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Here you go http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-tel,429/

Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-passionate-defender-of-what-he-imagines-c,2849/

This may be relevant.

It is also good that law enforcement officers can keep an eye on people that have associated with known terrorist groups, even if those people haven't actually committed a crime.

I think Kevin Bacon linked to Al Qaeda nicely sums up the problem there. Particularly if the "linking" is done in secret, without any rules of evidence.

Apple already did one better, the laptop with a click wheel. Obviously a superior design.

If I could mod this comment to the moon, I'd do it. I think the Onion explained it better than anyone else: http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/

Here is the nearest match I know of: http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-revolutionary-new-laptop-with-no,14299/

Congress must act now! I propose an immediate ban on some-assembly-required furniture. With fast action, the IKEA disease will only exist in history books.

I guess it pays to be Poor in America! Where else in the world can you do nothing and have everything?

I bet you think those political cartoons on The Onion are serious commentary...

We're doing five weeks!

They are acknowleding Microsoft owns numbers.

What? They do!?!? And for 13 years now I thought that was just a joke.

In case anyone missed the reference

Followed by life imitating art

Obligatory:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades,11056/

Seriously, a low-performance core doing administrivia type work sounds great, but won't this require OS support? I can't imagine this detail is completely abstracted from the kernel.

I don't know about 'nix implementations, but for Windows 8, it doesn't use the companion core during normal usage and funnels everything to it when idle. There's a lot of clever logic involved in making sure all of the processes are sent from the 4 cores to the companion core on idle and instantly bringing all of the that back to the 4 cores on user input.

Obligatory:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades,11056/

Seriously, a low-performance core doing administrivia type work sounds great, but won't this require OS support? I can't imagine this detail is completely abstracted from the kernel.

Anandtech also has an article up on this. From the sound of it this isn't really different from other multi-core processors that are able to power down or turn off individual cores. At low system demand, the CPU switches to the companion core and reports a single core available for task scheduling; if system demand is too high for the companion cube, er, core to handle the CPU switches to the main core(s). Sounds like a slight delay going from the companion to main (Anandtech quotes it at 2 ms), but as far as the OS is concerned it is no different than the situation we have now where one or more cores can be turned off independently.

Obligatory:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades,11056/

Seriously, a low-performance core doing administrivia type work sounds great, but won't this require OS support? I can't imagine this detail is completely abstracted from the kernel.

On a slightly less serious note...

What really scares me is the accuracy that The Onion can predict future trend. First it was the Gilette 5 bladed razor (skipping 4) and now it is PETA. Sort of. http://www.theonion.com/video/advocacy-group-decries-petas-inhumane-treatment-of,14359/

Remember how awful the economy was when Clinton was president? Eight horrible years of peace and prosperity, thank God that's long gone.

The Onion had a good article looking back on those dark times:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/bush-our-long-national-nightmare-of-peace-and-pros,464/

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

Check the date. It's eerily prescient.

Obligatory Onion link.

I don't mean to trivialize your concern, but for a moment I was certain you were parodying this: http://www.theonion.com/video/millions-irrationally-feared-dead-in-minor-train-a,20901/ "After a small train derailment in Delaware, Americans all across the nation are senselessly fearing for their loved ones' lives."

TFA reads like an Onion article:

"Copper will continue to improve, which happens. There have been many technologies that had been predicted dead 20 years ago that are still making good progress. We'll see," Perlmutter said.

Aren't optical signals processed via devices connected with copper wires at the end of the day?

Facebook is owned by the CIA.

They did a video report on the Google Opt-Out Villiage.

Great. Heavy-handed messages about tolerance and stiff acting in HD. I can't wait for international diplomacy to be debated in endless detail with every loose thread visible on overused costumes. Count me in! The only thing that would make my life complete would be if Star Trek: Insurrection was finally released on Blu-ray. Followed by a 4K release in a couple years so I could have something to look forward to.

Just kidding. I have the re-release of TOS, which has some nostalgia value and several hot chicks wearing very little, but the shows from the Berman era, with a few exceptions, (Best of Both Worlds, In a Mirror Darkly, More Tribbles) were dishwater dull. Even when they had a good idea, often the execution made you wish you were doing something else. Even, you know, interacting with people. It's like the studio had a Department of Boredom required to oversee each episode. In case the fans got too excited, and I dunno, started cosplay in the streets. Personally I think it was all a plot to keep geeks on the couch wearing cheeto powder covered captain's uniform in XXXL and not out conquering the world.

I don't think higher definition is going to help.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/microsoft-patents-ones-zeroes,599/

Congrats, you just triggered what I call the "TV rule". It states that the longer a discussion of technology lasts, the more likely some luddite will brag that he doesn't watch or own a TV.

Fax machines, despite using 40-year-old technology and having come into prominence in the 1980s, are actually still pretty impressive if you think about it, a new Brookings Institute report confirmed Tuesday. "Yes, the words 'fax machine' evoke this arcane image of a bulky telephone apparatus that makes a dial-up modem sound, but come on, if you take a step back and think about how, with one press of a button, it's capable of transmitting a facsimile of a document thousands of miles away over a standard telephone line, there's no way you can't find that slightly remarkable," the report read in part, adding that one has to admit that even with all the technological advancements over the years, the fact that fax machines are still viable communication devices in offices around the world is "pretty goddamn amazing." "People still use these things. They rely on them. It's not uncommon for someone to say, 'Send me a fax.' When's the last time you heard someone say, 'Can I borrow your Discman?' See what we're saying?" The report concluded that the mere fact we're even talking about fax machines right now should be evidence enough of how great they still are.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-fax-machines-still-pretty-impressive-if-you,21256/

http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-fax-machines-still-pretty-impressive-if-you,21256/

Oh good gosh. I post before finishing the sentence, forget to log in, and fail to add some <a> tags around the link. Well, let's make up for that here. :)

... has actually been discovered and revealed in this recent journal article just a couple weeks ago.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/mars-rover-beginning-to-hate-mars,2072/

Take a flat tire on a moonless night for instance. While a man is out changing nuts and bolts and doing all manner of screwing on the side of the road, will a woman so much as think to grab a flashlight and help? No.

Let me guess, everything you learned about women you learned on TV? And you're still single you say? Marvelous, simply marvelous.

Bruce Molholland, is that you?

There's always one.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-tel,429/

When all appeals in courts fail, they can go door to door, appealing to ordinary americans. similar to what the below article portrays :

http://www.theonion.com/articles/marilyn-manson-now-going-doortodoor-trying-to-shoc,459/

http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-revolutionary-new-laptop-with-no,14299/

I thought you were talking about this great new Apple product

And wants us to leave.

Japan didn't really stop when they caught up. They're currently 100 years ahead of the West after their recent set-backs, but once they reactivate their zero-point energy field they should be back to the good old 25th century.

http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-revolutionary-new-laptop-with-no,14299/

And I'm not looking forward to his next project

... and I'm sharing my impression... with the hope it will save others some time so they can waste it on more intelligent news: for example, try this: Man Just Walked Into Best Buy For No Reason Whatsoever

http://www.theonion.com/video/ultrarealistic-modern-warfare-game-features-awaiti,14382/
it doesn't get any more realistic than this. uncharted, eat your heart out.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/stephen-hawking-builds-robotic-exoskeleton,1629/

Good job citizen: The absolutely insufferable 'language' and graphic design of that website is designed to keep dangerous, potentially pedophilic, adults away from vulnerable children. It is part of a broader campaign to make parts of the internet used by children utterly insufferable for those over the age of 12 for the safety of our children.

The program is already beginning to see considerable success...

http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/

In the making your own food market we have cookbooks. They, and the recipes in them (except for the lists of ingredients) are in fact protected by copyright.

Copyright (in the US, at least) doesn't apply to procedures, though it may apply to a particular expression of them. (So for example, a book that explains how to do double-entry bookkeeping may be copyrightable, but anyone else can write their own book that explains precisely the same thing)

Furthermore, where there is only one or are only a few reasonable ways to express an procedure, those expressions are not copyrightable due to the merger, lest they effectively provide a copyright on the underlying, uncopyrightable procedure. Nor are stock expressions that are typical of a genre copyrightable, due to the scÃnes à faire doctrine. So the portions of a recipe to the effect of "mix well" or "serves 4" or "cook until brown" wouldn't be protectable.

Really, the best you can hope for for a typical recipe that is clearly written, straightforward, and all business, is a copyright that protects it from verbatim copying; even then anyone could rewrite it (in many cases without having to change much of the wording per the above paragraph) and not infringe. And I wouldn't want to bet money that even that level of protection could be obtained.

Really, about the only substantially copyrightable things in a cookbook are 1) the photographs (if any) that accompany the recipe to show you what the food should look like, and 2) the selection and arrangement of recipes, provided that it rises to the level of copyrightability (and this only protects the compilation, not the individual recipes themselves).

Your example of Coca Cola is perfect - you MAY duplicate Coke, but in over a hundred years of trying no-one has succeeded.

I doubt that. Pepsi is probably entirely capable of it, but why would they? Even the most shell-shocked veteran of the infamous Cola Wars knows that the point was always differentiation. If they all tasted the same, there'd be a huge loss in brand loyalty.

You can't keep a book, recording, or movie a trade secret and still sell it like you can with prepared food.

Computer software source code, if you only sell the binaries?

The bitter "get up/get down" battle, which has polarized the nation's funk community, is part of a long-running battle between the two factions, rooted in more than 35 years of conflict over the direction in which the American people should shake it.

Strangely appropriate. I wish it wasn't funny.

CULVER CITY, CAâ"Nathan Brandten, the last remaining male heir to a rich genetic lineage stretching dozens of generations into the dim and distant past, watched a movie alone on his laptop late Friday evening, sources reported.

Brandten, 32, the final product of a dwindling bloodline that his proud forebears fought relentlessly to advance even before the dawn of history, decided to spend his free time after work watching the 1989 Tom Hanks comedy film The 'Burbs.

"I think I'll just stay in tonight," said Brandten, whose scared and frostbitten ancestors traversed the icy Bering Strait into a bewildering and perilous new world so that his precious genetic material might one day flourish. "Thank God for Netflix streaming."

"I remember Hanks being pretty funny in this," continued the man whose storied surname will very likely end with him. "You got to love his early stuff."

According to the descendant of Bronze Age Nordic boatmen who sailed fearlessly across the North Sea in a tireless quest for self- preservation, he was initially torn between watching The 'Burbs and the 1995 showbiz farce Get Shorty.

However, after remembering that he had actually watched Get Shorty fairly recently, the man who has thus far failed to extend the survival of his ancestryâ"a heritage that miraculously spans unbroken across 200,000 years of human strife and perseveranceâ"decided to watch The 'Burbs instead.

"The mixture of slapstick and gothic horror parody actually holds up surprisingly well," said the only child and sole remaining link to the Germanic serfs whose blood still courses through his veins. "You can tell [actor Bruce] Dern probably had a ball making this, too."

While claiming that watching a film in solitude without any female to fulfill his male biological imperative was a "pretty nice night," Brandten was momentarily deterred when his Internet connection slowed down significantly for a period of almost 10 minutes.

"This thing is buffering at a crawl tonight," said Brandten, whose 19th-century namesake Nathaniel Lee Brandten once led his kin across barren wilderness in a tragic half-decade trek from Boston to the Pacific Northwest. "I'm not even watching it in full-screen mode. Why is it so slow?"

"And you'd think a movie like this would be available in HD, too," added the great-great-grandson of wounded World War I flying ace Wilbur Brandten, who vowed to make it home from the war alive no matter what the cost so he could pass on the Brandten family name. "Not sure what that's all about."

The direct result of several million years of evolution in which tree-dwelling primates moved to the land and began walking upright in order to take advantage of available resources told reporters he had not seen the film since his childhood, when he watched it frequently, and added that he "really enjoyed" the scene where Tom Hanks ate the sardines.

The last relative of countless mammalian and non-mammalian animals forced to kill other members of their own species just to ensure their genetic survival also cited the scene where Rick Ducommun's character accidentally gets electrocuted as his "favorite."

After finishing the movie, Brandten, who has been single since 2007, rummaged through his refrigerator for an aluminum tray of leftover Mexican takeout food, consumed a half-eaten enchilada in near darkness, and made his way to bed.

"Man, I am exhausted," said the collection of specialized eukaryotic and symbiotic prokaryotic cells that have evolved over eons, giving rise to a complex, sentient organism capable of surviving and reproducing in even the harshest of environments. "Glad I took it easy tonight."

From The Onion

Brilliantly done, sir. I wish there was a "+1 Troll" option - you already hooked half a dozen... How long did you have to wait for a body scanner article to post this?

And for those who thought this was real, here are two other very real, very scary sites:

The Onion

Christwire