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After all, the Thames estuary can't be hurt by a few anthropogenic earthquakes, now? Can it?

Considering the majority of the gas reserves are in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland it seems unlikely that London (seemingly the only city in the UK that most have heard of) will suffer any form of earth quakes, though they may well lose out if Scotland is granted their independence in 2014 when the vote comes.

Nope. Two points: First, we're talking about frackable shale gas reserves, rather than conventional off-shore reserves, and the distribution of the two resources is completely different. Second, most of the North Sea gas reserves are in the southern part of the sea anyway, near England and the continent, so in the event of Scottish independence would be mostly in English territorial waters rather than Scottish (the most productive oil fields are of course between Scotland and Norway, so would go to Scotland following independence, but most gas exploration to date has been in more southerly areas).

After all, the Thames estuary can't be hurt by a few anthropogenic earthquakes, now? Can it?

Considering the majority of the gas reserves are in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland it seems unlikely that London (seemingly the only city in the UK that most have heard of) will suffer any form of earth quakes, though they may well lose out if Scotland is granted their independence in 2014 when the vote comes.

After all, the Thames estuary can't be hurt by a few anthropogenic earthquakes, now? Can it?

I'd be far more worried about the water laced with sand and chemicals that is shot down into the Earth to release this gas from the shale. They can't leave it down there for fear of it seeping into the water table and when they suck it up, what do they do with it? And in some US states, it appears that when people think they are affected by it the company responsible doesn't have to tell them what their area was exposed to. It's well known that it contaminates water supply but greed can overpower any environmental problems. Luckily we should be able to watch Pennsylvania screw up their own water and hopefully other states will take a different approach.

I wonder how many laws and regulations UKELA will let slide in order for England to "catapult into the top ranks of global producers."

After all, the Thames estuary can't be hurt by a few anthropogenic earthquakes, now? Can it?

Hybrid tablet/laptops would have been great for Windows 8. But there is nothing on the horizon that remotely fits this vision. Intel is pushing for ultrabooks favoring less weight and more power efficiency instead of multi-touch transformable tablets. Seems like MS designed an OS for hardware that doesn't exist and even if it did is a very small percentage of users instead of optimizing for the hardware that is in the near future.

Have you been living under a rock?

Have you checked out the Ideapad Yoga with 10 multitouch points? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIGUwyAXpgQ

And the news that around 32 touch models will debut this year with Windows 8? http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/handheld/232900536

More: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/04/intel-cove-point-ultrabook-tablet-hybrid-running-windows-8/

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9226083/Intel_working_with_10_vendors_on_Windows_8_tablets?taxonomyId=12

I think the reason you think the hardware doesn't exist is that they're keeping it under wraps so that they don't cannibalize existing sales now, which makes sense really.

The most I can see them doing is build a mockup that looks like it, showing it flying, and then the entire world concluding, "OMG, they copied the US drone!!!111" — except that it won't contain any of the systems and technology aboard the RQ-170.

Would be a great propaganda victory for Iran, though. Which is exactly the sort of thing they're looking for. Iran's playing up the drone story again, this week saying that Russia and China are aggressively seeking information about it, and then two days later making this "announcement"? With Iran claiming it used a force field and "advanced space technology" to down the drone (and no, this isn't simply a failure of the translation), nothing is too surprising.

Of course, US drones have been flying over Iran for years, and drones are still flying over Iran after the RQ-170 incident.

Interestingly, as the Western press and pundits hyperventilated over the loss of the drone, Iran's state-controlled media and spokesmen repeatedly changed and finessed their story to fit with the most panicked narratives of "what might have happened".

Logic would dictate that the drone simply malfunctioned and crashed, or at absolute MOST had its control link jammed — a known vulnerability of UAS — and was not brought down in a controlled fashion, nor has been "reverse-engineered".

...we already have lots of ways to do this. We can encrypt and post to Usenet. We can use extensions like FireGPG to encrypt on post to websites. So why use a system where we place all our trust in the service provider, which is both theoretically risky and has failed in the past:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/11/encrypted-e-mai/

Exactly.

The other problem is it takes specialists to actually use this encryption in the context they are talking about. Anyone with the special skills to have to use this sort of encryption would exercise great caution.

That website Anonpaste is going to have to have a darknet backend of some sort. It's also going to need a distributed decentralized DNS because governments are going to attack the DNS when they figure out they cannot DDOS the servers.

Finally these servers have to be protected and secure. The best place to put them would be in bunkers, caves, and other hard to reach places. If they finally got up that satellite dish they were talking about launching then they could use that too.

...we already have lots of ways to do this. We can encrypt and post to Usenet. We can use extensions like FireGPG to encrypt on post to websites. So why use a system where we place all our trust in the service provider, which is both theoretically risky and has failed in the past:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/11/encrypted-e-mai/

Heck, pull out your Visa card and order an exabyte server from Oracle today.

Done.

...was bullshit. That can't be right. Then I RTFA. Holy shit! Way to go London - bring that Orwellian dream to life!

Where have you been?

Johnson testified that he found two attempts to delete data on Manning’s laptop. Sometime in January 2010, the computer’s OS was re-installed, deleting information prior to that time. Then, on or around Jan. 31, someone attempted to erase the drive by doing what’s called a “zerofill” — a process of overwriting data with zeroes. Whoever initiated the process chose an option for overwriting the data 35 times — a high-security option that results in thorough deletion — but that operation was canceled. Later, the operation was initiated again, but the person chose the option to overwrite the information only once — a much less secure and less thorough option.

All the data that Johnson was able to retrieve from un-allocated space came after that overwrite, he said.

I kinda wish geniuses like Turing were rewarded as well as a second string shortstop or bench warming basketball player.

Scary that I've hear this twice today in a dozen hours: I finally got to read my dead-tree copy of a two-month old Wired article. Near the last paragraph, it similarly states that the only genius still strongly encouraged in the USA is that of athletes. In salaries, willingness of the masters / trainers to routinely take risks to trade or acquire good and bad players / rookies... and finally, public sway. Because you can usually pick one or two of those pluses in real-life decisions like picking a career.. but not all 3.

Wrong.

"Mark Johnson, a digital forensics contractor for ManTech International who works for the Armyâ(TM)s Computer Crime Investigative Unit, examined an image of Manningâ(TM)s personal MacBook Pro and said he found 14 to 15 pages of chats in unallocated space on the hard drive that were discussions of unspecified government info between Manning and a person believed to be Assange, which specifically made a reference to re-sending info."

"Johnson testified that he found two attempts to delete data on Manningâ(TM)s laptop. Sometime in January 2010, the computerâ(TM)s OS was re-installed, deleting information prior to that time. Then, on or around Jan. 31, someone attempted to erase the drive by doing whatâ(TM)s called a âoezerofillâ â" a process of overwriting data with zeroes. Whoever initiated the process chose an option for overwriting the data 35 times â" a high-security option that results in thorough deletion â" but that operation was canceled. Later, the operation was initiated again, but the person chose the option to overwrite the information only once â" a much less secure and less thorough option.

All the data that Johnson was able to retrieve from un-allocated space came after that overwrite, he said.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/manning-assange-laptop/

Bah, soldier crab based computing is the only way to go.

1% is far, far, too low a number. Surely the editors left out a zero or two. After all, according to the all-wise prognosticators at Wired, Amazon owns the internet.

Look, dude: Star Trek books are poor science fiction. The people who write them are not generally experts in the themes they explore, and the entire canon has a long and colourful history of requiring consultants to fill in the actual science fiction for them. Even one of the show's writers has admitted this. The claim you made in your original post about superior intelligence necessarily breeding disregard for others is a gross oversimplification contrived for plot convenience. Hatred by and of the smart is a function of social alienation and mutual disrespect, just like any other discrimination.

If you want some more effective inspirational material, try looking for something that isn't anchored to a huge canon. Short story anthologies are really good at this, which is in part why they were the mainstay of the genre for most of its history.

Your behaviour and your preoccupation with credentials strongly suggest that you are emotionally vulnerable. It is probably not a good idea to keep getting worked up about Slashdot comments. No, I don't have additional accounts; most likely you were modded down by someone who thought you had stepped across the line by making a personal attack. I don't think it means much anyway, given that you're posting anonymously and I'd already read the post. I'd call it a waste of a mod point to make an obvious statement.

By the way: having letters after one's name doesn't confer ambition, reasoning skills, or anything in between. It makes for a pretty good cut-off to filter out unmotivated people, but I've met a lot of duds with PhDs. You really shouldn't imply that someone lacks inductive reasoning ability based on output. All that does is make it look like you hate young people.

If you really need to partake in this absurd contest, though, I have the skills you're asking for. I've been programming for over ten years, building CMSes, game engines, virtual machines, and interpreters from scratch. I have worked on some moderately-sized projects (about half a million lines of code) and laid architecture and solved design flaws in similar programs. Two years ago I designed, built, and exhaustively documented a toolkit of genetic components for teaching and enabling chemical engineers to genetically alter a species that normally requires a graduate degree in biology to understand, and presented that work at MIT. Today, I get more job offers than I know what to do with. I was accepted into the most prestigious graduate school in Canada alongside applicants from Berkeley, MIT, and Stanford as one of their strongest candidates.

But I didn't feel the need to wave all of that around, because intelligent, well-meaning people, no matter the level of age, education, or experience, let facts speak for themselves, and they respect others by default. I don't hate or disdain you, APK, I just think there's better reading material out there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System

http://www.youtube.com/user/UnitedLaunchAlliance

This is the future:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/04/smaller-quicker-secret-space/all/1

And by the way — if you believe the principles and ideals the US and the West stand for have any value whatsoever, then those principles are still worth defending against those who don't share them, and would desire to project their own...

We are not perfect, but before there is a chorus of responses decrying how the US is somehow "oppressing" its people, I genuinely hope those who believe that never see actual oppression...

Funny but also true at some point, according to the news of video feeds from drone surveillance found in enemy bases.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/12/insurgents-intercept-drone-video-in-king-sized-security-breach/

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/12/not-just-drones-militants-can-snoop-on-most-us-warplanes/

Funny but also true at some point, according to the news of video feeds from drone surveillance found in enemy bases.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/12/insurgents-intercept-drone-video-in-king-sized-security-breach/

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/12/not-just-drones-militants-can-snoop-on-most-us-warplanes/

...with controversy. But it's dead.

Much more plausible (and deniable, and non-attributable...) is downing it with cyber.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/ernsts-ions-week-concludes-nerva-ion-mars-mission-1966/

So when Apple starts selling the iGun, we should all be very afraid?

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/iphone-gun-accessory-for-augmented-reality-shooting/

See this is why I love LMAO at the FOSSies, they are so "There is but one true god!" they can't even think, like how you at the very first sentence threw an insult and then dared to get butthurt when i slapped your dumb ass down.

You want some fresh bitch slapping? Be careful what you wish for FOSSie, how about a nice kernel exploit? Or how about the guy that wrote EEEBuntu saying Ubuntu sucks which considering they are the current savior of Linux kinda tells you something. But why don't you say "Use Distro X" and then have the balls to name the X so i can show its just as big a POS, huh? As for why the older ones? frankly everyone has stop giving a fuck about your OS, you aren't even newsworthy anymore really. Now its all Win 7&8, OSX&iOS, and of course Android which just shows what happens when a company bitch slaps the community and takes it away from them, why it actually fucking runs!

How sad that even with a bug spreading through OSX there are writers pointing out that's no reason to torture yourself with Linux , after all even a virus ridden OSX actually runs which is more than most distros LOL! But hey, you can always tell them they can fix it otherwise they don't need that right? LOL! And I noticed you just couldn't fricking resist screaming "Nigger!" which in FOSSie is done by screaming PaidMicrosoftShill, hey you think you could throw in one more FOSSie cliche please? Then I'll have a FOSSie Flush ROFL!

But if you didn't have cliches and your pathetic attempts at insults why then you might have to have an independent thought and realize what everybody knows that even when MSFT put out a universally reviled OS you STILL got curb stomped, does that give you ANY clues? or all they all brainwashed by those black choppers that have been following you? Hell when the Chinese were given the choice of your "free OS" or pirating Windows they chose the latter even if it meant staying on XP and using IE fricking 6, LOL! Does that ring ANY bells? A smart person would say "what are we doing wrong the other guy is doing right?" but a FOSSie who is just like a Moonie in that they blindly follow, instead says "Its all a conspiracy! They are all shills keeping the masses from true salvation!" and then you wonder why we all laugh at you because you DON'T Listen, you DON'T learn, and Torvalds could take a big steaming dump and hand it to you and you'd thank him for his generous gift. So enjoy that fresh bitchslapping loony, enjoy the fact that the world really doesn't care...but I do, I enjoy slapping you, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Oh and Microsoft doesn't need shills, they have YOU. Its batshit loony tunes like YOU that make the entire community look like retarded basement trolls, its YOU that gives everyone the fodder for all the "Linux is for lusers" jokes, because you sound like a religious whacko. Frankly all any Microsoft or Apple rep has to do is show posts like yours and say 'you would want you company de

Been done (many times, in fact), and the results are inconclusive. We don't really know what's in the soil, so it's hard to be certain that results which mimic (or not) the Viking results are actually due to chemistry on Mars, or wishful thinking on Earth.

By the way, perchlorates may have destroyed any organics in the soil in the heating required to analyze it in the Viking mass spectrometer, so some think that the perchlorates are a reason to rethink the earlier negative conclusions.

Read this article and you'll know why government, private companies, and individuals may not want their data in the "cloud", particularly when you know half of the Internet traffic likely transits through US soil: The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say) http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

Already known, even to amateurs.

And the White House has been warning the media about this.

Because this case wasn't about property. It was about "goods, wares [or] merchandise." The reporting on this case seems rather misleading; if you read the actual judgment, they were quite happy that the code could be stolen, but theft is a matter for state law, not federal. They'd prosecuted the guy under the National Stolen Property Act which only applies to cases of theft or fraud where some "goods, wares, merchandise" etc., involved in a theft or fraud, are taken across a state or national border (presumably because a more general theft law would be unconstitutional, whereas this can come under the interstate commerce clause thingamy - IANA(US)L).

In this case, while the code was stolen (which is the silly part of US law, which recognises information as property), the specific law is drafted in a way that only applies to moving tangible goods (or money). Unlike an earlier case which is referenced - where information was photocopied and taken across a border and the defendant seems to have been convicted - here the information was transmitted via the internet, so no "goods" were taken across a border. Basically, this is due to a badly-drafted piece of legislation (I guess in 1934 people weren't really thinking about intangible property).

So, both types of code are property, but imported code isn't goods, wares or merchandise (unless it's bound to some physical form).

Tardigrades (water bears) might have a chance. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/tardigrade-eggs-space/

IIRC, some spores might also do so.

Who cares about encrypted email when it all passes through (gets copied to) Utah as most MTAs don't use TLS by default. So your mail goes in or out in plaintext. Assuming both clients are end-to-end encrypted, emailing another user of the same ISP should be secure.

It's a good point about breaking IMAPS or other protocols that expect the contents to be unencrypted (at least in memory / ramdisk) on the server. They could provide a webmail client where local javascript performs the decryption with your private key. (Sorting and searching would still be a bitch unless like you suggested, they keep headers unencrypted.)

In the USA we've PROVEN that most republicans are mentally handicapped five year olds, the problem is every time we try to fix the problems they've caused, we're subjected to republican temper tantrums.

Case in point: the latest anti-science law crap passed by the republican retard squads in Tennessee (6 million people, 6 last names!) and Louisiana (most corrupt state in the USA!).

I spent a few years of my youth testing planes and came up with two which are the best.

First, you have a dart, a more basic variation of that one you pointed out. It is the one where you make two folds and then fold over. Very simple and quick to make, and very fast and stable. (this design, but I fold right to the point: http://www.amazingpaperairplanes.com/Basic_Dart.html).

Then there was the stunt plane, which I found was recently the world record plane. This guys plane is a better version of the one I made. Mine was the same shape and weighting, but with different folds so the front wasn't held together. Anyhow, the following plane is IMHO the best in the world: http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Fold_Your_Own_Sky_King_Paper_Airplane

The family and/or leadership of 'bad' country. The boss of a 'bad' company. The boss of a 'bad' area exporting drugs/weapons without state support.
The top science person of a "bad" research centre.. That lone wolf blogger who "was" somebody/got a real story....
You really think all the interest in home wireless is just to watch your web cam, track your power needs and log your mail/web 2.0 use?
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/

Hell, we don't need the government for adventurous, useless robotic machines.

Purdue University runs a contest every year.

Hybrids are an alternative for drivers who want to be green, think of diesel as the soot spewing lorries and buses of yesteryear, can't live with the short range and abysmal interior space of of pure electrics, and can afford the price premium.

Well, I'm sure there are some people who feel that way but I'd bet not a lot of hybrid owners do. I own one. A 2007 Prius. I bought it because at the time it was the best decision to conserve gas. I researched the daylights out of my purchase before I bought one. I think you'll find a lot of hybrid owners do the same. It's not really a "joe sixpack" kind of a car in the first place.

And now we have cars like these on the way. 60mpg, decent acceleration, and about half the price.

This will be the next big green transport. Turbo diesel. Because biodiesel is ridiculously simple to make. And carbon neutral - that'll be important soon here too, once the world gets their collective heads out of their asses and decides to do something about global warming. Diesel will be the next Big Green Thing.

Here, read this. It's a fantastic study on how feasible it would be to switch the USA entirely to algae biodiesel. Unfortunately it is no longer hosted at UNH but the wayback still has a copy. It's a brilliant read and a future I'd like to be a part of.

And I really think things will go that way too someday. Drilling for oil is problematic (Gulf BP disaster for example), not carbon neutral and contributes to global warming, and there is always the specter of "peak oil" lurking about. Someday maybe we'll simply run out of oil. What then? The two best answers are Biodiesel and Hydrogen. Hydrogen is sexy, but problematic. Difficult to store. No existing infrastructure to distribute it. No efficient way to make it. That leaves Biodiesel.

And everyone who buys a diesel helps usher in that future. So yeah, my next car will be a turbodiesel of some sort.

Most relevant post. This initiative probably has nothing to do with the end-user.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/07/the_nsas_perfec.html
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/nsa-2/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/nsa-perfect-citizen-denial/

Most relevant post. This initiative probably has nothing to do with the end-user.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/07/the_nsas_perfec.html
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/nsa-2/
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/nsa-perfect-citizen-denial/

How long until all police cars will be fited with programs that uploads a breaks-is-always-on update?

You're about 12 years too late.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/hacker-bricks-cars/

It's been linked to about a dozen different things, with each study calling itself "conclusive". It actually starts to get annoying after a while.

Here's the most balanced and detailed article I've seen on this most recent paper so far. In particular, I like Krupke's comments:

“If the relationship was as easy as that, we’d have noticed it long ago. There are areas where neonicotinoids are used, but you don’t have colony loss,” Krupke said. “But what these studies are showing is that because neonicotinoids are absolutely ubiquitous, and we’re seeing sub-lethal effects, is that they’re stressors. They’ve softened up the bees for other parasites.”

Pesticide risk analysis in the United States has focused too much on whether chemicals are immediately, obviously toxic, said Krupke. “Our way of thinking is fundamentally flawed,” he said. “We need to look at sub-lethal effects, and for a longer time period. These pesticides are everywhere, every year. We’ve never used pesticides in the way we’re using them now, where we charge up a plant and it expresses pesticides all year long.”

I think that's a fair view on the subject, and ties in well with all of the other "conclusive" studies.

It's also worth remembering -- not that it helps anything now -- that honeybees are not native to the US. We only need them because of our extreme use of pesticide-heavy monoculture. Pesticides obviously kill off native pollinators, but monoculture is just as bad -- when everything for dozens of miles around, for the most part, all blooms at once and then there's virtually nothing for the rest of the year, you can't support most types of pollinator populations.

Read this about the Doomslayer in Wired magazine back a few years ago: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/ffsimon_pr.html

Brought to you by the same guys charged with domestic evesdropping: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/01/70126

Uncomfortable facts you are not willing to acknowledge:

April 13, 2011 (1 week before PlayBook was launched)

Anandtech:

The bottom line is that today the PlayBook can't store contacts, it can't organize your day and you can't use it to check emails using anything other than your web browser. RIM's explanation? Most users who buy tablets don't buy it for push email, most are on WiFi, and if you're not getting push email then a web client is probably ok. I don't agree with this assessment, and clearly RIM doesn't completely agree with it either, so we'll eventually get all of these things for the PlayBook later this summer alongside the release of the WiMAX PlayBook.

BGR:

There is no native mail app, contacts app, or calendar app. Looking to the near future, I’m told that these are absolutely coming in the future through a free software update. I’ve also been told PlayBooks that launch in the coming months with 4G compatibility (WiMAX, LTE, and HSPA+), will most certainly have these apps built in. Until then, the Wi-Fi PlayBook isn’t that useful to me without native apps that are extremely necessary in this day and age of mobile computing.

Wired:

Another glaring flaw is the PlayBook’s complete lack of native e-mail, contacts and calendar apps. Want those apps? Log on to your Gmail account with the browser. BlackBerry smartphone owners can access e-mail on the PlayBook after installing RIM’s Bridge app, which connects the phone to the tablet by Bluetooth, but we weren’t able to test this feature. If you don’t have a BlackBerry phone, you’re out of luck until summer, when RIM says a future software update will bring native clients to the PlayBook.

You: "The PlayBook was never supposed to have native email."

Your delusions or lies do not mesh with real facts.

Pretty cool: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/03/geekdads-2nd-3rd-anniversary-why-i-started-geekdad-by-chris-anderson/

I'll never forget your line: "Come on, Linus, infect the mothership."
I still believe that was the best recruiting pitch ever uttered.
We both took a lot of criticism from our partisans, but look what we've accomplished.
The world is using software that doesn't suck!

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/microsoft.html

Oh god, here it comes!

I can't wait for the first industrial accident involving this stuff.

Required reading: Why The Future Doesn't Need Us

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/
Now more devices have network connections, firewalls are on average consumer junk sitting on consumer OS.
Your "Internet of Things" is now open to the CIA inside the USA.
The noticing the traffic would just be the usual data that that a new device sends back for recipes, extended warranty, new, exciting apps and all the data needed personalizes the experience.
All that unique data might just flow back via a fed sever onto its usual ip - your fancy Linux/Mac/Windows firewall would see nothing.
A log of faces, sound, location and temperature aware ads http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/23/google_mobile_ads_patent/.
Then add in that browsing history, HTTPS URL that your telco or other client might have got via some small 3rd party to better understand their network... that shipped in every device.
The FBI has used mobile phone mics as roving bugs http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html noted back in ~2003
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_(software) hints at what some anti-virus companies would do to help :)

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2008/11/a-full-wall-of/

They stopped innovating years ago - copying Google is about the only thing they can do these days. And what's with the word "mobile" in this me too effort - it's not like they've ever had any relevance there, or ever will.

Neal Stephenson always bears referring:

Mother Earth Motherboard: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html



Most of the fishing-related damage is caused by trawlers, which tow big sacklike nets behind them. Trawlers seem designed for the purpose of damaging submarine cables. Various types of hardware are attached to the nets. In some cases, these are otter boards, which act something like rudders to push the net's mouth open. When bottom fish such as halibut are the target, a massive bar is placed across the front of the net with heavy tickler chains dangling from it; these flail against the bottom, stirring up the fish so they will rise up into the maw of the net.

Mere impact can be enough to wreck a cable, if it puts a leak in the insulation. Frequently, though, a net or anchor will snag a cable. If the ship is small and the cable is big, the cable may survive the encounter. There is a type of cable, used up until the advent of optical fiber, called 21-quad, which consists of 21 four-bundle pairs of cable and a coaxial line. It is 15 centimeters in diameter, and a single meter of it weighs 46 kilograms. If a passing ship should happen to catch such a cable with its anchor, it will follow a very simple procedure: abandon it and go buy a new anchor.

But modern cables are much smaller and lighter - a mere 0.85 kg per meter for the unarmored, deep-sea portions of the FLAG cable - and the ships most apt to snag them, trawlers, are getting bigger and more powerful. Now that fishermen have massacred most of the fish in shallower water, they are moving out deeper. Formerly, cable was plowed into the bottom in water shallower than 1,000 meters, which kept it away from the trawlers. Because of recent changes in fishing practices, the figure has been boosted to 2,000 meters. But this means that the old cables are still vulnerable.

When a trawler snags a cable, it will pull it up off the seafloor. How far it gets pulled depends on the weight of the cable, the amount of slack, and the size and horsepower of the ship. Even if the cable is not pulled all the way to the surface, it may get kinked - its minimum bending radius may be violated. If the trawler does succeed in hauling the cable all the way up out of the water, the only way out of the situation, or at least the simplest, is to cut the cable. Dave Handley once did a study of a cable that had been suddenly and mysteriously severed. Hauling up the cut end, he discovered that someone had sliced through it with a cutting torch.

There is also the obvious threat of sabotage by a hostile government, but, surprisingly, this almost never happens. When cypherpunk Doug Barnes was researching his Caribbean project, he spent some time looking into this, because it was exactly the kind of threat he was worried about in the case of a data haven. Somewhat to his own surprise and relief, he concluded that it simply wasn't going to happen. "Cutting a submarine cable," Barnes says, "is like starting a nuclear war. It's easy to do, the results are devastating, and as soon as one country does it, all of the others will retaliate.



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"The Americans, Russians (formerly Soviets), Chinese, British, French and Indians are all rational actors who realize the dangers of retaliatory strikes."

Have you ever experienced computer hardware or software doing anything unexpected?

Remember, your life depends on 1970s-era Soviet engineering that the USA tried to sabotage. Better hope the Ruskies were good engineers back then. :-)
"Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine"
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand?currentPage=all

Engineered plagues are probably a bigger total risk in some ways, and if they happened, as our infrastructure failed, we'd probably also see nuclear meltdown of unmanaged reactors plus nuclear weapons use in the emerging chaos. How quickly can a country descend into chaos from seeming normality?

But getting back to the article, this finding really does provide people with a lot to think about as far as the likelihood of other life in the galaxy -- or the galaxy simulation? :-)

Considering how irrational our species is in so many ways, like planning on using nuclear energy to fight over oil fields (how ironically dumb is that?), is it really no surprise if no one is much interested in Earthlings (except as an idle amusement)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_State_of_the_Art
'Also while I'd been away, the ship had sent a request on a postcard to the BBC's World Service, asking for 'Mr David Bowie's "Space Oddity" for the good ship Arbitrary and all who sail in her.' (This from a machine that could have swamped Earth's entire electro-magnetic spectrum with whatever the hell it wanted from somewhere beyond Betelgeuse.) It didn't get the request played. The ship thought this was hilarious.'

The article makes no mention of when the training manuals were in effect. The comment in question, that the FBI could "bend or suspend the law," came from Robert Mueller, who was appointed by President Bush on September 4, 2001. The most recently-reported race-related scandal at the FBI (prior to this one) also took place during the Bush administration. Both scandals were revealed by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who has been investigating misconduct at the FBI for the past few years.

How on Earth did you connect this to Obama?