That assumes that criminal world is somehow deficient and can't find its specialists with both hands and a mirror. But we usually know people who are like us. If you work with computers, you have friends and acquaintances of similar sort. When I was in computer contracting business I could have linked you with tens, if not hundreds, of people who specialize in this and that.
If someone works as a thief, he knows other thieves, and he surely knows people who buy stolen stuff. The laptop could go through several hands before he landed with an ID thief, and there is a reason for that - each layer of resellers would try to maximize the value of the item. Even a stupidest thief would be smart enough to sell the laptop with valuable data for $500 instead of selling it as a generic notebook for $50.
Such a long chain of custody can explain, actually, why the laptop was out of sight for so long. Each owner would need several days to make a few phone calls or meetings before a deal is made and money changes hands. The last owner would need an hour at most, and once the data is copied and verified there is no reason to hold onto the hardware.
A combination of your scenarios is even more likely:
A common burglar enters the house and takes anything that looks valuable.
That burglar then reads in newspapers what exactly he has in his hands.
That burglar then sells the laptop, as is, to identity thieves; from that point on, he is out of the picture.
The ID thief boots from a Ghost CD, and copies the contents of the drive to another computer.
The ID thief returns the laptop, so that he can maximize the value of the data, and stop the investigation.
The FBI concludes that the computer was not booted up for ages, and the data is safe. There will be no discernible fingerprints on the computer (of the owner, or of the thieves,) that is not unusual.
Now, if they can do something like looking at the scratches in the IDE pins in the HD, to see how many times it has been plugged in to something, I would be seriously impressed.
Ok, imagine that I tell you that the connector was installed three times, and there are seven small scratches on the sides of the HDD. What will you conclude from that? You do not know how many there were before the system was stolen.
None of that is unique to humans. And while we can point out that human's neocortex can be more developed than in other mammals, it's a matter of performance, and even that is debatable because dolphins' neocortex is "archaic" but that does not stop them from hearing and seeing better than humans.
"Humans have unique neural capacities, but much of their brain structure is similar to that of other mammals" (here). This article points out that humans have better design of the brain, but nothing that is revolutionary, distinctly different from other mammals. If these differences in the structure of the brain would be the only difference between an ape and a human, one would expect an ape to be as intelligent as a Neanderthal man, but that's not the case; a dog may be more intelligent than an ape (and often they are!) It may be that the quantity changes into quality here, but there is no proof yet.
The Shuttle is as capable as Atlas V Heavy to LEO (50,000 lbs) among currently active vehicles. Proton is close at 46,000 lbs. However STS can only to to LEO, whereas Proton can (and does) go to geosynchronous orbit, delivering up to 12,000 lbs.)
Energiya was a modular design, and could be configured to lift up to 400,000 lbs from the ground. It was flown twice in 160,000 lbs configuration (one of those flights launched Buran, which weighted about 80,000 lbs.) Given Energiya's thrust, Buran could lift up to 60,000 lbs in its payload bay, but that never happened because nobody was interested - we are not building starships yet.
Energiya as such is not manufactured now, but it's engines - RD-180 - are used on Atlas V. The "heavy" option can lift up to 50,000 lbs to the LEO, or 26,000 lbs to the geostationary orbit.
Russian space program lost 4 people in missions, in two Soyuz accidents in 70's, all on descent (one parachute failure when USSR leaders scheduled a flight for a national holiday, for political reasons, instead of launching when ready; and one outer air valve failure when they were brave/foolish enough to descend without light spacesuits.)
US space program lost 14 people in missions, in two Shuttle accidents, one on launch and another on descent.
Both programs had various accidents on the ground, not in missions.
My theory is based on fact that heavily paralyzed people remain themselves even if they lose all functions of most of the body. Another obvious fact is that brain-damaged people cease to remain themselves even if the rest of their bodies is intact. From those facts I can conclude that the brain is necessary and sufficient for a person to exist, think, be self-aware, and exhibit all other aspects of a human being. From that I can conclude that if the soul exists (depends on your definition of the soul) it must be there, or at least it must effect its presence there.
Apes have pretty much the same hardware... why are they not humans?
Hardware: a material structure that can produce output based on an input and on a set of instructions.
Software: a set of instructions that tell the hardware how to make an output from a set of inputs.
I work with hardware and software, and it's not easy to convince me that a blank microcontroller from Atmel is a fully functioning end-user device.
In case of biological entities, pretty much all animals on Earth have the same type of cells, and their biology is not that different from humans. Human brains are larger, but brains of dolphins and elephants are larger still. Proves nothing. Even a human child, with a brain smaller than one of a grown dog, is smarter than a dog. Where is the difference? Maybe in a way the brain operates? But if so, then it's a software.
And if you wanted to suggest that humans' programs are hardcoded in the brain as part of its development, that might be so, but it's no different than me burning my software into microcontrollers. The microcontrollers can't change their software, and they have no way of knowing anything about where their software came from. For all they know (if only they could think) they were manufactured with my firmware in them, and they are free to speculate that they were always like that, complex and doing fancy things with their inputs and outputs. And they can point at their lesser cousins, with simpler programs, and wonder how come these lesser cousins are different from them? Maybe there was some aberration in the manufacturing tapes that caused the smarter microcontrollers to appear?
Main Entry: 1soul
Pronunciation: 'sOl
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English soule, from Old English sAwol; akin to Old High German sEula soul
1 : the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life
Based on this Webster's definition, the soul could be outlined as the software that runs on your biological hardware (and firmware, if you count the spinal cord.) Software is an idea, it has no weight, and it has no size, but it definitely exists, even though you can hardly point at it on the PC's motherboard and say "Here!"
Well, if your augmented (cyborg) body never wears down then the question is moot, isn't it?
But if you still insist, it is obvious that the soul, if present to begin with, can be only in the head, and only in the brain then. We do not have prosthetic brains yet, so there is nothing to discuss yet. When we get some decent processing capacity, then ask me again:-)
Rechecking "everything" "by hand" on the launchpad? With cryogenic fuel in the tanks? I think that's unreasonable given the mildness of the problem. It would not be a little delay.
There is another reason - if you get a week and decide to recheck everything, chances are good that you will find a lot of things out of calibration, if not outright defective. And even if you replace them all, by the time you are ready to check again something else will be broken, and so you do some more replacements... ad infinitum. That is because when a machine has 1,000,000 components, each component has to be exceptionally, impossibly reliable.
This particular machine flew to the orbit and back many times already, and many parts may be approaching their failure points. But you can't know that - modern science can't see a future crack in a turbine's blade, and once the crack develops you have about 0.001 seconds before a major destructive event.
That's why many airplane parts are tested on the ground until they start failing, and then a service life is set for them that is way lower than what was seen during the tests. And these parts are replaced after certain number of hours not because they are faulty, but because they might be faulty, and we can't check if they still have some life left in them or not.
But in case of STS there is only very limited knowledge about many parts, as technicians keep discovering totally unexpected wear-related failures all over the orbiter, whenever they get to service it. So we don't really know how long this cryogenic pump or that high pressure pipe or that O-ring can last, since Shuttles are the test article in itself. That's why two missions were lost - because there was no good understanding, beyond a few guesses, of what the materials and the parts are capable of. There -still- is no understanding of many parts, aside from the tiles and RCC panels who were tested exhaustively and hopefully well enough by now.
So, for example, when they say "this thermostat in that thruster does not matter..." they likely only evaluate some expected fault scenario, assuming things that they don't know for sure. For example, if a sensor is misreading the fuel temperature it's one issue. But if it does that because there is an intermittent short, and it may ignite the fuel, that's a very different issue.
This way if they don't check everything they at least can launch, and we already know that the chance of failure should not be higher than 2% - likely less, since the previous problems had been fixed. But if they check for everything they will never fly, and if they ever do then something else will break just after they finished checking. It's just statistics, and game of chance.
Re:That was actually surprisingly good article
on
The Cost of the iPod
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· Score: 2, Insightful
And how exactly should he figure it out?
By typing http://www.isuppli.com into his Web Browser, as many posters indicated already. Some say that iSuppli does not know about specific deals on specific parts, and that's true, but you can't expect Apple to open the kimono on such sensitive, private deals. In many cases parties are not even allowed to talk about specific prices that they agreed upon (typical for MS OEM deals, as an example.) Anyway, he would be within a few percent off at most, since even a most lucrative deal can't go that far below a volume price, and that is usually well known. It's very cold, hard data. For example, see here.
He's simply saying that there isn't enough real data from apple to judge the prospects of the company.
"Since January, Mr. Renck has been advising clients against owning Apple shares." (TFA)
I don't read it as "not enough data", I read it as "sell all you have, as fast as you can." How can anyone read it differently?
Furthermore, what is unwise about it? It may be conservative, but not investing in a company is not unwise.
It may be wise and conservative only if the investor does not know who and what Apple is, and considers it a shady, fly-by-night company. But a Wall St. analyst ought to know better, and he is specifically paid to know better. But in this case he behaved like a scared cat, as if Apple directors are about to grab the cash and run to Argentina. There is no reason for alarm, aside from being alarmed of the "conservatism" (if we call it this way) of certain analysts.
But Apple's secrecy about it's roadmap does give me pause. Nobody has a clue what it up Steve's black turtleneck sleeves.
Ok, imagine two armies about to meet in a decisive battle. One is led by a general who can't stop talking, and every grunt in his army knows all the general's plans a week in advance. Another army is led by a tight-lipped general, who keeps all the strategy in his head, and in heads of his closest assistants who aren't talking either. All other things being equal, who is more likely to have an advantage?
Quite bluntly, what's the best but least expensive option that you know of?
It depends on how much you value your time, inventing something from scratch, building it out of disjointed components, or supporting it when things start failing.
Most importantly, think what happens to your friend's enterprise when you disappear from the scene. Will there be manuals and instructions to rebuild and restore everything? Who will do that, and how fast? Will the replacement hardware be available, and how soon? Things like that tend to stop many a DIY project, once you realize what the hidden costs and risks are.
Given that restaurants and clubs already have some serious price tags, I do not think you should dismiss COTS solutions just because of their absolute price. It may be less than 1% of your friend's other costs. There is such thing as "cost of doing business" and a POS is part of it. I'd tell the owner to pay the man and live happily ever after - unless you want to carry the burden of tech support whenever a PC goes down. Most normal owners just call the manufacturer (IBM etc.) and have the till swapped out within a few hours.
Re:That was actually surprisingly good article
on
The Cost of the iPod
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· Score: 1
The problem is that his recommendation was hased not on knowledge but on malice, a childish ire when he was denied what he wanted.
A more mature and honest advise would be "I don't know" if he is really so dumb that he can't figure it out. People may lose money if they sell foolishly only because this guy was angry - and such analysts have power to influence investors. His action is unwise and reckless, especially when many companies keep the numbers secret. How much MS makes on each copy of Windows? Should this analyst advise to dump the MS stock if Ballmer also tells him to get stuffed?
Back in 1982, I remember being told that PCs were cute and all, but all serious work would always be done on IBM's Big Iron. Didn't turn out that way, did it?
What you were told is still true. Do you think that a major bank, or an insurance company, runs its databases off of a Dell PC? Unlikely.
Re:That was actually surprisingly good article
on
The Cost of the iPod
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
But it is his place to have all the info possible at his disposal in order to advise his clients though, right?
Yes, he is welcome to try to get all the info, so that he can advise better. However it's nobody's responsibility to give him any information, except what SEC mandates. Apple does that, and it does not owe any analyst anything else.
Can't get the info to analyze? Tough. Nobody held a gun to his head to become an analyst. He is free to get another job if this particular kitchen is too hot for him. Maybe he even will be doing some useful work then.
Sure, the latter can be useful for e.g mobile devices with more limited parsers, but which kind of device do you believe is most common to read web pages on?
A desktop/laptop computer will stay the most common device for a while; however there are tens of millions of cell phones and PDAs that are quite capable of Web access, I have two of them myself. And I carry my 802.11-enabled PDA with me far more often than a laptop.
You must be joking - women drive not less than men, but likely more, especially if they have a family. Men drive to work, and to eat. Women drive to work, and to all local stores, and to anywhere else it may be necessary, with kids or without. I know at least one such person.
A better analogy would be to say that since some people use 30 year-old cars then a shuttle is fine.
My car of a few years ago was 15.
I got rid of my old car when it reached 20 years of age - simply because it was becoming unsafe. Also, I was getting 12 mpg, now I enjoy 52. So once a machine reaches a certain point in its life, it needs to be replaced, for many good reasons. It is proper to point out that Shuttles are worn out, expensive to fly, unsafe even by spaceflight standards, and serve no scientific purpose, except for delivering a Shuttle-shaped ISS module to the ISS (the purpose of which is itself debatable.) Many people keep mentioning that STS flights are from KSC to KSC, and in effect all these billions of dollars are spent on heat, salaries of bureaucrats, and on nothing else. This money could have been used to flood the Solar System with probes to all planets and all coming comets, with cash left over to bring samples of Martian soil back and finally find out whether there is or there isn't life over there. That won't happen while the STS program keeps sucking all the money in, with negative scientific and engineering returns.
Network matters if the developer is "smart" enough to build a FS which instead of open(char*,int) requires winfs_open(...) with 37 different parameters, some required and some optional, in some combinations. That would not be anything unusual in Win32 API. Then to access such a filesystem your network layer needs to be expanded, and the drivers on the clients have to be rewritten, and the file access apps (like Explorer) need to be upgraded, and so on.
Basically, businesses have no issues with the NTFS as it is now, maybe aside from extreme cases, and for all practical purposes the world would be much better if MS decided to fire all their developers, leaving only bug fixing teams in place. Windows already works well enough, and there is no reason (except the upgrade revenue) to do anything at all. As far as I can see, Vista will be a downgrade already, since it requires more computing resources and allows you to do less.
The people of the USSR managed to get their leaders to partially convert the Union to capitalism, which led to its fall, but their lives just got worse.
A good example of carelessly asking for something and then getting it...
Some ex-USSR republics are OK, though, but probably 80% are worse.
I don't see why providing the GMail service and using usage information should be mutually exclusive.
Because I like it this way, so for me it is mutually exclusive.
expecting them to provide the services they do for free is going too far.
I don't expect anything; it's Google who provides the service, and if Google decides to stop doing so (by servicing only logged in users) then it's their right.
And with regard, to the Government getting access to that data... wouldn't they get it anyway?
Well, we are all going to die anyway, so why don't I see people jumping off of tall buildings all the time? A girl is going to lose her virginity sooner or later anyway, so why not now? Your question is a fallacy.
If not from Google, then from your ISP, your bank, your credit card, your employer or the stores you frequent?
I fail to understand how my bank would know what searches I run on Google or some other search engine? Besides, these risks need to be understood and mitigated one at a time. If your house has three entrances you lock them all, as it is proper for each door and gate, instead of saying "one of these three may be unlocked accidentally, so why bother to lock the other two?"
If you want to deny the Government access to your information...
Then it won't have that information, period. Sure, it's always possible to send some HUMINT in and tail me, and put spy bugs in my home - but admit it, this is not likely to be done if the person in question is not a suspect already. Nobody in the government will sign on an authorization of such a massive fishing expedition against a boring simple citizen. So if the Government does not know that you, for example, out of curiosity searched for "Natalie Portman address" two days before her house was burglarized (again, for example) you will not become a suspect in such a crime. Otherwise it would be very easy for the police to step into the groove and work on you like they did on Richard Jewell.
Yes. Most of Shuttle's electronics had been upgraded, probably more than once.
Are they so old that the parts are wearing out and we can't replace them as well as we built them to begin with?
Yes. It was reported many times that they found cracks in these cryogenic tubes, in those control wires, in that RSS panel, and so on. That is on top of regularly scheduled replacement of parts. Some of these parts can not be made exactly as they were made 30 years ago. Metals and alloys changed, CNC mills changed, cooling oil for those mills changed, milling bits' material changed - and all that can affect everything. Worse with electronic parts - you can't buy today many components that were mainstream 5 years ago - they are not made any more, fabs ripped apart and upgraded to new technology. So you need that old i80186 silicon rev B2 ? Tough luck.
Are we just publicizing problems more now than we used to?
Probably so. NASA top echelons graduated from engineering to politics, and when an engineer would be searching for a technical solution these folks are searching for a PR solution, as if one can talk a machine into not failing.
Fatality per mile, the shuttle is no doubt kicking cars' ass.
Possibly. But "fatality per ride" is kinda high (2%). If you drive your car to work and back, and on weekends to friends and back, then you would be dead, on average, within 1-2 months.
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If someone works as a thief, he knows other thieves, and he surely knows people who buy stolen stuff. The laptop could go through several hands before he landed with an ID thief, and there is a reason for that - each layer of resellers would try to maximize the value of the item. Even a stupidest thief would be smart enough to sell the laptop with valuable data for $500 instead of selling it as a generic notebook for $50.
Such a long chain of custody can explain, actually, why the laptop was out of sight for so long. Each owner would need several days to make a few phone calls or meetings before a deal is made and money changes hands. The last owner would need an hour at most, and once the data is copied and verified there is no reason to hold onto the hardware.
Ok, imagine that I tell you that the connector was installed three times, and there are seven small scratches on the sides of the HDD. What will you conclude from that? You do not know how many there were before the system was stolen.
"Humans have unique neural capacities, but much of their brain structure is similar to that of other mammals" (here). This article points out that humans have better design of the brain, but nothing that is revolutionary, distinctly different from other mammals. If these differences in the structure of the brain would be the only difference between an ape and a human, one would expect an ape to be as intelligent as a Neanderthal man, but that's not the case; a dog may be more intelligent than an ape (and often they are!) It may be that the quantity changes into quality here, but there is no proof yet.
Energiya was a modular design, and could be configured to lift up to 400,000 lbs from the ground. It was flown twice in 160,000 lbs configuration (one of those flights launched Buran, which weighted about 80,000 lbs.) Given Energiya's thrust, Buran could lift up to 60,000 lbs in its payload bay, but that never happened because nobody was interested - we are not building starships yet.
Energiya as such is not manufactured now, but it's engines - RD-180 - are used on Atlas V. The "heavy" option can lift up to 50,000 lbs to the LEO, or 26,000 lbs to the geostationary orbit.
US space program lost 14 people in missions, in two Shuttle accidents, one on launch and another on descent.
Both programs had various accidents on the ground, not in missions.
My theory is based on fact that heavily paralyzed people remain themselves even if they lose all functions of most of the body. Another obvious fact is that brain-damaged people cease to remain themselves even if the rest of their bodies is intact. From those facts I can conclude that the brain is necessary and sufficient for a person to exist, think, be self-aware, and exhibit all other aspects of a human being. From that I can conclude that if the soul exists (depends on your definition of the soul) it must be there, or at least it must effect its presence there.
I work with hardware and software, and it's not easy to convince me that a blank microcontroller from Atmel is a fully functioning end-user device.
In case of biological entities, pretty much all animals on Earth have the same type of cells, and their biology is not that different from humans. Human brains are larger, but brains of dolphins and elephants are larger still. Proves nothing. Even a human child, with a brain smaller than one of a grown dog, is smarter than a dog. Where is the difference? Maybe in a way the brain operates? But if so, then it's a software.
And if you wanted to suggest that humans' programs are hardcoded in the brain as part of its development, that might be so, but it's no different than me burning my software into microcontrollers. The microcontrollers can't change their software, and they have no way of knowing anything about where their software came from. For all they know (if only they could think) they were manufactured with my firmware in them, and they are free to speculate that they were always like that, complex and doing fancy things with their inputs and outputs. And they can point at their lesser cousins, with simpler programs, and wonder how come these lesser cousins are different from them? Maybe there was some aberration in the manufacturing tapes that caused the smarter microcontrollers to appear?
Based on this Webster's definition, the soul could be outlined as the software that runs on your biological hardware (and firmware, if you count the spinal cord.) Software is an idea, it has no weight, and it has no size, but it definitely exists, even though you can hardly point at it on the PC's motherboard and say "Here!"
But if you still insist, it is obvious that the soul, if present to begin with, can be only in the head, and only in the brain then. We do not have prosthetic brains yet, so there is nothing to discuss yet. When we get some decent processing capacity, then ask me again :-)
There is another reason - if you get a week and decide to recheck everything, chances are good that you will find a lot of things out of calibration, if not outright defective. And even if you replace them all, by the time you are ready to check again something else will be broken, and so you do some more replacements... ad infinitum. That is because when a machine has 1,000,000 components, each component has to be exceptionally, impossibly reliable.
This particular machine flew to the orbit and back many times already, and many parts may be approaching their failure points. But you can't know that - modern science can't see a future crack in a turbine's blade, and once the crack develops you have about 0.001 seconds before a major destructive event.
That's why many airplane parts are tested on the ground until they start failing, and then a service life is set for them that is way lower than what was seen during the tests. And these parts are replaced after certain number of hours not because they are faulty, but because they might be faulty, and we can't check if they still have some life left in them or not.
But in case of STS there is only very limited knowledge about many parts, as technicians keep discovering totally unexpected wear-related failures all over the orbiter, whenever they get to service it. So we don't really know how long this cryogenic pump or that high pressure pipe or that O-ring can last, since Shuttles are the test article in itself. That's why two missions were lost - because there was no good understanding, beyond a few guesses, of what the materials and the parts are capable of. There -still- is no understanding of many parts, aside from the tiles and RCC panels who were tested exhaustively and hopefully well enough by now.
So, for example, when they say "this thermostat in that thruster does not matter..." they likely only evaluate some expected fault scenario, assuming things that they don't know for sure. For example, if a sensor is misreading the fuel temperature it's one issue. But if it does that because there is an intermittent short, and it may ignite the fuel, that's a very different issue.
This way if they don't check everything they at least can launch, and we already know that the chance of failure should not be higher than 2% - likely less, since the previous problems had been fixed. But if they check for everything they will never fly, and if they ever do then something else will break just after they finished checking. It's just statistics, and game of chance.
By typing http://www.isuppli.com into his Web Browser, as many posters indicated already. Some say that iSuppli does not know about specific deals on specific parts, and that's true, but you can't expect Apple to open the kimono on such sensitive, private deals. In many cases parties are not even allowed to talk about specific prices that they agreed upon (typical for MS OEM deals, as an example.) Anyway, he would be within a few percent off at most, since even a most lucrative deal can't go that far below a volume price, and that is usually well known. It's very cold, hard data. For example, see here.
He's simply saying that there isn't enough real data from apple to judge the prospects of the company.
I don't read it as "not enough data", I read it as "sell all you have, as fast as you can." How can anyone read it differently?
Furthermore, what is unwise about it? It may be conservative, but not investing in a company is not unwise.
It may be wise and conservative only if the investor does not know who and what Apple is, and considers it a shady, fly-by-night company. But a Wall St. analyst ought to know better, and he is specifically paid to know better. But in this case he behaved like a scared cat, as if Apple directors are about to grab the cash and run to Argentina. There is no reason for alarm, aside from being alarmed of the "conservatism" (if we call it this way) of certain analysts.
But Apple's secrecy about it's roadmap does give me pause. Nobody has a clue what it up Steve's black turtleneck sleeves.
Ok, imagine two armies about to meet in a decisive battle. One is led by a general who can't stop talking, and every grunt in his army knows all the general's plans a week in advance. Another army is led by a tight-lipped general, who keeps all the strategy in his head, and in heads of his closest assistants who aren't talking either. All other things being equal, who is more likely to have an advantage?
It depends on how much you value your time, inventing something from scratch, building it out of disjointed components, or supporting it when things start failing.
Most importantly, think what happens to your friend's enterprise when you disappear from the scene. Will there be manuals and instructions to rebuild and restore everything? Who will do that, and how fast? Will the replacement hardware be available, and how soon? Things like that tend to stop many a DIY project, once you realize what the hidden costs and risks are.
Given that restaurants and clubs already have some serious price tags, I do not think you should dismiss COTS solutions just because of their absolute price. It may be less than 1% of your friend's other costs. There is such thing as "cost of doing business" and a POS is part of it. I'd tell the owner to pay the man and live happily ever after - unless you want to carry the burden of tech support whenever a PC goes down. Most normal owners just call the manufacturer (IBM etc.) and have the till swapped out within a few hours.
A more mature and honest advise would be "I don't know" if he is really so dumb that he can't figure it out. People may lose money if they sell foolishly only because this guy was angry - and such analysts have power to influence investors. His action is unwise and reckless, especially when many companies keep the numbers secret. How much MS makes on each copy of Windows? Should this analyst advise to dump the MS stock if Ballmer also tells him to get stuffed?
What you were told is still true. Do you think that a major bank, or an insurance company, runs its databases off of a Dell PC? Unlikely.
Yes, he is welcome to try to get all the info, so that he can advise better. However it's nobody's responsibility to give him any information, except what SEC mandates. Apple does that, and it does not owe any analyst anything else.
Can't get the info to analyze? Tough. Nobody held a gun to his head to become an analyst. He is free to get another job if this particular kitchen is too hot for him. Maybe he even will be doing some useful work then.
A desktop/laptop computer will stay the most common device for a while; however there are tens of millions of cell phones and PDAs that are quite capable of Web access, I have two of them myself. And I carry my 802.11-enabled PDA with me far more often than a laptop.
You must be joking - women drive not less than men, but likely more, especially if they have a family. Men drive to work, and to eat. Women drive to work, and to all local stores, and to anywhere else it may be necessary, with kids or without. I know at least one such person.
It's as simple as stopping talking. Takes no time at all :-)
I got rid of my old car when it reached 20 years of age - simply because it was becoming unsafe. Also, I was getting 12 mpg, now I enjoy 52. So once a machine reaches a certain point in its life, it needs to be replaced, for many good reasons. It is proper to point out that Shuttles are worn out, expensive to fly, unsafe even by spaceflight standards, and serve no scientific purpose, except for delivering a Shuttle-shaped ISS module to the ISS (the purpose of which is itself debatable.) Many people keep mentioning that STS flights are from KSC to KSC, and in effect all these billions of dollars are spent on heat, salaries of bureaucrats, and on nothing else. This money could have been used to flood the Solar System with probes to all planets and all coming comets, with cash left over to bring samples of Martian soil back and finally find out whether there is or there isn't life over there. That won't happen while the STS program keeps sucking all the money in, with negative scientific and engineering returns.
Basically, businesses have no issues with the NTFS as it is now, maybe aside from extreme cases, and for all practical purposes the world would be much better if MS decided to fire all their developers, leaving only bug fixing teams in place. Windows already works well enough, and there is no reason (except the upgrade revenue) to do anything at all. As far as I can see, Vista will be a downgrade already, since it requires more computing resources and allows you to do less.
A good example of carelessly asking for something and then getting it...
Some ex-USSR republics are OK, though, but probably 80% are worse.
Because I like it this way, so for me it is mutually exclusive.
expecting them to provide the services they do for free is going too far.
I don't expect anything; it's Google who provides the service, and if Google decides to stop doing so (by servicing only logged in users) then it's their right.
And with regard, to the Government getting access to that data... wouldn't they get it anyway?
Well, we are all going to die anyway, so why don't I see people jumping off of tall buildings all the time? A girl is going to lose her virginity sooner or later anyway, so why not now? Your question is a fallacy.
If not from Google, then from your ISP, your bank, your credit card, your employer or the stores you frequent?
I fail to understand how my bank would know what searches I run on Google or some other search engine? Besides, these risks need to be understood and mitigated one at a time. If your house has three entrances you lock them all, as it is proper for each door and gate, instead of saying "one of these three may be unlocked accidentally, so why bother to lock the other two?"
If you want to deny the Government access to your information...
Then it won't have that information, period. Sure, it's always possible to send some HUMINT in and tail me, and put spy bugs in my home - but admit it, this is not likely to be done if the person in question is not a suspect already. Nobody in the government will sign on an authorization of such a massive fishing expedition against a boring simple citizen. So if the Government does not know that you, for example, out of curiosity searched for "Natalie Portman address" two days before her house was burglarized (again, for example) you will not become a suspect in such a crime. Otherwise it would be very easy for the police to step into the groove and work on you like they did on Richard Jewell.
Yes. Most of Shuttle's electronics had been upgraded, probably more than once.
Are they so old that the parts are wearing out and we can't replace them as well as we built them to begin with?
Yes. It was reported many times that they found cracks in these cryogenic tubes, in those control wires, in that RSS panel, and so on. That is on top of regularly scheduled replacement of parts. Some of these parts can not be made exactly as they were made 30 years ago. Metals and alloys changed, CNC mills changed, cooling oil for those mills changed, milling bits' material changed - and all that can affect everything. Worse with electronic parts - you can't buy today many components that were mainstream 5 years ago - they are not made any more, fabs ripped apart and upgraded to new technology. So you need that old i80186 silicon rev B2 ? Tough luck.
Are we just publicizing problems more now than we used to?
Probably so. NASA top echelons graduated from engineering to politics, and when an engineer would be searching for a technical solution these folks are searching for a PR solution, as if one can talk a machine into not failing.
Possibly. But "fatality per ride" is kinda high (2%). If you drive your car to work and back, and on weekends to friends and back, then you would be dead, on average, within 1-2 months.