Why are humans the only ones to evolve beyond a rudimentary purpose? Scientists can and should believe in creationism until they can prove otherwise. By default most people won't believe in something greater than themselves because we as a species think that we are the pinnacle of evolution. Therefore, if we are the pinnacle then believing in something greater than ourselves would be heresy unto our species, which constitutes our "being" as a religion. So we dig and dig to find some nuance of understanding and then formulate a "theory" about how we arrived at being this pinnacle being. I would argue that until we can determine our own mortality that we are not the pinnacle being and that every theory we formulate is merely based on the observation that we can understand and reproduce...yet we have never been able to reproduce a horse from a mouse. How many apes have become humans? It takes about 18 years for an embryo to develop into a full-grown person...shouldn't we be able to accomplish the same thing through evolution if indeed evolution is more than a "theory?"
Until someone can take a mouse and grow it into a horse without using any external energy source then I say the default is Creationism and let the scientists dig.
The economy has grown too fast and we have sacrificed our kids for the almight buck. People have grown accustomed to owning 3 or 4 new vehicles, a nice big house and of course have over-extended themselves...so the wife goes to work too in order to provide those things. Meanwhile the kids are at home with nothing to do but Facebook and Tweet, etc. Gotta make more $$$ to support the habit so everyone that can work...making product for people who don't know they don't need it. Of course to pick up the slack, the government needs to create jobs for all those people who need a job and or a "free" service. Now here we are with kids who are essentially neglected by the parents due to keeping up with the Joneses, parents who think they need to keep up with the Joneses, a government who taxes the Joneses, but can't seem to understand how the Joneses are affording all that stuff, banks and other institutions which loan the Joneses money even though they know the Joneses are already bankrupt... And people wonder whether there is a dotcom bubble. You can't spend $110 dollars when you only make $100...and really only need $80. Anyone that thinks Facebook is worth $50 billion is smoking some serious dope; it is gravity and it pulls people towards it because the other people particles were pulled towards it...charging $$$ is the first step towards anti-gravity and casting off those people particles...no way could Facebook every start charging for their service and be successful.
Separation of church and state was stated to prevent congress from enacting law which would prevent or otherwise curtail the freedom of people practicing religion; it was not a statement which would prevent religion from being practiced in such things as school, or any other government-backed organization.
Most people think that separation of church and state is a hard piece of legislation, which it is not. To think that decisions made within state are made without religious bias is naive and those who seek firm separation really don't understand the implications of that. Imagine that any place you go, which was subsidized by governement funds, would adhere to this clear separation, and anything it deems as religion...even the absense of religion as being a religion. Well, then everything would collapse - we would have a state which criminalized such behavior since we all rely on the state (roads, voting, police, fire-fighers, libraries, etc). Usually this separation is just a mechanism for people to identify differences and try and make other people compromise their freedom.
I laugh because given the probability that creating life is so small, and even smaller is the ability to create life which can design microprocessors, create musical masterpieces which can be reproduced, lament another's passing and be joyful when your team wins. I love when scientists beat the drum of evolution because it gives them purpose. As scientists they have a natural tendency, indeed the need to discover and can't help themselves when their discoveries are so trivial that they can't fully explain life. Evolution is the only thing that most scientists can grasp and not even presenting another theory on life is ridiculous. If evolution was indeed the mechanism by which we came to be then wouldn't you expect that over the millions of years other species could in fact create music, write down some plays or something...where are the species which are "close" to human but not quite....Chimps, Whales, Ants...c'mon.
No, it seems that we are so far above the other creatures that inhabit this planet that we must have "evolved" this way. It's like saying that given the same ingredients and lots of time only one pie out of 1 trillion attempts is good enough to eat...everything else is no edible. Really, it sounds as though we cannot imagine something greater than ourselves, something that is so abstract from our limited thoughts that we will not even admit that it's possible that evolution is not how we arrived at this place. Sure we can make genetic soup, but all we know for sure is that if we create something that is more advanced than us we will destroy it because of natural selection...which would seem to conclude that evolution is it's own worst enemy.
Until we can persist ourselves indefinitely regardless of environment or action then we are flawed. This all boils down to answering the fundamental question of whether or not we fully understand ourselves and acknowledge that we don't know everything. If you don't know everything then you cannot comprehend everything and therefore you will never be able to fully explain. The experiments we do on this planet and in space provide us with a trivial understanding of our world, let alone the universe, let alone the formation of the universe. Gravity could be simply explained by saying that two objects are being pushed together rather than their mass attracting them towards one another...boom that represents gravity in a nutshell; it could have nothing to do with the mass of the objects, but rather that they merely exist. Once we "discover" that the mass doesn't dictate the overall graviational force and find out that our little solar system is completely different than other solar systems in how if functions...well then I suspect that there will be many scientists scratching their heads and finding themselves back at square one. Oh well, ice cream is still good and as long as we have sunrises and sunsets and gravity then we should be ok.
For example: say that I had a dollar bill and 4 quarters, would those be equal? The answer is both yes and no... The 4 quarters and dollar bill have the same economic purchasing power, but the properties of each are different, including chemical makeup, density, look, etc. So they are in fact different, but the same. You could also argue that a glass of water is less than a pound of gold, but without the context...like being in the middle of a desert...you cannot rationalize the equality or inequality of the them.
School doesn't tell the stories of the problems very well; schools now lack the excitement and curiosity provoking that needs to occur to bring kids attention back to learning and separate themselves from their video games, cell phones, and Facebook, etc.
If you own a device then the device owner, not the creator, has every legal right to do what they want with the device. If the device has a built-in tamper mechanism and turns it into a brick then that is part of the devices functionality; however, it would be like saying that if you don't purchase a Toyota factory replacement part then the car's computer will fry itself. I will bet that hackers will find an easy way around this, but if they don't and someone downloads an application which attempts to modify the boot loader, or any other piece, which causes the eFuse to trip, then Motorola and Verizon might be left holding the bag...of cash and dolling it out to device owners.
Assembling a top-notch team is more than just getting some bright bulbs, even the brightest bulbs cannot illuminate a large enough room. Right now these bulbs are being put in a tiny little box, which has such intensity on the inside that they're more likely to burn the box than illuminate it. My guess is they will get 12 awesome computer scientists which will build something very cool under the guise of something noble; however, they could also build something that China might be interested in as well...something like a reverse anonymizing system. Oh well, someone has to do it...
Information cost $$$, it's a vice
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 1
Information costs people $$$ whether you obtain the data yourself and convert it to information, or if you simply obtain the information; both take time to obtain, interpret, and ultimately make a decision on. It seems that people think that free information is like a free lawnmower on craigslist. People who are too plugged into the information will suffer massive withdrawal when their "information drug" becomes too expensive for them to obtain. We could see that people who are unable to access Facebook, Twitter, Digg, iTunes, etc. will in fact have a life crisis. Information moderation is key since it does cost you time, but information overload, particularly information which may become too expensive will be the next vice for this generation. I can see it now, bringing back Crocket and Tubbs for Miam"I" vice.
Do premier athletes have higher IQ's than regular athletes? Does a great composer have a higher IQ than a regular composer? Does a kid who fits the cylindrical block into the round hole have a higher IQ than the kid who uses his dad's saw to make the round hole into a square in order to fit the cube through it? The point is that when you have a bunch of geniouses together you need to have an incredibly good manager to keep the egos' in line. Just look at Xerox; they arguably had one of the best collections of top-knotch CS talent in the 70's, but it was their manager who kept everything humming along. Also it's interesting to note that Xerox didn't capitalize on much if anything that came out of their little experiment; though their work laid the foundation for much of modern computing. The point is that everyone has ideas, and there are always people smart enough to realize those ideas...just maybe not the person with the idea. I would argue that being humble, persistent, exploring, and smiling denote intelligence more than a known subset of the moment.
I would love for someone to tell me the security code to someone's house, or several houses. I am all for telling company x that they have a flawed product and then saying that I will go public with it in a reasonable amount of time in order to let company x fix the flaw. However, I am reading about all the glory associated with finding a flaw and that waiting to publish might let some other "security" researcher publish the flaw before me; why is cred the overriding motivation? I just don't get why you would tell a criminal what your friends house code is before he can fix the problem...that is what is going on here.
A small company that has a few clients is more likely to provide very good support, as opposed to a large company with many clients. While large companies support large companies well, due to their capacity to effect change at scale, this is not the case of large companies supporting smaller companies. Typically, while say an account manager at a small company might do several things to streamline the benefits that their client(s) see, this may not be the case with larger companies which rely on various processes to get things through the pipe and ultimately down the line to their clients. Everything at scale will fail. One only has to look at government to see that being everything to everyone will ultimately not work. If you require 10 people to sign-off on a PO as opposed to 1 person then it's clear which PO gets completed first. Friction is the enemy of performance and the friend of low tolerance.
So a couple of photographers wanted to push the boundaries of the law and got caught...who cares! Clearly they were acting in a commercial capacity and had no intent on actually using the footage for educational purposes, except to waste tax-payer's money in pointless litigation and police resources. If these "journalists" had actually wanted to educate people about the MDT then they could have put together something that details how much time it saves people to ride the MDT, or how energy-efficient it is, or how you meet the nicest people riding on the MDT... However, this was not the case and all they wanted to do was see how far they could push the law. They were not some unknowing tourists, they weren't some kids out for a field-trip, they weren't even interested in real journalism...they just wanted to create some controversy, launch some litigation and get themselves a little press. Congrats on letting people know that they can count on you to keep expensive lawyers employed and raise the taxes of Miami-Dade citizens just a little bit more.
I think that you are a little incorrect in your assertion that the leaked data has caused "no damage to national security." For example if you ignore locking up your house when you know that there are people out there willing and able to harm you and your family then that obviously damages the security of your house. Furthermore, since people like you have little sense of regarding patriotism for the USA I wonder how long it will be before you and others like you relegate this great country to a place where people cannot feel secure in their own homes. Patriotism is not allowing those who want to harm you to even get a foothold.
Now that would be a good match. Fear not Mark Z. you come from a country of the free. Team America is here to protect and serve, keep your nerve. Whether sentenced for pen and paper or keys and bits facebook will get more hits.
Your theory as to the rationale behind publication of the exploit is flawed since you can be held as an accomplice to the criminal behavior that results from your release. For example if you know that someone is going to be a a specific place at a particular time and you knowingly release that information to people who are seeking to do harm to that person then you are an accomplice to their "means" and "opportunity", and your "motive" falls under the malicious intent category. Clearly the logic of this situation baffles many people why it would be questionable to release such information, which is obviously for the good of the public...until the public is harmed by it...they Mr. Travis Ormandy is no better than the criminals themselves.
If you are testing a door, which is supposed to be secure and determine that there is a flaw which can allow an intruder into the home through some non-obvious bypass mechanism then you have a responsibility to not divulge that information to someone other than your manager/company, and the company that manufactures the door.
Putting a 3rd party at risk or the home owner is negligent. It's the same as not only telling criminals how to bypass the door's obvious security, but also creating a special tool to exploit the non-obvious security flaw. If you were a home owner that owned this door then you have an expectation that the door will operate as expected...not prevent intrusion in every possible case! The fact that someone took it upon themselves to expose you and your family to crime by exposing a non-obvious security flaw is....well criminal.
Travis Ormandy and Google and Microsoft will probably all get sued if there are real damages that occur. I would even bet that Travis could face criminal charges. Since he didn't allow enough time for the door manufacturer to contact the home owners in order to replace or correct the flaw...
I would argue that there is no point in releasing a security flaw, let alone a proof of concept exploit except for Travis Ormandy's own glory...and "look what I found" It's truly sad.
Logic would dictate that within every population there is a non-civilian presence; however, a population of combatants (carrying firearms) and non-combatants (not carrying firearms) != civilians.
You are who you associate with. If people don't want to get shot then don't run around with people who carry firearms. It's very simple...
Why must our military wait to be shot at before they return fire? As for reporters in a combat zone...tough. Holding a camera over your shoulder so you can get a prize for your journalism is great, but people need to stop whining when reporters IN A COMBAT ZONE die. It's their choice to be there!
Why do parents take their kids out of the house during combat? Who knows. What I find interesting too is that our troops have the capability to level entire cities to the ground...why don't they just do that instead of having constant communication? Because, they are exercising their humanity in order to do their job.
We forget too often that so many have given their lives so that this country can be safe. War is ugly, but so is a loss of freedom. Life without liberty is no life at all.
Apparently Lost is lost on me
on
Lost Ends
·
· Score: 1
Lost is like sticking yourself in the eye with a needle in order to change your view. A few jokes:
Q: If you use GPS on Lost how do you know where you're going?
A: You don't, because you're already there.
Q: How many Lost characters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Zero, the island does it for you.
Q: What do the writers of Lost do in their spare time?
A: They define how something can be Lost and then lose it...then spend the rest of the time trying to find what was lost only to discover that what was lost now is found...wait that wasn't a joke, but the cruel reality that Lost was, is, and will be a time-suck in re-run form; though is that even possible?
Oh, please stop this mental torture...I'm going back to "Who wants to be a millionare?" In fact I would create a show called "Would you like a million bucks?" and then just ask a person if they wanted say $100 and go up to $1 million. At the end the person would need to decided (gulp)...if they wanted $1 million dollars...oh the suspense!!!!!
Gary is fine as long as he doesn't leave his own country. Once he sets foot outside of their jurisdiction he falls under a different jurisdiction. My guess: he will not leave his own country.
There's no re-writing of history when you can't cover all of history. Choosing what is in the history books is not the same as saying that something didn't occur. The internet allows people to discover what they want; to answer their own questions. The fact that Texas wants to fill 500 pages with "other" history is not a problem. Maybe getting back to some Christian-based ideas wouldn't be too bad...after all, isn't that what this nation was founded on.
It seems like we forget that aspect of our history as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Why are humans the only ones to evolve beyond a rudimentary purpose? Scientists can and should believe in creationism until they can prove otherwise. By default most people won't believe in something greater than themselves because we as a species think that we are the pinnacle of evolution. Therefore, if we are the pinnacle then believing in something greater than ourselves would be heresy unto our species, which constitutes our "being" as a religion. So we dig and dig to find some nuance of understanding and then formulate a "theory" about how we arrived at being this pinnacle being. I would argue that until we can determine our own mortality that we are not the pinnacle being and that every theory we formulate is merely based on the observation that we can understand and reproduce...yet we have never been able to reproduce a horse from a mouse. How many apes have become humans? It takes about 18 years for an embryo to develop into a full-grown person...shouldn't we be able to accomplish the same thing through evolution if indeed evolution is more than a "theory?" Until someone can take a mouse and grow it into a horse without using any external energy source then I say the default is Creationism and let the scientists dig.
The economy has grown too fast and we have sacrificed our kids for the almight buck. People have grown accustomed to owning 3 or 4 new vehicles, a nice big house and of course have over-extended themselves...so the wife goes to work too in order to provide those things. Meanwhile the kids are at home with nothing to do but Facebook and Tweet, etc. Gotta make more $$$ to support the habit so everyone that can work...making product for people who don't know they don't need it. Of course to pick up the slack, the government needs to create jobs for all those people who need a job and or a "free" service. Now here we are with kids who are essentially neglected by the parents due to keeping up with the Joneses, parents who think they need to keep up with the Joneses, a government who taxes the Joneses, but can't seem to understand how the Joneses are affording all that stuff, banks and other institutions which loan the Joneses money even though they know the Joneses are already bankrupt... And people wonder whether there is a dotcom bubble. You can't spend $110 dollars when you only make $100...and really only need $80. Anyone that thinks Facebook is worth $50 billion is smoking some serious dope; it is gravity and it pulls people towards it because the other people particles were pulled towards it...charging $$$ is the first step towards anti-gravity and casting off those people particles...no way could Facebook every start charging for their service and be successful.
Separation of church and state was stated to prevent congress from enacting law which would prevent or otherwise curtail the freedom of people practicing religion; it was not a statement which would prevent religion from being practiced in such things as school, or any other government-backed organization. Most people think that separation of church and state is a hard piece of legislation, which it is not. To think that decisions made within state are made without religious bias is naive and those who seek firm separation really don't understand the implications of that. Imagine that any place you go, which was subsidized by governement funds, would adhere to this clear separation, and anything it deems as religion...even the absense of religion as being a religion. Well, then everything would collapse - we would have a state which criminalized such behavior since we all rely on the state (roads, voting, police, fire-fighers, libraries, etc). Usually this separation is just a mechanism for people to identify differences and try and make other people compromise their freedom.
Thank you for giving us a shoulder to stand on.
I laugh because given the probability that creating life is so small, and even smaller is the ability to create life which can design microprocessors, create musical masterpieces which can be reproduced, lament another's passing and be joyful when your team wins. I love when scientists beat the drum of evolution because it gives them purpose. As scientists they have a natural tendency, indeed the need to discover and can't help themselves when their discoveries are so trivial that they can't fully explain life. Evolution is the only thing that most scientists can grasp and not even presenting another theory on life is ridiculous. If evolution was indeed the mechanism by which we came to be then wouldn't you expect that over the millions of years other species could in fact create music, write down some plays or something...where are the species which are "close" to human but not quite....Chimps, Whales, Ants...c'mon. No, it seems that we are so far above the other creatures that inhabit this planet that we must have "evolved" this way. It's like saying that given the same ingredients and lots of time only one pie out of 1 trillion attempts is good enough to eat...everything else is no edible. Really, it sounds as though we cannot imagine something greater than ourselves, something that is so abstract from our limited thoughts that we will not even admit that it's possible that evolution is not how we arrived at this place. Sure we can make genetic soup, but all we know for sure is that if we create something that is more advanced than us we will destroy it because of natural selection...which would seem to conclude that evolution is it's own worst enemy.
Until we can persist ourselves indefinitely regardless of environment or action then we are flawed. This all boils down to answering the fundamental question of whether or not we fully understand ourselves and acknowledge that we don't know everything. If you don't know everything then you cannot comprehend everything and therefore you will never be able to fully explain. The experiments we do on this planet and in space provide us with a trivial understanding of our world, let alone the universe, let alone the formation of the universe. Gravity could be simply explained by saying that two objects are being pushed together rather than their mass attracting them towards one another...boom that represents gravity in a nutshell; it could have nothing to do with the mass of the objects, but rather that they merely exist. Once we "discover" that the mass doesn't dictate the overall graviational force and find out that our little solar system is completely different than other solar systems in how if functions...well then I suspect that there will be many scientists scratching their heads and finding themselves back at square one. Oh well, ice cream is still good and as long as we have sunrises and sunsets and gravity then we should be ok.
For example: say that I had a dollar bill and 4 quarters, would those be equal? The answer is both yes and no... The 4 quarters and dollar bill have the same economic purchasing power, but the properties of each are different, including chemical makeup, density, look, etc. So they are in fact different, but the same. You could also argue that a glass of water is less than a pound of gold, but without the context...like being in the middle of a desert...you cannot rationalize the equality or inequality of the them. School doesn't tell the stories of the problems very well; schools now lack the excitement and curiosity provoking that needs to occur to bring kids attention back to learning and separate themselves from their video games, cell phones, and Facebook, etc.
If you own a device then the device owner, not the creator, has every legal right to do what they want with the device. If the device has a built-in tamper mechanism and turns it into a brick then that is part of the devices functionality; however, it would be like saying that if you don't purchase a Toyota factory replacement part then the car's computer will fry itself. I will bet that hackers will find an easy way around this, but if they don't and someone downloads an application which attempts to modify the boot loader, or any other piece, which causes the eFuse to trip, then Motorola and Verizon might be left holding the bag...of cash and dolling it out to device owners.
Assembling a top-notch team is more than just getting some bright bulbs, even the brightest bulbs cannot illuminate a large enough room. Right now these bulbs are being put in a tiny little box, which has such intensity on the inside that they're more likely to burn the box than illuminate it. My guess is they will get 12 awesome computer scientists which will build something very cool under the guise of something noble; however, they could also build something that China might be interested in as well...something like a reverse anonymizing system. Oh well, someone has to do it...
Information costs people $$$ whether you obtain the data yourself and convert it to information, or if you simply obtain the information; both take time to obtain, interpret, and ultimately make a decision on. It seems that people think that free information is like a free lawnmower on craigslist. People who are too plugged into the information will suffer massive withdrawal when their "information drug" becomes too expensive for them to obtain. We could see that people who are unable to access Facebook, Twitter, Digg, iTunes, etc. will in fact have a life crisis. Information moderation is key since it does cost you time, but information overload, particularly information which may become too expensive will be the next vice for this generation. I can see it now, bringing back Crocket and Tubbs for Miam"I" vice.
Do premier athletes have higher IQ's than regular athletes? Does a great composer have a higher IQ than a regular composer? Does a kid who fits the cylindrical block into the round hole have a higher IQ than the kid who uses his dad's saw to make the round hole into a square in order to fit the cube through it? The point is that when you have a bunch of geniouses together you need to have an incredibly good manager to keep the egos' in line. Just look at Xerox; they arguably had one of the best collections of top-knotch CS talent in the 70's, but it was their manager who kept everything humming along. Also it's interesting to note that Xerox didn't capitalize on much if anything that came out of their little experiment; though their work laid the foundation for much of modern computing. The point is that everyone has ideas, and there are always people smart enough to realize those ideas...just maybe not the person with the idea. I would argue that being humble, persistent, exploring, and smiling denote intelligence more than a known subset of the moment.
I would love for someone to tell me the security code to someone's house, or several houses. I am all for telling company x that they have a flawed product and then saying that I will go public with it in a reasonable amount of time in order to let company x fix the flaw. However, I am reading about all the glory associated with finding a flaw and that waiting to publish might let some other "security" researcher publish the flaw before me; why is cred the overriding motivation? I just don't get why you would tell a criminal what your friends house code is before he can fix the problem...that is what is going on here.
A small company that has a few clients is more likely to provide very good support, as opposed to a large company with many clients. While large companies support large companies well, due to their capacity to effect change at scale, this is not the case of large companies supporting smaller companies. Typically, while say an account manager at a small company might do several things to streamline the benefits that their client(s) see, this may not be the case with larger companies which rely on various processes to get things through the pipe and ultimately down the line to their clients. Everything at scale will fail. One only has to look at government to see that being everything to everyone will ultimately not work. If you require 10 people to sign-off on a PO as opposed to 1 person then it's clear which PO gets completed first. Friction is the enemy of performance and the friend of low tolerance.
So a couple of photographers wanted to push the boundaries of the law and got caught...who cares! Clearly they were acting in a commercial capacity and had no intent on actually using the footage for educational purposes, except to waste tax-payer's money in pointless litigation and police resources. If these "journalists" had actually wanted to educate people about the MDT then they could have put together something that details how much time it saves people to ride the MDT, or how energy-efficient it is, or how you meet the nicest people riding on the MDT... However, this was not the case and all they wanted to do was see how far they could push the law. They were not some unknowing tourists, they weren't some kids out for a field-trip, they weren't even interested in real journalism...they just wanted to create some controversy, launch some litigation and get themselves a little press. Congrats on letting people know that they can count on you to keep expensive lawyers employed and raise the taxes of Miami-Dade citizens just a little bit more.
I think that you are a little incorrect in your assertion that the leaked data has caused "no damage to national security." For example if you ignore locking up your house when you know that there are people out there willing and able to harm you and your family then that obviously damages the security of your house. Furthermore, since people like you have little sense of regarding patriotism for the USA I wonder how long it will be before you and others like you relegate this great country to a place where people cannot feel secure in their own homes. Patriotism is not allowing those who want to harm you to even get a foothold.
Now that would be a good match. Fear not Mark Z. you come from a country of the free. Team America is here to protect and serve, keep your nerve. Whether sentenced for pen and paper or keys and bits facebook will get more hits.
Your theory as to the rationale behind publication of the exploit is flawed since you can be held as an accomplice to the criminal behavior that results from your release. For example if you know that someone is going to be a a specific place at a particular time and you knowingly release that information to people who are seeking to do harm to that person then you are an accomplice to their "means" and "opportunity", and your "motive" falls under the malicious intent category. Clearly the logic of this situation baffles many people why it would be questionable to release such information, which is obviously for the good of the public...until the public is harmed by it...they Mr. Travis Ormandy is no better than the criminals themselves.
If you are testing a door, which is supposed to be secure and determine that there is a flaw which can allow an intruder into the home through some non-obvious bypass mechanism then you have a responsibility to not divulge that information to someone other than your manager/company, and the company that manufactures the door. Putting a 3rd party at risk or the home owner is negligent. It's the same as not only telling criminals how to bypass the door's obvious security, but also creating a special tool to exploit the non-obvious security flaw. If you were a home owner that owned this door then you have an expectation that the door will operate as expected...not prevent intrusion in every possible case! The fact that someone took it upon themselves to expose you and your family to crime by exposing a non-obvious security flaw is....well criminal. Travis Ormandy and Google and Microsoft will probably all get sued if there are real damages that occur. I would even bet that Travis could face criminal charges. Since he didn't allow enough time for the door manufacturer to contact the home owners in order to replace or correct the flaw... I would argue that there is no point in releasing a security flaw, let alone a proof of concept exploit except for Travis Ormandy's own glory...and "look what I found" It's truly sad.
Logic would dictate that within every population there is a non-civilian presence; however, a population of combatants (carrying firearms) and non-combatants (not carrying firearms) != civilians. You are who you associate with. If people don't want to get shot then don't run around with people who carry firearms. It's very simple... Why must our military wait to be shot at before they return fire? As for reporters in a combat zone...tough. Holding a camera over your shoulder so you can get a prize for your journalism is great, but people need to stop whining when reporters IN A COMBAT ZONE die. It's their choice to be there! Why do parents take their kids out of the house during combat? Who knows. What I find interesting too is that our troops have the capability to level entire cities to the ground...why don't they just do that instead of having constant communication? Because, they are exercising their humanity in order to do their job. We forget too often that so many have given their lives so that this country can be safe. War is ugly, but so is a loss of freedom. Life without liberty is no life at all.
Lost is like sticking yourself in the eye with a needle in order to change your view. A few jokes: Q: If you use GPS on Lost how do you know where you're going? A: You don't, because you're already there. Q: How many Lost characters does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Zero, the island does it for you. Q: What do the writers of Lost do in their spare time? A: They define how something can be Lost and then lose it...then spend the rest of the time trying to find what was lost only to discover that what was lost now is found...wait that wasn't a joke, but the cruel reality that Lost was, is, and will be a time-suck in re-run form; though is that even possible? Oh, please stop this mental torture...I'm going back to "Who wants to be a millionare?" In fact I would create a show called "Would you like a million bucks?" and then just ask a person if they wanted say $100 and go up to $1 million. At the end the person would need to decided (gulp)...if they wanted $1 million dollars...oh the suspense!!!!!
Gary is fine as long as he doesn't leave his own country. Once he sets foot outside of their jurisdiction he falls under a different jurisdiction. My guess: he will not leave his own country.
There's no re-writing of history when you can't cover all of history. Choosing what is in the history books is not the same as saying that something didn't occur. The internet allows people to discover what they want; to answer their own questions. The fact that Texas wants to fill 500 pages with "other" history is not a problem. Maybe getting back to some Christian-based ideas wouldn't be too bad...after all, isn't that what this nation was founded on. It seems like we forget that aspect of our history as well.