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Can open-source solutions maintain Skype's level of security?

Skype Encryption Stumps German Police
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSL21173920071122

Expert: Skype calls nearly impossible for NSA to intercept
http://blogs.zdnet.com/ip-telephony/index.php?p=919

Here's why they'll NEVER open-source skype: http://gigaom.com/2009/07/30/will-skypes-founders-put-the-kibosh-on-ebays-ipo-plans/ http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE56U03D20090731 http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,,25862165-5013040,00.html

I don't hear that level of intellectual discrimination from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns. "As far as I am concerned, the days of self-regulation should be over for the file-sharing industry." http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE56S4T420090729

We've known that the Arctic ice has been melting for quite some time. Not only is the surface area of the ice decreasing, but the total volume of Arctic ice is also decreasing. In a few decades, the Arctic might be completely ice free during the summer.

Yes. They already called in some of the debt...

You have any source for this? I see stuff like this in the news.

http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/business/currency/news.php?q=1246389934
and
http://business.watoday.com.au/business/markets/china-calls-for-end-to-us-dollar-domination-20090627-d077.html

While they can't "call it in" in a direct sense, there's more than one way to skin a cat. It's no secret China is very quickly losing faith in the value of US bonds. Them losing faith in value = actual loss of value. If they think they aren't getting paid anyway, they can cut us off, which they've done some of already, and can certainly devalue our economy if they wanted to, forcing the USA to scramble for a new loan source... and if China dumps us, welcome to the REAL depression.

What worries me is a truck-mounted EMP generator deployed in the Wall Street area.

In today's financial markets, if Wall Street went down for a week, when it came back up, New York would no longer be the center of the financial universe.

(Of course, that's going to happen anyway; a debtor nation can't control the world financial system for long. China is shortening the maturity on its 2.1 trillion in Treasury paper and starting to buy real assets, mostly natural resources.)

However, you explain it, Goldman Sachs gets the money, and the 401Ks lose.

At least some of them do. There was an incident in September 2008 where automatic trading programs mistakenly responded to an old newspaper article (from 2002) about the bankruptcy of the parent company of United Airlines. The stock dropped from about $12.50 to $3 a share in 15 minutes. You can read reports of the event on Slashdot, Reuters, and many other news sites.

Just take a cue from the Chinese

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSPEK2206820070710

Yeah from some of the stories I have been following on this, it seems some firms even co-locate their machines in the same room with the NYSE trade systems. I imagine that could be quite an advantage over other traders, especially when coupled with some extremely high performance program trade code like Goldman Sachs has been using.

http://www.reuters.com/article/fundsFundsNews/idUSN0518022220090705

Apple has not managed to hide the suicide of one of their suppliers employees after he was on the receiving end of a good deal of intimidation. In today's media environment once the shine comes off of a star the media is more than happy to jump on the mud throwing bandwagon. If this gains any traction then there is a good chance that people will be more than happy to pile on.

Yes. They already called in some of the debt...

You have any source for this? I see stuff like this in the news.

Nice use of sarcasm for a defense.

That wasn't sarcasm... I was agreeing with you.

strong-arming the auto industry

Strong-arming? The executives flew to DC and begged for money! If it weren't for the US government, they would be liquidating assets right now instead of restarting assembly lines.

If that isn't the beginning of a massive shift, I don't know what is.

It's certainly unprecedented - but it's also temporary. I suspect that the TARP money will get paid back and that the government will not own any GM after a few years of recovery.

A nuclear power station does make sense as an investment for Google; after all, they've got plenty of experience of investing in things that are never going to make a profit.

Obama Policies Will Bankrupt USA Tsarkon Reports
(Note: We are not a GOP-sters, Republicans or affiliated with any parties, and as George Washington warned against parties We do not believe in parties and, unlike most people, We evaluate every issue on a case by case basis and do not defer to the judgments of politicians who are corrupted and untrustworthy as a group.)

Obama is controlled by the same people as Bush see The Obama Deception documentary [youtube.com]

Yuan Forwards Show China May Buy Fewer Treasuries, UBS Says [bloomberg.com]
Anemic Treasury auction effects felt beyond bonds [reuters.com]
The Sherminator Kicks Some Wall Street Ass [dailybail.com]
China Angry That Fed Is Deliberately Destroying The Dollar [bloomberg.com]
China suggests switch from dollar as reserve currency [bbc.co.uk]
What are the reserve currencies? [wsj.net]
Anatomy of a taxpayer giveaway to investors [ml-implode.com]
Geithner rescue package 'robbery of the American people' [telegraph.co.uk]
Geithner just put only the rich in Titanics lifeboats [examiner.com]
Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers [cnbc.com]
A False Choice [viewfromsi...valley.com]
Bargain-hunting house buyers wearing on sellers ajc.com [ajc.com]
Time to Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner's Hands [alternet.org]
Socialising and Privatising [freeradical.co.nz]
Fannie, Freddie to pay out bonuses [politico.com]
Fitch Raises Prime Jumbo Loan Loss Estimates Sharply [researchrecap.com]

Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund [ft.com]

- Russia on an new world reserve currency: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read. [en.rian.ru]

- President Barack "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption. Rahm Emanuel, his Chief of Staff, is radical authoritarian statist whose father was part of the murderous civilian-killing Israeli terrorist organizati

Honestly, after all the money we've spent, I don't see them just plopping it into the ocean

Right, because that would be like spending five billion or so on disposing of nuclear waste and then shutting the program down after 25 years without disposing of any nuclear waste and leaving the United States as one of the few countries in the developed world without an ongoing waste disposal strategy.

Surely no government would ever do that!

Politics is probably in play here: with the shuttle phased out, there will be no big $ for American contractors to support the IIS, because launch costs are going to be the greater part of ongoing costs. So the US government would be in a position of spending a lot of money on foreign launch vehicles, which means "No pork for you!" with regard to domestic campaign contributors.

Ergo, the US government would be supporting an international effort that would not feed back much of anything in terms of pork barrel spending into the domestic economy. Since pork is one of the major means by which the Party maintains control of the state, this is unacceptable.

Furthermore, because the US is an imperial power, it can't afford to be seen as weak or second-rate, so if it ceases to participate in the ISS the station must come down, because otherwise foreigners would have "the high ground."

If something doesn't make sense, there is usually politics behind it, and behind the politics there is usually money.

Studies actually show that you can buy happiness - as long as you don't spend your money for yourself. Giving money to others increases happiness. Here's a link.

One Hundred Per Cent Reliability for Traders on High-Volume Trading Days

Compare with:

The problem occurred on what could have been one of London's busiest trading days of the year, as markets rebounded worldwide following the [bailout]

source
Clearly only valid for some values of 100%

The basic story is correct. I didn't have time to do more thorough research for better links.

This is a better article, in some ways: US banks owe billions in pay, pensions to execs-WSJ. Quote: "For instance, nine banks paid out an estimated $50 billion in bonuses in 2007..." That's Billion, not million.

Obama Policies Will Bankrupt USA Tsarkon Reports
(Note: We are not a GOP-sters, Republicans or affiliated with any parties, and as George Washington warned against parties We do not believe in parties and, unlike most people, We evaluate every issue on a case by case basis and do not defer to the judgments of politicians who are corrupted and untrustworthy as a group.)

Obama is controlled by the same people as Bush see The Obama Deception documentary [youtube.com]

Yuan Forwards Show China May Buy Fewer Treasuries, UBS Says [bloomberg.com]
Anemic Treasury auction effects felt beyond bonds [reuters.com]
The Sherminator Kicks Some Wall Street Ass [dailybail.com]
China Angry That Fed Is Deliberately Destroying The Dollar [bloomberg.com]
China suggests switch from dollar as reserve currency [bbc.co.uk]
What are the reserve currencies? [wsj.net]
Anatomy of a taxpayer giveaway to investors [ml-implode.com]
Geithner rescue package 'robbery of the American people' [telegraph.co.uk]
Geithner just put only the rich in Titanics lifeboats [examiner.com]
Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers [cnbc.com]
A False Choice [viewfromsi...valley.com]
Bargain-hunting house buyers wearing on sellers ajc.com [ajc.com]
Time to Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner's Hands [alternet.org]
Socialising and Privatising [freeradical.co.nz]
Fannie, Freddie to pay out bonuses [politico.com]
Fitch Raises Prime Jumbo Loan Loss Estimates Sharply [researchrecap.com]

Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund [ft.com]

- Russia on an new world reserve currency: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read. [en.rian.ru]

- President Barack "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption. Rahm Emanuel, his Chief of Staff, is radical authoritarian statist whose father was part of the murderous civilian-killing Israeli terrorist organizati

I disagree with your disagreement. If that were true, then why are DVD sales dramatically declining?

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/190848-DVD_Backend_Is_Dwindling.php?
http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/11879.html
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12042007/business/dvd_isaster_sales_806649.htm
http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Sales-Decline-Portend-Possible-DVD-Doomsday-2110.html

Meanwhile, digital sales of video content are on the rise:

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS148561+29-Aug-2008+BW20080829
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1621/125/

I'll grant you that online sales of video content is still a developing market. But it is a market that is clearly putting a dent into the traditional distribution model of DVDs.

I think your confusion stems from far too narrow a view of the market. You're looking at Bluray discs and noting that they are failing to dislodge DVDs en masse. The reason is that Bluray is not the future. The market is going a radically different direction with its technology.

I love MS bashing as much as the rest of you, however

Nice way of carefully easing in to a defense of MS on /.! :)

the way I heard it was that it was a network issue.

They initially referred to a "connectivity issue", but they later ruled that out. Their final excuse:

"It was software-related, a coincidence, due to two processes we couldn't have foreseen,"

Note they also explicitly rule out the high-volume traffic as being the problem.

Nice try though, but MS-bashing definitely remains cleared for in-bound landings. :)

Wasn't the rest of the world supposed to love us if we voted for the Affirmative Action candidate?

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE56302A20090705?sp=true

http://news.scotsman.com/world/Obama-assured-of-a-chilly.5429112.jp

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aR7yfqUwTb4M

I'd have a huge garage sale, transfer all my money off shore, then relocate to a country that isn't extradition-friendly to the USA, but still has a nice lifestyle.

Because you were too cheap to rent your videos from Netflix?

I have wondered now and again why the geek who thinks in terms of the billable hour - and the salary of an IT Pro - wastes his time nursing a P2P download.

The country that is hostile to extradition may also be hostile to transfer. French kidnapper to serve sentence in Mexico

Lifestyles change. Regimes change. 1940 was not a good year to be an expatriate in Paris.

in that, you look at your average list of requirements that nanotech is supposed to fulfill, and pretty much some microbe or insect already does most of that

i think to satisfy the requirements here, you start with a preexisting microbe to do all the terraforming requirements. and if its something bizarre like surveillance you want, you work that into an insect somehow. now if you are thinking using insects for surveillance on mars is insane, i'm saying i agree with you. only that genetically engineering a preexisting insect to do that is LESS insane than satisfying the requirements here with something you are building out of nanotech from scratch... that can replicate, use energy sources, and transmit the info to a transponder for beaming back to earth? tall order, no?

plenty of insects subsist off of fungi and lichen, something that could be genetically engineered to grow on mars. andyou don't have your temperature concerns, insects for example are the kings of Antarctica:

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE50C0B020090113

and as for beaming info back to earth, you don't have to wire that ability into every insect. take a cue from foraging social insects like bees, wasps, or ants: each colony contains some sort of transponder that monitors the social cues the insects naturally communicate to each other in the hive about what is out there in the environment around them. the abilities of borrowing beetles prove you can do lots of below the surface exploration by swapping in those genetic components, etc.

i'm not saying any of this is easy, but what i am saying is that the far reaches of what we can do with genetic engineering are much closer to our abilities than the far reaches of what we can do with nanotech

Obama Policies Will Bankrupt USA Tsarkon Reports
(Note: We are not a GOP-sters, Republicans or affiliated with any parties, and as George Washington warned against parties We do not believe in parties and, unlike most people, We evaluate every issue on a case by case basis and do not defer to the judgments of politicians who are corrupted and untrustworthy as a group.)

Obama is controlled by the same people as Bush see The Obama Deception documentary [youtube.com]

Yuan Forwards Show China May Buy Fewer Treasuries, UBS Says [bloomberg.com]
Anemic Treasury auction effects felt beyond bonds [reuters.com]
The Sherminator Kicks Some Wall Street Ass [dailybail.com]
China Angry That Fed Is Deliberately Destroying The Dollar [bloomberg.com]
China suggests switch from dollar as reserve currency [bbc.co.uk]
What are the reserve currencies? [wsj.net]
Anatomy of a taxpayer giveaway to investors [ml-implode.com]
Geithner rescue package 'robbery of the American people' [telegraph.co.uk]
Geithner just put only the rich in Titanics lifeboats [examiner.com]
Geithner Plan Will Rob US Taxpayers [cnbc.com]
A False Choice [viewfromsi...valley.com]
Bargain-hunting house buyers wearing on sellers ajc.com [ajc.com]
Time to Take the Steering Wheel out of Geithner's Hands [alternet.org]
Socialising and Privatising [freeradical.co.nz]
Fannie, Freddie to pay out bonuses [politico.com]
Fitch Raises Prime Jumbo Loan Loss Estimates Sharply [researchrecap.com]

Chinas central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund [ft.com]

- Russia on an new world reserve currency: It is necessary to work out and adopt internationally recognized standards for macroeconomic and budget policy, which are binding for the leading world economies, including the countries issuing reserve currencies - the Kremlin proposals read. [en.rian.ru]

- President Barack "The Teleprompter" Obama is deeply connected to corruption. Rahm Emanuel, his Chief of Staff, is radical authoritarian statist whose father was part of the murderous civilian-killing Israeli terrorist organization known as IRGUN who is obsessed with gun control and compulsory service to the country in a capacity wh

Actually, the EU is doing its work, and fining companies who abuse their monopoly.
http://www.sortedsites.info/general-stuff/eu-fine-telefonica.htm
(Which, in case you were wondering is an European company)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=aasUT7jU_bd8
(Also European)

It doesn't matter what country your company is from, if you abuse the rules, they go after you. They might even go after all those bank bailouts:
http://www.reuters.com/article/dealAtoms/idUS391610202420090605

That thief has forced people much older than he is to go back to work when they thought they had their retirement covered. Can you imagine being an 80 year old frail granny and finding out you are now penniless? It wasn't just other rich fatcats he ripped off, he ripped off all sorts of normal regular working folks whose other financial "advisors" got them hooked up with his fraud. Now they have to go commute twice a day with reduced reflexes, bad eyes and arthritis, or go out on the street penniless. Let alone the physical and psychological stress.

And by not locking him up, you are saying to other white collar megathieves at high levels, go ahead, do your worst, the new plan is to give you a government job and credit card if you get caught?

WHAT freeking deranged planet do you live on? That sort of "justice" would stop those thieves from being thieves? That's not even CLOSE to being a deterrent. Incarceration is both, it is supposed to be a deterrent to others, plus a punishment for the convicted. This asshole has probably caused any number of heart attacks and strokes now just from the stress a lot of his victims got put through. And a lot of them won't get a penny back because of the way the laws work, in fact, the ones who REALLY need some of their money back are the ones most likely to not get any. Those victims need to know he AT LEAST will suffer as much as they are now going to suffer. Wait until you get older, see how it feels to know you'll never be able to relax or have a day off no matter how tired and frail you get.

Nope, he needs jail, along with a slew of other wall street financial snakeoil conmen, they can start with the entire goldman sachs organization, biggest damn leeches and parasites on the planet. The damn revolving door between their offices and official government positions is *obscene*. They are the prime movers behind this economic coup d' etat we are all going to suffer for years under. They need to BAN most paper financial "products" and "services", because they are all mostly SCAMS and even some in the industry recognize this now. The whole wallstreet congame needs to be called and regulated like what it is, a CASINO. They need to be BANNED from calling what they do as "investing", it is so far away from the classical definition it ain't funny, and this case PROVES there has been no credible oversight by all the agencies who get fat checks and pensions to supposedly "regulate" it.. Madoff, goldman-sachs, all of those bloated ticks hanging off of society, including the almost completely useless government regulators, jail is almost too good for them. The government had just a few actually honest and righteous investigators who called foul years ago on madoff and some other crooks, the result, wall street influence got them told to sit down and shut up. Do you get it yet? Madoff is just a symptom of the rot and is an easy target for them to throw away as a MISDIRECTION. This is a political stunt, but he still needs jail. Just don't stop with just him.

    Madoff is a public sacrifice they are throwing to the mobs just to see if people will forget about all the other scam-foolery that has been and is still going on with this whole economic "system" designed and run for wall street fatcats. He is SMALL POTATOES and still freaking bad. Lock him up, and then start on locking up a few thousand more and we can call it a decent first day effort, then get serious about it. Throw a freekin blockade around manhattan and start running some serious checks on what has been going on there for the last several decades, they have STOLEN most of the wealth produced in the US through lies, buying off congress, economic manipulation, insider trading, insider trading through foreknowledge of what the Fed does, and etc. A damn nest of thieves, rotten and corrupt to the core.

China is also moving away from the sale of real goods for virtual currency.

India is a corrupt democracy.
The more rules and laws are present, the more corrupt the government becomes. ...

Well, that explains Obama and the Dems passing all those new laws.

What percentage of "cap and trade" taxes are going to fund Al Gore's private jet trips?

How big of another financial meltdown will Barney Frank cause when he forces mortgage standards down AGAIN!!!! (Yes, folks, just last week Barney Frank was trying to force banks and government agencies to lower their lending standards. All over again. We're still sorting out the mess of a mortgage bubble burst and subsequent meltdown that's still happening and here's Barney Frank starting to blow up another .... bubble. And you thought nothing could be worst than running a prostitution ring out of a Congressman's house....)

Signed an agreement reaffirming the sovereignty of Iraq

Have we abandoned our permanent military bases in Iraq?

Asserted Iraqi ownership over *every* military installation in use by US forces

That's absolute horseshit.

At withdrawal, the U.S. will return all the installations and the agreed upon areas allocated for the use of the U.S. combat forces according to two lists (of inventory) to the Iraqi government.

Translation: we keep our permanent military bases.

Handed control of many of the US Operated facilities over to the Iraqis for control (here, here, and here, for example)

Have we abandoned our permanent military bases in Iraq?

Handed security of the "Green Zone" over to Iraqi control

Have we abandoned our permanent military bases in Iraq?

Removed the vast majority of all combat forces outside of the limits of all major cities

Another lie.

In addition, there are no plans to close the Americans' Camp Victory base complex, which houses more than 20,000 soldiers, many of them combat troops, even though Camp Victory is only a 15-minute drive from the center of Baghdad and sprawls over both sides of the city's boundary. Iraqi officials, who are nervous about maintaining security as the Americans depart, have agreed to consider Camp Victory as outside the city.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/09/world/middleeast/09military.html

Additionally, your assertion that "we own" the oil fields now points to an article explaining how the Iraqi Ministry of Oil is negotiating contracts from companies that lost to nationalization when Saddam was in power. I'm not sure how that means "we own" anything. The Iraqi government is contracting with corporations to extract the oil resources. Sounds like Iraq exercising its own sovereignty to me.

Why were they no bid contracts to American oil companies in 2008? And furthermore, if we have no colonial interest in their resources, why haven't we abandoned our permanent military bases in Iraq? This is the central question. Everything else is political theater.

The globalsecurity article you link has no information later than 2005. In the intervening 4 years - the US Government has:

1. Signed an agreement reaffirming the sovereignty of Iraq
2. Asserted Iraqi ownership over *every* military installation in use by US forces
3. Handed control of many of the US Operated facilities over to the Iraqis for control (here, here, and here, for example)
4. Handed security of the "Green Zone" over to Iraqi control
5. Removed the vast majority of all combat forces outside of the limits of all major cities

Additionally, your assertion that "we own" the oil fields now points to an article explaining how the Iraqi Ministry of Oil is negotiating contracts from companies that lost to nationalization when Saddam was in power. I'm not sure how that means "we own" anything. The Iraqi government is contracting with corporations to extract the oil resources. Sounds like Iraq exercising its own sovereignty to me.

Insinuating Obama is more responsible than Bush for the state of today's economy is a particularly impressive piece of mental Judo.

My current sig is a play on somebody else's from about 8 years ago, when Bush was dealing with Clinton-era recession (NASDAQ did halve in 2000, remember?) A very prolific poster claimed to know about Bush only that he had a job, when Clinton was president...

... folks from every nook and cranny of American politics.

Oh, no, not from "every nook and cranny" — the Democratic nooks and crannies are the primary culprits, forcing the government (Fannie and Freddie) to extend credit to people, who should not be buying real estate at all, and thus creating a bubble for the rest of us. And they are at it again...

Every observer called the election rigged, even some of the internal ones.

Russia has recognized the elections as fair.

In completely unrelated news, Russians have been campaigning for a return to the methods of Stalin. Not a joke.

Here's an example of someone who never learns from past mistakes:

http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Housing/idUSTRE55L39120090622

Or maybe, "Pravda"?

Why does this sound so much like the proposal to bail out newspapers in the US

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE55M0XT20090623

Born at the center of China's coal industry, the boy is mentally handicapped and is unable to speak. He is one of many such children in Shanxi province, where coal has brought riches to a few, jobs for many, and environmental pollution that experts say has led to a high number of babies born with birth defects.

Experts say coal mining and processing has given Shanxi a rate of birth defects six times higher than China's national average, which is already high by global standards.

That's totally the kind of proven and cost-effective power generation technology I want generating power.

The IRS wants to get RID of a tax?

Why am I deeply suspicious of this?

What's really going on here? What am I quietly going to get nailed on instead?

I read another article by Reuters about this that is entitled:

Obama backs repeal of tax on personal cellphones

Very little mention of the IRS in that article. They make it sound like Treasury Secretary (Timothy) Geithner got together with Douglas Shulman, the Internal Revenue Service Commissioner, and convinced him to ask Congress to repeal this. Together.

You know, I don't know where the initiative came from, it doesn't really matter. But I found it amusing that a lot of news outlets probably thought "IRS to Repeal Tax"? That cannot sell and sounds like a lie. Better rephrase that to "Obama Cabinet Moves to Repeals Tax."

The shuttle delay has caused this to be delayed as well. If it doesn't launch by Saturday, it'll have to wait a while.
Here's a reuters article about it.
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN0313466120090615

Right, lets leave it to private enterprise, so they can do for spaceflight what they've done for the financial services industry.

Nice try, but it was mostly Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae that fucked of the financial services industry.

Even still, maybe the private sector would do for space flight what it's done for the computer industry?

Also, even comrade Obama disagrees with you here, because as he's cutting NASA's budget he's giving out hundreds of billions of dollars to private companies in an ill conceived attempt to stimulate the private sector. Maybe you should tell him to stop spending so much money bailing out that "superstitious bullshit", and divert more of it to seemingly better causes, like the war on drugs, paying single moms to have kids, paying farmers not to farm, and sending people to Mars for no good reason.

Do U.S. airlines also pay fuel taxes ?
At the federal level, airlines pay 4.4 cents for every gallon consumed on a domestic flight. Of that amount, 4.3 cents goes to the Airport and Airway Trust Fund while 0.1 cents supports the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Fund. In addition, in most states airlines pay a flat rate per gallon or an ad valorem sales tax on the purchase of fuel. In California, for example, airlines pay a fuel tax in excess of 8.0 percent of the price of jet fuel. So if the price of jet fuel purchased in California were to double, our tax would double as well, generating substantial revenue for the state's treasury.

Also, in the UK at least, we do pay a tax on air travel to the airline, whether that is to cover govt. imposed taxes or not I don't know.

never seen in any device...

It's hard to get hard data of what chipset is
in what product. However, it was all over the tech news last winter that Samsung went with Broadcom chipsets for the BD players...

BD players from samsung:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-190874810.html

a chinese OEM:
http://www.bikudo.com/product_search/details/118262/blu_ray_disc_player_sbd5102.html

and 2 wire...

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS125072+06-Jan-2009+PRN20090106

There are undoubtedly others.

STB's originated when TV's were analog, electro-mechanical devices. when stuff was analog, fixed function and hard-coded, so to speak, they made sense. These days, when everything has a microprocessor in it already, it's hard to see the added value, for the consumer, of an extra box, with an extra power supply, containing an extra processor, requiring an extra remote control, just to run some software that could run on the tv anyways.

From a technical perspective, the STB function is a software one, that could run on an arbitrary CPU. It would be cheaper for the consumer to run it on an existing cpu that is needed anyways, the one in the tv. For example, folks are supposed to be able to get air-Cards from the cable provider to make virtual STB's in their TV's.

I don't want a PVR, and sling box, and a NAS, and a disk player, and a VCR, and a computer, and some weirdo video switching between them. I don't disagree that boxes can be made to meet all these functions. One can do all these functions in software instead, with practically no hardware. It would be cheaper once we got there. It would be better to have fewer connections, fewer protocols, and far more flexibility. All these gizmos are going to have encoding/decoding h/w anyways, that's most of what they do. Using a general purpose network lets us easily add flexible control layers that would require heavy duty investments to do in an application specific way, and so would never be economically viable. I gave some examples of the sorts of things that would be possible, they would probably emerge over time. With an application specific standard, there is no room for that, you have to bake it in from day 1.

Today, I have five computers and two televisions, and I view tv shows on any screen that is handy. for my purposes, I need a PC beside any television. That bugs me, because I know that there is a perfectly decent processor in there, usually running Linux. A TV should be a display device, with the ability to accept a number of inputs, and select a sub-set of them to display at any given time, or even all of them. Cheaper ones could be able to work with 1 input, a little more, for 2 inputs, 4 inputs, resolution, 1080i, 1080p, etc... There is plenty of room for product differentiation.

The flexibility from an IP interface is way better over the long term. That's why you see the surveillance cameras going IP at source, why you see professionals transforming raw output into compressed video on the camera itself, etc... It is happenning slowly, I just wish it would hurry up.

Contracts for garbage collection eh? I knew Sun was in cahoots with the mafia. Just ask these guys if they don't wish they had stuck with the old Java...

The last Gartner Study I read analyzing 2007 put DB2 as basically tied for 2nd place with Microsoft at around 20% each, and both combined are behind Oracle. But market share is not the same as user base, and there I'd bet DB2 is far behind MySQL at least. You might have a case for putting DB2 ahead of PostgreSQL as far as user base goes, but O'Reilly does have heavy open-source roots in their publishing line that I suspect swayed their focus against IBM's product here.

>>I might be less critical of such actions if it weren't for the fact that "security" isn't being improved or actually even being addressed.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Of course, this was also said by a major figure of what we would call, today, an insurgent force, fighting against the established government of the country. He spent much of that war in another country, raising funds to support what those who claimed they had a legitimate government considered to be a terrorist action. By recent standards, for the funding part alone, two guys were sentenced to 65 years, just this week.

His name was Benjamin Franklin.

Exactly what I said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSL0767062220071207

Wow! This is impressive! Technology has progressed to the point of being able to store my porn for longer than 35,000 years!

Another group of fantasists speculate about ways of extorting money from Google, which they portray as a parasitic feeder on their hallowed produce.

From what I understand Google licenses news from the big news wires as well as from some of the big newspapers. Some of that has been forced through lawsuits.

Before that, they would just crawl news sites and display headlines and summaries, just like in their normal search.

It seems odd. Google has to pay for the privilege of sending them traffic. I wish I could get a deal like that.

If I were Google, the next time the traditional news outlets came to me with their hands out I'd tell them I've decided that I'd be more than happy to remove all their content from my index and no longer "steal" their business. Thew newspaper execs wouldn't like that too much.

Fuel Cell cars are still 15 years away.

Always have been, always will be. That's why auto companies love them so much.

I'm pro biofuels, but how are they going to know what technology will pan out?

Fuel Cell cars are still 15 years away. Bio fuels, and bio/petroleum mixes are here now as well as hybrids and electric cars that are coming out again.

And funnily, as I said before, the first one to actually lose his first strike, was Sarkozy himself: http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE53R1V120090428

I also proposed how to make him take his medicine own the two other times too. ^^