I still don't trust the government. If this was to track malware, botnets, or attempts to attack vital parts of our infrastructure, I'd be all for it. However I also know this will be used to clandestinely monitor everyone's communication. While I fall into the "nothing to hide" category, the definition of "nothing to hide" is flexible and ever changing. The truth is, in a way, I do hide. A lot. I don't mouth off on social media sites. I don't put my political opinions into forums. I limit confrontation to in-person or via telephone communication. We already live in an age of online surveillance. This new level of government surveillance is just the next step.
After nearly 20 years of life in data centers, NOCs, etc with the constant droning of fans in my ears, I couldn't tell the difference at all. Heck my ears are already ringing just thinking about it.
Hey anyone old enough to remember "modem taxes?" Governments have been looking for ways to tax online activity for years. When I was in college, someone proposed a "stamp" fee for every email sent. Then there were micro charges on a per-packet basis. Ugh! At least a sales tax is easily added to existing point of sale portals. With the amount of free shipping available to me, the slight increase in cost will not deter me from making online purchases.
A few more thoughts: I'd prefer paying state sales taxes over federal sales taxes, since I'm pretty sure state sales taxes won't go to stupid things like foreign aid to France. While I know this won't be used to balance the Federal budget (no one can do that), I think this is a test bed for a national sales tax. Question is, what will this partially fund? It certainly won't be used to pay down out growing debt! That's just crazy non-partisan independent thinking at work!
I wonder how much Google would charge? $50 per year? I wonder if it would seriosly hurt advertising revenue? Google didn't start out selling this information, they made a fortune hooking up "looks" to "finds" so it may be a viable business model. The downside? Admitting they were "evil."
I stand corrected. But my point remains - yes you can own such weapons, but now you need paperwork and permission. In the Thompson's heyday, it was sold in friggin magazines. Not many people wanted to own one. It was the social turmoil of the 60s and 70s and the availability of cheap pisotols that drove a sharp rise in gun ownerships.
True, this is well within the limits of the law. In fact, this guy is attempting to obtain a federal firearms license. He isn't subverting the government. He's wriggling through the holes in the legal system to do what he wants. One of these 'wants' is to show that the government isn't quite as high and mighty as many believe.
For me, this is further proof that a new "assault weapons ban" will be as useless as the previous ban. Gun related hommicides didn't decrease, only those involving so-called assault weapons. This doesn't include the full-auto Uzis, AK-47s, and other military carbine rifles that the ban didn't cover because they were never available for public purchase in the first place. The last man portable fully automatic weapon sold to the public was the Thompson sub machine gun. The current debate has nothing to do with military rifes. Instead it's about semi-automatic rifles which look like miliary rifles. The ban wouldn't stop gun manufacturers from producing semi-automatic rifles. The Tech-Point Model 995 is an assault weapons ban legal semi-automatic rifle. Identical to an AR-15 in operation, but different in appearance. The TEC DC9? Same thing.
The fact that you can "print this gun" proves that a ban doesn't mean the end of the semi-automatic rifle. Any gun is a machine constructed from a piece of machined steel with a few springs and pieces of plastic to make it into an operable weapon. 3D printing is neat, but you could "print this gun" using an auto-lathe for most of the machining and 3D printing for the non-working parts. You could set up shop in Mexico and "print" AR-15s all day long. Ditto full-auto M16s. Sneak them across the border and you're in business. This is something the Democrats aren't talking about. Instead they're focusing on magazine capacity and how the gun looks. Then again, DC politicians aren't the best and brightest people. They are merely popular, wealthy, and easily manipulated.
This treaty appears to limit governmental actions, not the actions of private citizens. This reads more like a conservation and good behavior contract than an outright ban on for-profit activities like mining or private colonization. It may prevent nation-states from setting up colonies, but how relevant are governments anymore?
Don't do anything which might give this guy a case to counter your actions. Set up a new WiFi router and move your equipment to this new system. Use a super long key. Something that will take him a long time to crack. See what happening on the 5Ghz side of things, and maybe move operations there.
Then set up a little monitoring software and see what you can find out. Maybe you can discover who this person is, and send him a cease and desist letter. It's shocking and unexpected. Log everything with date/time stamps in case the leech attempts a confrontation, but that's unlikely to happen.
Weapons can have all of the safety features in the world, but the ultimate safety feature will always be the person holding the weapon. If the person in question takes a weapon, loads a round, points it at someone, takes aim, and pulls the trigger none of these measures will matter.
No one talks about suing GM because a distracted driver causes a 10 car pile up. No one wants to sue Ford if they fail to get the oil changed. They can, but they will never find a judge willing to take that case. In these cases, we make the car owner not the company, responsible.
Am I calling for weapons bans? No. If the safety features prevent accidental shootings, good. Limited magaines -- infeffective. Ever see "The Outlaw Josey Wales?" Clint Eastwood's character had multiple revolvers and plenty of firepower. As assault weapons ban? No. CnC milling machines and 3D printers have never been cheaper. If you can buy the steel, you can make the weapon. Heck you can invent your own designs.
Plus banning something for the good of society never works. Alcohol in the 30s and narcotics in the 60s both created enormous criminal empires with the resources of a small country. In the case of narcotics, they have threatened the governments of Columbia and Mexico. Heck diamonds destroyed major parts of Africa and they are legal AND highly regulated. People were enslaved just to mine diamonds so First World people could look pretty and thugs could make war.
What if moral machines are built, along the Three Laws and one invents a "Zero" rule overriding the others allowing these machines to decide what is best for humanity? What if these machines decide that mobility and independent thought are the most dangerous things humans may possess?
What if they don't make Three Law moral machines, and your car decides you're a jerk for slamming the door every morning?
I knew something was in the works when Cisco started making components like this two years ago. Now if we can just convince paranoid CISSP types to adopt this technology, setting up a corporate cellphone could be completed from an app store with a code.
Age has its value, but yeah some fields and companies value youth over all else. These companies tend to change over time as the founders age or they burn out. Does Elon Musk hire a bunch of fresh out of school engeineers to build his rockets or would he hire a mix of ages and talent? What about Google? Has the average age gone past 25 yet? If it hasn't, it will. If you find yourself past the golden age in an industry, look towards new skills and new avenues. Become the leader who gets those hyper cafinated sponge bobs to gell and produce.
I want gaming on Linux to work, not be releated to failure because a few pundits get all twisted up over the license. We have not-free drivers and free-as-in-beer software. Even the GPL license has fallen off in popularity over BSD and Apahce licenses. If Valve makes gaming on Linux work AND brings hadrware vendors into the Linux fold, it will be worth it. Free software has its place. Free tools made Linux possible. Free tools enabled Apple's app explosion. If it works, few will care or look at the end user agreement unless it hinders product use.
Read up on climate change. Even the detractors will admit, climate changes and has changed throughout history. I'm not fool enough to think the swapping light bulbs, buying a hybrid, and paying carbon taxes will halt all climate change or even reverse the current trend. But it will and is cutting our dependence on imported energy. I'll even take a page from the Keanu Reves movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. Humanity only evolves when we stand on the precipice. I'm confident that humanity will move when threatened. Europe evolved over thousands of years of war to become the EU. Do they still have long and deep seated hatreds? Yes. Yugoslavia anyone? But the idea of another war on conquest is unthinable. Plus they have the United States and the UK to handle the things they'd rather not handle.
So like recycling, green tech will and is come of age. It won't be due to government action, taxation, or some grand crusade. It will happen because those that figure out how to make money with green tech will also make green cheap. Today, most alluminum comes from recycling not boxite. That happened because junk yard owners bought up money loosing recycling businesses and made it profitable. The same will happen with rare earth metals, solar, nuclear, led bulbs, batteries, battery charging, and a host of other products that have yet to be invented. So if you want to save the world, don't look to the Al Gores who preach the nanny state and salvation through taxation and regulation. Buy prodcuts that are actually green, not those that simply claim greeness. Waste less. Learn to eat off a whole chicken for a few days by cooking and making leftovers. When you buy durable goods, buy quality. Something you won't want to replace next year. Care for the things you purchase. A well maintained car driven once per day in a long errand and appointment running loop releases less carbon than a $50K hybrid driven on a dozen short trips, plus you have more time for yourself and less of it on the road.
Woz is right. Again. Apple is more worried about marketshare, hence the patent lawsuits. The old Apple would crank out a new iPhone so superior to the Samsung Galaxy III, it would be pulled from the shelves in disgrace. Apple's "desktops" are mere suped up laptops with a big screen, sans battery. Their workstation product is years out of date, and the base of creative people will (or have) moved on. Jobs' useless fight with Adobe didn't help matters. The botched Final Cut Pro release didn't help either. Granted, Windows 8 presents a huge departure in terms of interface and software compatability but it's available in all sorts of platforms. Heck Surface/Windows RT run on ARM. ARM!
Apple's recent OS releases are more tiny steps. Nothing that greatly enhances usability or packs a "wow" factor. The iPhone 5 has 4G, which most iPhone 4 and 4s users thought they already had thanks to some cleaver AT&T marketing.
Face it. We have slick user interfaces. We have app stores. We have baked in search. We have free email. We have file sharing and sync. We have cross platform browsers and (some) cross platform apps with syncing preferences. We have clamshell laptops. We have smartphones with large screens and larger non-cellular call making tablets. Most don't care about mobile data on tablets. What's left? A shiny(er) interface and a click on membrane keyboard? Sigh.
The big thing for M$ is the wider adtoption of touch. Something which Apple has not included in the Air or in the iMac. Windows 8 will run on hardware that puts all of Apple's hardware to shame. Even if a lot of these users carry iPhones. They want to render video and blast CGI monsters with ever increasing speed and realism. Something you have to watch and wait for on Apple. Something you can achieve on Windows with a video card swap. So in spite of Steam coming to OSX, it isn't the cash machine it is on Windows. Unless the ARM-based Apple future rumors are true (and the results are 'Think Different' awe inspiring), I see Apple becoming a consumer electronics vendor. Like GE, Samsung, and Audiovox. Only with a 80s Sharper Image type of sheen.
Drivers, installed base, drivers, familiar windows interface, drivers, most users can barely power their machine on much less install linux, drivers, forget installing linux software...see comment before the last comment, drivers, lack of vendor support, and drivers.
Windows 8 will win the desktop the same way it always has - by default. As manufacurers release new models, the stock of Windows 8 machines will rise. Few consumers care about the OS. They do care about the price and this is why Apple continues to be a marginal desktop and laptop vendor. Look at Apple's sales. Most of their revenue comes from the iPhone and the iPad with all other devices trailing by a wide margin. Vista was the only varriable that bucked the trend, being a colossal screw up both in the home and the corporate desktop.
Game, set, and match. Microsoft wins. Ballmer keeps his job.
Yes oil is sold in dollars. It doesn't mean that the price is tied to domestic consumption or domestic production. Oil is traded in dollars because the US dollar is the world's "reserve currency." All commodities are traded in dollars. The US dollar spends everywhere. It is the most tradeable currency. This is why the federal government can borrow $1.3T per year and pay a near 0% interest rate. This is also why we can't return to the Gold Standard. We would tank the world economy as prices for everything in every country are reset.
Getting back to oil. Higher output does not mean lower prices per barrel or lower gas prices. If we have difficulty moving that oil from well to refinery or from well to port (for oversears sale), our production increases won't matter. Shale oil also has a higher cost-per-barrel than a barrel of Saudi light-sweet-crude. Shale oil is also more expensive to refine. The economies of scale - the reducion in price paid for by early adopters - aren't there (yet). It can happen over time, but the alternative costs are ALSO dropping. China is making solar cheap. Natural gas is uncoupled from oil and the cost CAN beat gasoline and diesel on price. It won't happen tomorrow, or even in the next four years, but it is happening.
So don't worry about shale oil. If the middle east blows up or when Iran starts threatening its neighbors with nuclear weapons China and Europe will come to the US (and Canada) for oil. This could work out in our favor. We have a lot of debt, a debt-funded social safety net, and more off-book public debt than any politician wants to admit. We're gonna need trillions over the next 20 years just to remain in place. Shale oil and natural gas might just save our butts and prevent a Soviet-style collapse
$3K to reach 1M people? I know it's a drag Marky but you can afford it. How much do you spend on other forms of advertising? Seriously, who uses MySpace and tumblr? If you shifted to Twitter I might believe you. GM made a better move in dropping a paid-for FB page for a free page where people could post and submit "likes."
I'm predicting Mark Cuban modifies is strategy again.
So if I move to France I can FINALLY control my coffee maker and blender from my computer? The boyhood dream born out of a 1977 Radio Shack catalog and the groundbreaking X10 technology to control thngs that don't actually need controlling is made possible by Europen beaurocratic perfection. No wonder so many people suddenly want to move abroad.
So much for the "it's Obama's fault" theories. LOL
Slashdot Mirror
I still don't trust the government. If this was to track malware, botnets, or attempts to attack vital parts of our infrastructure, I'd be all for it. However I also know this will be used to clandestinely monitor everyone's communication. While I fall into the "nothing to hide" category, the definition of "nothing to hide" is flexible and ever changing. The truth is, in a way, I do hide. A lot. I don't mouth off on social media sites. I don't put my political opinions into forums. I limit confrontation to in-person or via telephone communication. We already live in an age of online surveillance. This new level of government surveillance is just the next step.
I look forward to the rise of the DarkNets!
After nearly 20 years of life in data centers, NOCs, etc with the constant droning of fans in my ears, I couldn't tell the difference at all. Heck my ears are already ringing just thinking about it.
Hey anyone old enough to remember "modem taxes?" Governments have been looking for ways to tax online activity for years. When I was in college, someone proposed a "stamp" fee for every email sent. Then there were micro charges on a per-packet basis. Ugh!
At least a sales tax is easily added to existing point of sale portals. With the amount of free shipping available to me, the slight increase in cost will not deter me from making online purchases.
A few more thoughts:
I'd prefer paying state sales taxes over federal sales taxes, since I'm pretty sure state sales taxes won't go to stupid things like foreign aid to France.
While I know this won't be used to balance the Federal budget (no one can do that), I think this is a test bed for a national sales tax. Question is, what will this partially fund? It certainly won't be used to pay down out growing debt! That's just crazy non-partisan independent thinking at work!
Agreed. If this doesn't take off, it may be a short lived service. I'll stick with Evernote.
I wonder how much Google would charge? $50 per year? I wonder if it would seriosly hurt advertising revenue? Google didn't start out selling this information, they made a fortune hooking up "looks" to "finds" so it may be a viable business model. The downside? Admitting they were "evil."
I stand corrected. But my point remains - yes you can own such weapons, but now you need paperwork and permission. In the Thompson's heyday, it was sold in friggin magazines. Not many people wanted to own one. It was the social turmoil of the 60s and 70s and the availability of cheap pisotols that drove a sharp rise in gun ownerships.
True, this is well within the limits of the law. In fact, this guy is attempting to obtain a federal firearms license. He isn't subverting the government. He's wriggling through the holes in the legal system to do what he wants. One of these 'wants' is to show that the government isn't quite as high and mighty as many believe.
For me, this is further proof that a new "assault weapons ban" will be as useless as the previous ban. Gun related hommicides didn't decrease, only those involving so-called assault weapons. This doesn't include the full-auto Uzis, AK-47s, and other military carbine rifles that the ban didn't cover because they were never available for public purchase in the first place. The last man portable fully automatic weapon sold to the public was the Thompson sub machine gun. The current debate has nothing to do with military rifes. Instead it's about semi-automatic rifles which look like miliary rifles. The ban wouldn't stop gun manufacturers from producing semi-automatic rifles. The Tech-Point Model 995 is an assault weapons ban legal semi-automatic rifle. Identical to an AR-15 in operation, but different in appearance. The TEC DC9? Same thing.
The fact that you can "print this gun" proves that a ban doesn't mean the end of the semi-automatic rifle. Any gun is a machine constructed from a piece of machined steel with a few springs and pieces of plastic to make it into an operable weapon. 3D printing is neat, but you could "print this gun" using an auto-lathe for most of the machining and 3D printing for the non-working parts. You could set up shop in Mexico and "print" AR-15s all day long. Ditto full-auto M16s. Sneak them across the border and you're in business. This is something the Democrats aren't talking about. Instead they're focusing on magazine capacity and how the gun looks. Then again, DC politicians aren't the best and brightest people. They are merely popular, wealthy, and easily manipulated.
This treaty appears to limit governmental actions, not the actions of private citizens. This reads more like a conservation and good behavior contract than an outright ban on for-profit activities like mining or private colonization. It may prevent nation-states from setting up colonies, but how relevant are governments anymore?
Don't do anything which might give this guy a case to counter your actions. Set up a new WiFi router and move your equipment to this new system. Use a super long key. Something that will take him a long time to crack. See what happening on the 5Ghz side of things, and maybe move operations there.
Then set up a little monitoring software and see what you can find out. Maybe you can discover who this person is, and send him a cease and desist letter. It's shocking and unexpected. Log everything with date/time stamps in case the leech attempts a confrontation, but that's unlikely to happen.
Weapons can have all of the safety features in the world, but the ultimate safety feature will always be the person holding the weapon. If the person in question takes a weapon, loads a round, points it at someone, takes aim, and pulls the trigger none of these measures will matter.
No one talks about suing GM because a distracted driver causes a 10 car pile up. No one wants to sue Ford if they fail to get the oil changed. They can, but they will never find a judge willing to take that case. In these cases, we make the car owner not the company, responsible.
Am I calling for weapons bans? No. If the safety features prevent accidental shootings, good. Limited magaines -- infeffective. Ever see "The Outlaw Josey Wales?" Clint Eastwood's character had multiple revolvers and plenty of firepower. As assault weapons ban? No. CnC milling machines and 3D printers have never been cheaper. If you can buy the steel, you can make the weapon. Heck you can invent your own designs.
Plus banning something for the good of society never works. Alcohol in the 30s and narcotics in the 60s both created enormous criminal empires with the resources of a small country. In the case of narcotics, they have threatened the governments of Columbia and Mexico. Heck diamonds destroyed major parts of Africa and they are legal AND highly regulated. People were enslaved just to mine diamonds so First World people could look pretty and thugs could make war.
Oddly enough, that's probably what "Made in the USA" means.
What if moral machines are built, along the Three Laws and one invents a "Zero" rule overriding the others allowing these machines to decide what is best for humanity? What if these machines decide that mobility and independent thought are the most dangerous things humans may possess?
What if they don't make Three Law moral machines, and your car decides you're a jerk for slamming the door every morning?
I knew something was in the works when Cisco started making components like this two years ago. Now if we can just convince paranoid CISSP types to adopt this technology, setting up a corporate cellphone could be completed from an app store with a code.
Age has its value, but yeah some fields and companies value youth over all else. These companies tend to change over time as the founders age or they burn out. Does Elon Musk hire a bunch of fresh out of school engeineers to build his rockets or would he hire a mix of ages and talent? What about Google? Has the average age gone past 25 yet? If it hasn't, it will. If you find yourself past the golden age in an industry, look towards new skills and new avenues. Become the leader who gets those hyper cafinated sponge bobs to gell and produce.
Good and valid points. Let's hope Steam is successful as a linux platform and M$ doesn't manage force Linux off of the desktop/laptop.
I want gaming on Linux to work, not be releated to failure because a few pundits get all twisted up over the license. We have not-free drivers and free-as-in-beer software. Even the GPL license has fallen off in popularity over BSD and Apahce licenses. If Valve makes gaming on Linux work AND brings hadrware vendors into the Linux fold, it will be worth it. Free software has its place. Free tools made Linux possible. Free tools enabled Apple's app explosion. If it works, few will care or look at the end user agreement unless it hinders product use.
Bring it on Valve! More power to ya!
Read up on climate change. Even the detractors will admit, climate changes and has changed throughout history. I'm not fool enough to think the swapping light bulbs, buying a hybrid, and paying carbon taxes will halt all climate change or even reverse the current trend. But it will and is cutting our dependence on imported energy. I'll even take a page from the Keanu Reves movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. Humanity only evolves when we stand on the precipice. I'm confident that humanity will move when threatened. Europe evolved over thousands of years of war to become the EU. Do they still have long and deep seated hatreds? Yes. Yugoslavia anyone? But the idea of another war on conquest is unthinable. Plus they have the United States and the UK to handle the things they'd rather not handle.
So like recycling, green tech will and is come of age. It won't be due to government action, taxation, or some grand crusade. It will happen because those that figure out how to make money with green tech will also make green cheap. Today, most alluminum comes from recycling not boxite. That happened because junk yard owners bought up money loosing recycling businesses and made it profitable. The same will happen with rare earth metals, solar, nuclear, led bulbs, batteries, battery charging, and a host of other products that have yet to be invented. So if you want to save the world, don't look to the Al Gores who preach the nanny state and salvation through taxation and regulation. Buy prodcuts that are actually green, not those that simply claim greeness. Waste less. Learn to eat off a whole chicken for a few days by cooking and making leftovers. When you buy durable goods, buy quality. Something you won't want to replace next year. Care for the things you purchase. A well maintained car driven once per day in a long errand and appointment running loop releases less carbon than a $50K hybrid driven on a dozen short trips, plus you have more time for yourself and less of it on the road.
Woz is right. Again. Apple is more worried about marketshare, hence the patent lawsuits. The old Apple would crank out a new iPhone so superior to the Samsung Galaxy III, it would be pulled from the shelves in disgrace. Apple's "desktops" are mere suped up laptops with a big screen, sans battery. Their workstation product is years out of date, and the base of creative people will (or have) moved on. Jobs' useless fight with Adobe didn't help matters. The botched Final Cut Pro release didn't help either. Granted, Windows 8 presents a huge departure in terms of interface and software compatability but it's available in all sorts of platforms. Heck Surface/Windows RT run on ARM. ARM!
Apple's recent OS releases are more tiny steps. Nothing that greatly enhances usability or packs a "wow" factor. The iPhone 5 has 4G, which most iPhone 4 and 4s users thought they already had thanks to some cleaver AT&T marketing.
Face it. We have slick user interfaces. We have app stores. We have baked in search. We have free email. We have file sharing and sync. We have cross platform browsers and (some) cross platform apps with syncing preferences. We have clamshell laptops. We have smartphones with large screens and larger non-cellular call making tablets. Most don't care about mobile data on tablets. What's left? A shiny(er) interface and a click on membrane keyboard? Sigh.
The big thing for M$ is the wider adtoption of touch. Something which Apple has not included in the Air or in the iMac. Windows 8 will run on hardware that puts all of Apple's hardware to shame. Even if a lot of these users carry iPhones. They want to render video and blast CGI monsters with ever increasing speed and realism. Something you have to watch and wait for on Apple. Something you can achieve on Windows with a video card swap. So in spite of Steam coming to OSX, it isn't the cash machine it is on Windows. Unless the ARM-based Apple future rumors are true (and the results are 'Think Different' awe inspiring), I see Apple becoming a consumer electronics vendor. Like GE, Samsung, and Audiovox. Only with a 80s Sharper Image type of sheen.
Drivers, installed base, drivers, familiar windows interface, drivers, most users can barely power their machine on much less install linux, drivers, forget installing linux software...see comment before the last comment, drivers, lack of vendor support, and drivers.
Oh did I mention drivers?
when are they gonna mount it on a frigin shark's friggin head?
Windows 8 will win the desktop the same way it always has - by default. As manufacurers release new models, the stock of Windows 8 machines will rise. Few consumers care about the OS. They do care about the price and this is why Apple continues to be a marginal desktop and laptop vendor. Look at Apple's sales. Most of their revenue comes from the iPhone and the iPad with all other devices trailing by a wide margin. Vista was the only varriable that bucked the trend, being a colossal screw up both in the home and the corporate desktop.
Game, set, and match. Microsoft wins. Ballmer keeps his job.
Yes oil is sold in dollars. It doesn't mean that the price is tied to domestic consumption or domestic production. Oil is traded in dollars because the US dollar is the world's "reserve currency." All commodities are traded in dollars. The US dollar spends everywhere. It is the most tradeable currency. This is why the federal government can borrow $1.3T per year and pay a near 0% interest rate. This is also why we can't return to the Gold Standard. We would tank the world economy as prices for everything in every country are reset.
Getting back to oil. Higher output does not mean lower prices per barrel or lower gas prices. If we have difficulty moving that oil from well to refinery or from well to port (for oversears sale), our production increases won't matter. Shale oil also has a higher cost-per-barrel than a barrel of Saudi light-sweet-crude. Shale oil is also more expensive to refine. The economies of scale - the reducion in price paid for by early adopters - aren't there (yet). It can happen over time, but the alternative costs are ALSO dropping. China is making solar cheap. Natural gas is uncoupled from oil and the cost CAN beat gasoline and diesel on price. It won't happen tomorrow, or even in the next four years, but it is happening.
So don't worry about shale oil. If the middle east blows up or when Iran starts threatening its neighbors with nuclear weapons China and Europe will come to the US (and Canada) for oil. This could work out in our favor. We have a lot of debt, a debt-funded social safety net, and more off-book public debt than any politician wants to admit. We're gonna need trillions over the next 20 years just to remain in place. Shale oil and natural gas might just save our butts and prevent a Soviet-style collapse
Agreed. SkyNet will be an Apple product, not a DoD product. It will originate in China, not Cheyenne Mountain.
I'd love to welcome our new robot overlords, but i'm not sure how Siri will respond.
$3K to reach 1M people? I know it's a drag Marky but you can afford it. How much do you spend on other forms of advertising? Seriously, who uses MySpace and tumblr? If you shifted to Twitter I might believe you. GM made a better move in dropping a paid-for FB page for a free page where people could post and submit "likes."
I'm predicting Mark Cuban modifies is strategy again.
So if I move to France I can FINALLY control my coffee maker and blender from my computer? The boyhood dream born out of a 1977 Radio Shack catalog and the groundbreaking X10 technology to control thngs that don't actually need controlling is made possible by Europen beaurocratic perfection. No wonder so many people suddenly want to move abroad.
So much for the "it's Obama's fault" theories. LOL