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  1. Feed the fear on Anti-Missile Technology To Be Tested on Commercial Jets · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Politicians, particularly right wing, love fear and feeding the "we're under attack" myth. It makes people vote "the right way" - important in an election year. It also lubricates the process for pork barrel spending.

    As others have pointed out, this is all rather silly since missile attacks do not constitute a large threat. Still, it should be easy to pressure the decision makers to adopt this technology. Imagine if you were to have vetoed this technology and a plane got shot down. Far easier to spend Joe Citizen''s money. After all, $11bn is only $30-odd per US citizen.

  2. Leaders of the Free World on Social Sites Offer 'New' Way To Experience Presidential Debates · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    It is telling that USA - self proclaimed land of the free and leader of the free world - has not had a woman or non-white as leader and where being exposed as gay would destroy a political career.

    "Maggie Thatcher has balls" shows that having a female leader does not make you any weaker. Nor for that matter kykes, spics, chinks etc.

    Being a redneck scaredy-pants is a sign of weakness, not strength.

  3. Proof that Vista voice recognition works! on Social Sites Offer 'New' Way To Experience Presidential Debates · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    There is no way the poster is intelligent enough to type. Clearly though logging on was too challenging.

  4. Not directly connected, but possibly bridged on Boeing 787 May Be Vulnerable to Hacker Attack · · Score: 1
    There is nothing really new in this, multiple networks are used in almost all vehicles these days. For example most new cars will have an engine control network and a seperate network for body electronics. This is done for safety and performance: you don't want the window controller DOS'ing the braking system or engine. Also, often body electronics run at a different speed to allow cheaper wiring etc. Both networks are kept sperate, but both come to the dash controller. This allows the dash to show/manipulate both engine state (eg. RPM, fuel consumption) and body state (eg.door open warning). In theory it is possible for the dash firmware to have bugs etc which mich cause body electroncs messages to cause problems on the engine bus.

    In a plane you basically have the same problem on a different scale. You can guarantee that the network at the seats is not the same network that is controlling the flight surfaces etc, but in theory software could exist that causes problems.

  5. Still available for legitimate use? on UK Moves to Outlaw 'Hacker Tools' · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Perhaps the real idea is to restrict access to these tools to licensed practitioners or those with a valid reason to posess them. You cannot buy dymanite over the counter, but people with a blasting tickets can still buy it.

  6. A 95% accurate detector in 1 line on Airport Profilers Learn to Read Facial Expressions · · Score: 1

    if(male) printf("I hope she sits next to me!\n"); else printf("I hope he does not sit next to me!\n");

  7. Don't praise it until it ships on MS To Push Silverlight Via Redesigned Microsoft.com · · Score: 1
    We've heard how great WinFS was going to be in every OS release since early 1990s... and it still has not been shipped.

    Pardon me for not drinking the Silverlight 2 KoolAid until it is in a pitcher in front of me.

  8. Also on Lenovo Announces the IdeaPad · · Score: 1

    Biz speak for "You have a Thinkpad, buy one of these too." IOW, just because you already have a laptop does not let you off the hook to buy one of these too.

  9. Of course it's entertainment on What's Wrong With the TV News · · Score: 1
    The news has to compete for eyeballs (== ad revenue etc) with movies and other entertainment. This drives the desire for more extreme images/stories, "embedded journalists" etc. It also limits what gets reported to those things which can be presented this way.

    As for educational stuff... well that has to compete too. No more documentaries about dinosaurs, now they're called "Jurassic Crime Scene" with chalk outlines and "What happened here!".

  10. GPL is like Jujitsu on Copyright Cutback Proposed As RIAA Solution · · Score: 1
    Although the GPL gets its teeth from copyright law, it essentially uses that power against copyright (ie. uses copyright law to fight itself).

    If copyright law was null and void, then the GPL would essntially become something more like BSD.

  11. Slide rule on Dvorak Looks Back At 'Another Crappy Tech Year' · · Score: 1

    Yup, I actually use one now and then. It's about 100 years old though I've only been using one since mid-70s. This is a tecnology that started in the 1600s and was used extensively into the 1980s (with some niche use still today). Technology just does not last as long as it used to.

  12. By remote DNA sampler on US Government To Release Electronic Passport · · Score: 1

    They shoot you with a sampling dart like they do with whales.

  13. Oops! on Molten Salt-Based Solar Power Plant · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I'm sure the engineers forgot about the pipes.

  14. /. won't ever be Cosmo or Men's Health on New Years Resolutions - An Engineering Approach · · Score: 1

    Those have real editors.

  15. Believing spin merchants? on Introducing Magnet-Responsive Memory Foam · · Score: 1
    No you have this the wrong way round. GWB already knew the outcome he wanted and the spin merchants were needed to create the supporting evidence.

    Unfortunately even National Geographic is far from being impartial and is heavily skewed in favor of pandering to patriotic or other themes. This is nothing new either: they were doing this during WW2 too.

  16. Edison just had better PR.... on Alexander Graham Bell - Patent Thief? · · Score: 1
    ... and maybe better hair.

    Today he'd be classified as a purebred asshole with guaranteed membership of the Gates/Ballmer club.

  17. GLONASS and GPS work well together on Russian GPS Alternative Near Completion · · Score: 1

    Basically you need one satellite to resolve each variable in the solution. Thus if you hook up GPS and GLONASS it costs you one saltellite. THus, adding 5 GLONASS satellites to the solution is the same as more or less equivalent to adding 4 GPS satellites. There are many top-end GPS receivers that do this to great effect.

  18. ... and pilots on Researchers Simulate Building Block of Rat's Brain · · Score: 1
    rats, politicains, pilots,...

    A rat brain can fly a plane. http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/11/02/brain.dish/ . Can the AI thing do this? If so, it might be cheaper to replace pilots with these AI boxes.

  19. A long way off yet on Researchers Simulate Building Block of Rat's Brain · · Score: 1
    Simulating a rat is still a long way off from simulating a person.

    Society can change quickly if required to. Consider that blacks only got the vote in USA in the last 50 years.

    Far more importantly: Can this rat brain fly a plane?

  20. Quantity vs quality on Afterlife Will Be Costly For Digital Films · · Score: 2, Interesting
    In the biggest limitation was the cost of and access to publication. Now cost is close to zero and access is close to unlimited which is why we have youtube etc.

    I'm not convinced we need to keep 90+% of youtube or Friends and similar crap for people to watch 100 years from now.

  21. Progress on Email In the 18th Century · · Score: 1

    It just shows that "progress" is not linear. Service in particular has declined. In the past service was limited by technology. Now that technology has caught up, service is limited by cost cutting etc. Or put another way, no longer are these organisations motivated to provide the best service they can, but are rather motivated to be as crap as they can and still get away with it. This is not limited to postal services either.

  22. Re:Pay for the things you value on Deluge Anonymizing Browser Now Includes Bittorrent · · Score: 1

    You make a good point. The typical pirate-types (OK, a generalization: oly 90% of bt traffic is pirating) have a notion of internet==free. If you make a service available to these people then don't expect any support.

  23. Ronald McDonald on Australia Plans to Censor the Internet · · Score: 1

    No doubt you'll be able to lobby/bribe your way onto the whitelist the way McDonalds do into classrooms etc. What kind of parent would let their kids into that world?

  24. Plus other costs on Afterlife Will Be Costly For Digital Films · · Score: 1
    Hiring a CIO of old recordings: $150k/pa. Office space etc,...

    Nobody writes a report like this just for the benefit of the hard drive manufacturers!

  25. Well mosty of it is crap anyway on Afterlife Will Be Costly For Digital Films · · Score: 3, Insightful
    ... so who cares?

    Preservation was a lot easier when the media lasted longer but by far the largest problem is the increase in the amount of data.

    What is interesting is that old analog film & tape also degrades, but does so more gracefully. They also get degraded by reading, not just by storage. Archives of old footage etc have largely been converted to digital to allow older signals to be accessed without damaging the originals.