children. While it may be rarely stated this extremely, the right tends to emphasize that people should succeed on their own merits, and part of success is being able to afford to raise children -- where if people can't afford children personally, they should not have them, and if they do have children, it is only right if the children suffer and die, because failure should not be propagated in order to maintain the health of the population.

There actually is quite a bit of sense to that sort of "Social Darwinism" from an individualist perspective -- except that it ignores both how much of success is collective, how sexual recombination crosses social rules about inherited wealth, and that the marketplace can be pretty f

There's been plenty of information about the NSA's program for more than TEN years. U.S. Citizens, however, trusted that their government was doing the right thing when the NSA was constructing its electronic dragnet because it was right after 9/11. People are also too busy living their lives to get involved until it's often too late and the damage has been done. NYT article from 2002: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/politics/09COMP.html

One thing that would be great would be to fund studies that's sole purpose is to verify/reproduce someone else's work. Obviously, with the current state of funding, this really doesn't happen. Once something is published, we as the next researchers are forced to take results as fact - which may not be true due to error, low yield, or (hopefully not) fabrication of results (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_misconduct).

I really do believe that incentivizing verification of results and repeat studies (with reasonable limits, of course) would improve scientific research tremendously. However, it's even less likely to take hold than moving away from "publish or perish."

There is an interesting line of thought in the (thank goodness overruled) patenting of natural DNA (taken from this article):

"The isolated DNA molecules before us are not found in nature," Judge Alan D. Lourie wrote. "They are obtained in the laboratory and are man-made, the product of human ingenuity."

Sounds reasonable? Until you realize that DNA is just a chain of information blocks. Then it reads: "While these words do occur in sentences in nature, they do not appear by themselves. Therefore they are man-made, therefore patentable." Off course, once the patent has been granted, it is used to attack all other sentences that contain that word. As long as patent judges utter those patently stupid verdicts, no patent system in the world can ever do good.

Isn't that like a book proclaiming how bad literacy is?

It's not like Woz posted the clip. And I commend him for it, I couldn't have said it better myself. IMO the cloud is only good for things you want posted publicly.

Personally, I won't do online banking simply because the internet is an insecure form of communication, although I'll shop online with a credit card if necessary since the most it will cost is fifty bucks (and perhaps increased surveillance by the NSA if I buy the wrong book, like maybe 1984.)

Speaking of which, the NSA is cooking up more CYA lies for us. Is anybody stupid enough to believe anything the NSA says?

The average number of unanimous decisions is nowhere near 80%. "The marquee decisions of the term — on affirmative action, voting rights and same-sex marriage — will almost certainly be closely divided on the core issues. But the overall percentage of unanimous decisions is unlikely to drop to 40 percent, the average rate for full terms in recent years." http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/us/supreme-court-issuing-more-unanimous-rulings.html?_r=0

There might be an answer for that.

SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.

(a) In General.--That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

That document was issued after this series of events:

1996 Bin Laden's Fatwa - Text of the fatwa, or declaration of war, by Osama bin Laden first published in Al Quds Al Arabi

1998 Bombing of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya - 224 dead, est. 4,000 injured, both embassies heavily damaged

2000 Photo: USS Cole - Video USS Cole - 17 dead, 39 injured, major damage to destroyer

2001 9/11 attacks - 2,973 dead. Two skyscraper towers destroyed, heavy damage to Pentagon.
Estimated damage to US economy: ~ $100,000,000.

While it raises important issues, I'm struggling to find sympathy for him personally, as he has committed an extremely serious act of treason.

Although he did break the law, he did not commit treason.

He didn't break the law. First, assumption of innocence. Second, the NSA programs that he revealed were already found by a FISC ruling to be violations of the Fourth Amendment - then that ruling was classified! It is perfectly reasonable to argue that an illegal program that everyone associated with it knew was illegal could not be classified, because it wasn't legal. You cannot hide crime that you know is crime by classifying it. Thus, what Snowden did was reveal an illegal and unclassifiable government program to a US citizen journalist at the Washington Post, and then when the WP demonstrated that all they wanted to do was whitewash it and commission fake polls that showed that people like being watched, Snowden gave it to Glenn Greenwald, a US Citizen journalist who happens to write for a UK paper.

So exactly what law did Snowden break? Booz Allen Hamilton's employment contract? That's not a law.

You mean the semi-autonomous capitalist city-state of Hong Kong? HK has been a thorn in the side of the CCP constantly - as a British Crown Colony before the handover and as a Special Administrative Region after.

You mean the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region commonly referred to as Hong Kong, China, which is now garrisoned by the People's Republic of China's People's Liberation Army as opposed to the British Army of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland? The same Hong Kong where roughly 400,000 people staged mass protests while the territory’s new Chief Executive, Leung Chun-ying, was being sworn in after being appointed by the People's Republic of China's central government?

Yes, that's the one.

Genomics is not genetic engineering, and even if it was, genetic science & technology are not a corporate conspiracy, and furthermore, even Monsanto's patents are not that long (take a wild guess at what ends next year).

I think your tinfoil hat is on too tight.

While it raises important issues, I'm struggling to find sympathy for him personally, as he has committed an extremely serious act of treason.

Although he did break the law, he did not commit treason.

I know little that you couldn't, but apparently much that you don't. And that is sad, really. But you aren't alone. So, here is what I'm talking about to help you along.

Attacks against Americans that were attempted and not intercepted, or completed (this excludes war zones):

2013 Boston Marathon bombing 3 dead, 254 wounded. Fifteen victims suffered amputations, two of which had double amputations.

2010 Attempted bombing of Times Square in New York City by the Taliban - Attack failed, car bomb could have been mass casualty event.

2009 The "Underwear" bomber - Attack failed, potentially could have brought down aircraft with death of all aboard

2009 Fort Hood massacre - 13 dead, 30 wounded

2001 9/11 attacks - 2,973 dead. Two skyscraper towers destroyed, heavy damage to Pentagon.
Estimated damage to US economy: ~ $100,000,000,000.

2000 Photo: USS Cole - Video USS Cole - 17 dead, 39 wounded, major damage to US Navy destroyer

1998 Bombing of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya - 224 dead, est. 4,000 wounded, both embassies heavily damaged

1996 Bin Laden's Fatwa - Text of the fatwa, or declaration of war, by Osama bin Laden first published in Al Quds Al Arabi

Small, limited sample, of other terrorism arrests and trials in the US:

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 27, 2012

Denver: Man Arrested for Providing Material Support to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization

Jamshid Muhtorov was arrested by members of the FBI’s Denver and Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Forces on a charge of providing and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic Jihad Union, a Pakistan-based designated foreign terrorist organization.

Baltimore: Man Pleads Guilty to Attempted Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction in Plot to Attack Armed Forces Recruiting Center

U.S. citizen Antonio Martinez, aka Muhammad Hussain, pled guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against federal property in connection with a scheme to attack an armed forces recruiting station in Catonsville, Maryland.

Washington Field: Man Pleads Guilty to Shootings at Pentagon, Other Military Buildings

Yonathan Melaku, of Alexandria, Virginia, pled guilty to damaging property and to firearms violations involving five separate shootings at military installations in northern Virginia between October and November 2010, and to attempting to damage veterans’ memorials at Arlington National Cemetery.

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending January 13, 2012

1.Tampa: Florida Resident Charged with Plotting to Bomb Locations in Tampa

A

For all those people that say there isn't any issue with any level of snooping if you don't have anything to hide, you are exactly who should be worried. The more data available to analyze, the more false positives will be identified. ..... It's guaranteed that some very unlucky and completely innocent people will be going through hell for a long time.

When people are directly communicating with terrorist groups there would seem to be little chance of a "false positive." At the least it would reasonably indicate the need for additional scrutiny. The problem might actually be the reverse, the false negative. Consider the case of Major Hasan. He was in direct contact with American cleric turned terrorist, Anwar al-Awlaki. That direct contact was looked at and written off. Major Hasan then went on to kill 13 people and wound 30 at Fort Hood. It now looks like his court martial defense will be that he was defending the Taliban and Islam. In other words, he is expected to make what is essentially an admission in open court that he is a terrorist. Changing that attack from its current classification of "workplace violence" to what it really is, a terrorist attack, will make that the first mass casualty attack since 9/11, and Boston the second.

The thing about false positives is that they are likely to resolve themselves over time with additional scrutiny. I doubt that many actually innocent Americans have gone through "hell" on the basis of what you list. Gag orders and national security letters are used for data sources. Stings are used in ordinary criminal investigations as well. If they are really innocent, why would they be trying to buy stinger missiles, for example? Indefinite detention has been used as part of the Law of War focused operations overseas, and is completely legal for Prisoners of War.

The Fort Hood attack resulted in 13 dead and 30 wounded.
The Boston bombing resulted in 3 dead, 254 wounded. Fifteen victims suffered amputations, two of which had double amputations.
I think it is fairly likely that the number of dead and wounded in those two attacks are likely to far exceed the number of genuinely innocent Americans that will go through hell due to a false positive.

Who will guarantee there will be no more attacks if nothing is done? What is the life of an innocent victim of terrorism worth?

A police offer exists to serve and protect.

Not according to the SCOTUS

If the collision has been determined to be an accident, then by definition the driver isn't at fault. And if the driver isn't at fault, then what's the purpose of searching the driver's phone?

Whats wrong with IMEI blacklisting.

Ask the people who just last month complained that it wasn't enough. Like the NYT, who of course singled out Apple.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/world/africa/22powers.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

“The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,” Mr. Obama told The Boston Globe in December 2007.

Obama was claiming that Bush had no unilateral power to use the military anywhere, presumably because you need congress's approval in non-national-security situations.

He then turned around and unilaterally deployed US forces with nothing more than his command and a UN authorization in a situation that had absolutely nothing to do with national security.

You made up a strawman to move away from the facts that I stated: "he stopped two wars and refused to engage in two others".

I wasnt making a strawman, I was criticizing your defense of his actions regarding Libya. That may have been one of the most brazen things Obama did early in his term after all of the noise he raised.

I also dont know that you can say "he ended the war in Afghanistan"; we still have troops deployed there, yes?

I am interested in issues of privacy, and considering that Google has left China over such an issue, the original story sounded quite implausible to me.

I have read the original document that was supposedly leaked about PRISM. I still have to be convinced of its authenticity.

Even more so after reading a quite sensible account of this whole story, gathered by eight contributors to the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/08/technology/tech-companies-bristling-concede-to-government-surveillance-efforts.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

If people are led to believe that everything we do online is available to the NSA in the manner described in the supposedly leaked document, it will be much more difficult to lead campaigns about real threats, like SOPA, etc.

Unless I'm mistaken, you are talking about Economy. The thing is, although it does crunch a huge amount of numbers, Economy is NOT science!

If by "Economy" you mean "economics", you may well be mistaken. "I work in the analytical division of well-recognized company. Most of our vendors design instrumentation to work with Windows." sounds more like some form of laboratory science (biology or chemistry) than like economics. Do NOT become confused by the fact that they mentioned Reinhart-Rogoff; they also spoke of "Baggerly and Coombes" and "the Duke scandal", which was biomedicine, not economics.

Hours before Casey was scheduled to testify before Congress related to his knowledge of Iran-Contra, he was reported to have been rendered incapable of speech, and was later hospitalized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Casey

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/07/obituaries/william-casey-ex-cia-head-is-dead-at-74.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

That is not to say that expensive wine does not provide value. You are paying for vintage grapes and expert winemakers, which all cost money.OTOH there is no reason to go into debt for a bottle of expensive wine anymore that one should go into debt for a Prada bag.

So what services like this provide is protection for those who want to be a part of a peer group but can't afford it. They can say how silly those rich people are for paying for expensive wine that is the same as the cheap wine. It really isn't the same, but it really doesn't matter. If there is someone who has the ability to authoritively say they are the same, then those who need to feel included can.

During the cold war the NSA was focused on the Soviet Union, which was an actual real threat to our national security. There is little evidence that the NSA was engaged in domestic spying during that time. Today the NSA, and all this surveillance, is focused on stopping some hermits in Afghanistan from talking to a few guys with a pressure cooker full of gunpowder.

So you acknowledge that the Soviet Union was a threat to national security? Well, good, that's a first step. Now things get a bit more interesting. I recall that the Soviet Union shot down a number of surveillance planes during the Cold War, such as the famous U2 incident. I don't recall that they ever bombed or torpedoed any American warships. I also don't recall that they bombed any, let alone two, American embassies, killing large numbers of people. Nor do I recall that they ever attacked any American skyscrapers or military headquarters, killing thousands of people on American soil (2,973 ) - approximately as many as died in the war igniting attack on Pearl Harbor. Nor did they recruit any attackers to shoot dead American soldiers engaging in administrative processing at an American military base. And yet Al Qaida and company has done all these things, and they continue to attempt to recruit extremists to commit further attacks.

1996 Bin Laden's Fatwa - Text of the fatwa, or declaration of war, by Osama bin Laden first published in Al Quds Al Arabi

1998 Bombing of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya - 224 dead, est. 4,000 injured, both embassies heavily damaged

2000 Photo: USS Cole - Video USS Cole - 17 dead, 39 injured, major damage to destroyer

2001 9/11 attacks - 2,973 dead. Two skyscraper towers destroyed, heavy damage to Pentagon.
Estimated damage to US economy: ~ $100,000,000.

2009 Fort Hood massacre - 13 dead, 30 injured

2010 Attempted bombing of Times Square in New York City by the Taliban - Attack failed

You dismiss intelligence efforts to halt attacks like this as "stopping some hermits in Afghanistan from talking to a few guys with a pressure cooker". You don't think those sorts of attacks need to be stopped? I'm curious, what sort of body count or damage will it take for you to realize you're wrong?

Prior to the US invasion in 2001, Al Qaida was turning out thousands of trained terrorists per year in Afghanistan. That pretty much stopped after the invasion.

Meanwhile, our diplomatic relations with China and Russia have deteriorated, and we have very little idea what is going on in Iran or North Korea.

There should be no surprises there.

From Warren Christopher to John Kerry — Slow learners about weak horses in the Middle East

Remember last month, when the Chinese Red Army was identified as actively behind cyber-spying? It was some gumshoes working for a private company that tracked it to a specific building in Shanghai.

You aren't suggesting either that the NSA had no idea, or that they make regular press announcements