As harsh conditions (for non-living things) go, Space isn't bad. There's no corrosion, no erosion, no wind or rain or waves (or windblown debris or acid rain or ocean salt). Temperature stresses are a problem, but all spacecraft, including the shuttle, are designed to accommodate them. Radiation is a problem, especially for the computers, but that's why spacecraft use redundant and hardened electronics. Micrometeorites are a valid concern; you need to make sure that they can either be resisted or their damage can be absorbed safely.
We've had space probes and artificial satellites that remained operational for decades. An unmanned Soyuz capsule is capable of manned re-entry after 6 months (unmanned) in space; why do you think that the same wouldn't be true of the SS?
Hadn't been updated much... but there's a big ongoing audit of the code that already turned up some findings. Nothing major, certainly not enough that I'd say it warrants the kind of warnings currently all over the site, but enough that there really *should* be a newer version to patch them.
Flaws will continue to be discovered, including after the audit. They don't even have to be flaws in TC itself, properly speaking; if somebody finds a major break in some cryptographic primitive (cipher, hash function, etc.) that TC uses, then TC needs to stop using that primitive even if it implemented it correctly (or consider something like DES, which was secure 30 years ago but today can be brute-forced quickly and inexpensively, though none of the current primitives we use should be *that* weak anymore). In any case, if flaws do not get patched as they are discovered, they will accumulate, and sooner or later there will be one that's either too big to accept or some combination of them that makes attacks on the software or its data practical.
You know, the last part of your question is actually a pretty good one. With the exception of the "Elephant" diffuser, every part of BitLocker is pretty standard and well documented and/or easy to figure out with a little analysis (doesn't even need disassembly, I suspect). There's no good reason (patents may be *a* reason, but not a good one) why it couldn't be implemented in a FOSS system. In fact, I know Elephant was externally reviewed, so even if it's not patented there's probably people who know how it works too (pretty sure it's optional in any case, though I believe it's enabled by default).
Getting Linux to boot off of a BLed volume would be hard, but just being able to access and mount removable or shared data volumes shouldn't be too hard. You'd need to not be using the TPM key, most likely, but I know that's optional in BL.
That works fine for now, but it's a terrible idea to just keep using software that has known flaws (which will continue to accumulate) but no longer gets patches. At some point, while 7.1a will still be executable, it will no longer be safe in any way.
I took Archeron's question to mean "So, what should we start migrating to now?" That's a very good question, sadly...
7-Zip encrypted files? I kind of hate to recommend them as a "safe" alternative, and they're definitely not as convenient from a "mount this volume, work in it, save your files, unmount the volume, it's now securely encrypted" user experience standpoint.
Yeah.. the TC site gives you a step-by-step on how to upgrade your Windows edition, but they don't seem inclined to hand over the money it costs. Not that they're under any obligation to - it's not as if they were under any obligation to develop TC in the first place, either - but as a guide its usefulness is severely limited.
Win8 at least has BL in the Pro edition (having reduced the range of SKUs considerably from Win7) but... yeah. Vista doesn't even (officially) support BL on removable media at all, in addition to (like Win7) only offering it on Enterprise and Ultimate SKUs.
If it weren't for the new binary that is signed (but the same key as before), that would be the obvious answer. As is, it could still be correct but seems less likely.
I don't have enough info on the priors of this kind of thing yet to establish a Bayesian probability. We've got clues but no idea what *their* probabilities are.
They could get the signing key, and release their own version of the software that appears legit? It's a stretch, but maybe even (secretly) take over the project to *add* backdoors, so TC decided to commit seppuku first?
I really don't know. It's a mess. If they come back and *say* it was just defacement/mis-timed April Fools/whatever, they're going to be under even more scrutiny than before for a good long while.
Oh come on, there are plenty of perfectly reasonable compromises you can make there. For example, require that the user have an additional authentication factor for remote login. TOTP (things like Google Authenticator) is popular, but (physical) smart cards are more secure.
Make it so that remote login can only be performed from a machine which has a client certificate on it that is tied to the user in question. There are a range of ways to do this, of varying degrees of usability vs. security/paranoia. Putting the cert only on a work-issued machine that is pre-loaded for telecommuting is one option; automatically installing it on any device that the user brings onto the corporate network (including personal laptops) is another. Even the weakest option of this flavor is still vastly more secure than most companies, but at relatively little cost. Combine it with multi-factor auth, and you've got a damn secure system without sacrificing much usability at all.
For the record, my employer does this. Remote work is not only accepted but actually required in my profession, so our work-issued laptops come with a user-specific client certificate and our new-hire process includes configuring a TOTP generator (usually a phone app) for the VPN. VPN thus requires my computer (for the cert), my phone (for the TOTP/authenticator value), my VPN password, and for good measure also my laptop's user account password (the private key for the cert is transparently encrypted with a key derived from my password), BitLocker password, and phone's PIN. The combination of theft, password-cracking, and social engineering required to obtain all this is truly awesome, yet the actual process of remote login only takes about 30 seconds once I'm logged in (requiring BitLocker, and therefore requiring hibernate instead of suspend, costs me significantly more time).
136k isn't an unreasonable mileage for a car. Actually, it's on the low end for a good car. My last car broke 240k - all on the original engine block - before it incurred damage that was uneconomical to repair, and that was due to driver error, not breakdown.
The new version is effectively hinged (the kickstand supports any angle out to 150 degrees). The larger form factor and additional keyboard magnets will help with a lot of the wobble, too.
If by "without a mouse" you mean "with a trackpad, like the Surface covers all include" then yes I have. It works fine. Touch is fine for reading the docs, but for creating them, yes, you'll want the keyboard+trackpad cover. That would be why Microsoft sells them. Crazy, right?
I run legacy Windows software on Win8 all the time. I really don't even begin to understand your complaint there. It works exactly like it does on Win7 except the corners of windows are sharp and the borders aren't transparent. Oh, and the RAM usage is lower due to page combining. What the hell are you complaining about?
Surface Pro runs Win8 Pro, which is perfectly compatible with Active Directory unless you're still running your domain controllers on Server 2003 or older, in which case you have *FAR* bigger problems. GPO works just fine. If you absolutely must, though, you actually can install Win7 on a Surface Pro...
I'd ask if you've ever actually tried using one, but your moronic questions make it pretty clear you haven't. Or that you are utterly incompetent at all things IT-related, I suppose. In either case, your post is valueless and irrelevant.
Yes, of course. I'd say "duh, obviously" but apparently even on Slashdot the fact that it's an x64 processor running standard Windows seems to have escaped peoples' attention. The RT line can't run legacy apps, due partially to not being the "intel" part of "Wintel" and partially due to Microsoft intentionally crippling it (there's a jailbreak that allows you to run ported apps, but it doesn't work on RT 8.1 yet).
Windows RT *IS* "normal Windows". The only differences are 1) It's compiled for ARM (THUMB-2 specifically). 2) It's missing some legacy stuff (old versions of.NET and DirectX, for example) to save space. 3) It has a special kernel flag set, which prohibits loading non-MS-signed "full trust" apps (meaning anything that doesn't run in an AppContainer sandbox).
That's it. The jailbreak fixes item #3, at which point native code can be recompiled for it (and recent.NET apps will run unmodified). There's a number of runtimes for various languages (much of Java, Python, Ruby, Perl, Node.JS, etc.) and some game engines / emulators, so a fair bit of software can actually be run without recompilation (for example, anything that runs in DOSBox - like many of the games from GOG.com - can be run on RT's DOSBox port if you jailbreak). There's even an (incomplete, but sometimes sufficient) x86 compatibility layer that uses dynamic recompilation.
Of course, MS not only had to be boneheaded enough to cripple RT in the first place, they doubled down on the stupid with 8.1, where they added a bunch of additional restrictions squarely aimed at preventing jailbreak. People have sort-of managed to get jailbreaking working again, but it's unstable; PatchGuard now monitors that flag value, and will bugcheck (BSoD) the system when it checks (which takes a little while but not long enough to make it practical). I really don't understand why MS would throw shit in the face of people who care enough about their tablets to actually put that kind of effort into them, but it looks like they're getting what they deserve; RT is dying.
Yes he did. That was the point at which I stopped supporting him; it was too blatant a lie and too much an unjustified reversal on an important position for me to forgive.
I don't support the Republican candidates either, mind you. I vote third-party because WA is about as far from a swing state as you can get, so it's a good place to try to give the third parties some visibility and hopefully scare the Dems and entice the Repubs just a bit.
Firefly (and, relatedly, Serenity) are more recent than the Matrix and fill that space for me, but I agree.
Unfortunately, economics are against us. SF is expensive to make and has a relatively niche audience. The fiscally responsible way to make SF is to go with what is known to be popular and works well. Experimental plots and untested settings are a huge risk. Avatar was one of those (the setting, not the plot) and did fantastically... but it was also a massive gamble in terms of investment.
There are actually DVDs of the original releases, Vaseline blur hiding the speeder's wheels and all. I've got a set of double-sided DVDs for the original trilogy that are the special edition (the "original" Special Edition) on one side and the actual original release on the other. It's interesting (and weird) to compare them on an effects basis; these days the SE effects are primitive (black lines around CGI stuff, for example) but at least they're recognizably modern special effects whereas many scenes in the original releases remind me of strongly that "this is a prop" (same way the wobble in the Enterprise's fly-by, TOS opening credits, does).
That moron (shill? Probably just Apple fanboy) has posted the same thing multiple times in this discussion. The lightest MBA is about 1080 grams, vs. 800 grams for the Surface Pro 3 (not counting keyboard, though). That's a 35% increase in weight, which is very significant. They keyboard cover narrows the gap, but you're still getting a significantly heavier computer if you go with the MBA, despite one of the key selling points being how light it is!
As for the resolution, that's a huge deal. Once again, it's amusing to see that early adopter (and heavy pusher) of high resolution, Apple, being beat at their own game... and the fanboys coming out to defend them. Whether or not you can see the pixels individually isn't important. Many aspects of image quality degrade long, long before then. A key example is text; high resolution displays can produce readable text at smaller sizes (and therefore fit far more text on the screen usably) than mid-resolution displays. xda-developers.com, a site I'm very active on, is much more usable on a 1920x1080 display than on my tablet's 1366x768 display. I wish the tablet had higher resolution, and it's less than 11" instead of nearly 12" like the cheapest MBA.
Police enforcement doesn't generate anything for the economy. That's an obvious, "well, duh" kind of statement, but I notice you failed to mention it and went after traffic citations specifically as if those are different (in terms of overall economic benefit) from any other way the cops are funded.
Now, having the availability of police enforcement is of course vital to a functioning economy. However, the police themselves are always going to be a drain on that economy. If you don't want that drain to come from traffic tickets, then you either need to cough up the dough somewhere else, or make do with less police enforcement. Of course, at some point *that* will start having a negative impact on the economy too...
Wow, you are wrong on *SO* many levels, it's ridiculous. makes me really sad (for this community) that you got to +5!
Traffic tickets are a reason to distribute officers around the municipality. Every officer operating a radar gun and handing out traffic tickets is one MORE police officer available to go after real criminals, because they are in the area that needs protecting and are able to bring in income sufficient to pay the upkeep on their equipment (car included) and their compensation (salary + benefits). What, you didn't think cops with radar guns weren't allowed to respond to 911 calls or some such bullshit, did you? Hell, I've actually seen cases where a cop gets a call and drives off without ticketing the person they pulled over.
If cops aren't handing out tickets, then either they're sitting at the station - probably nowhere near as close to where the crime is happening as is the case today - or they're out on the roads in *way* smaller numbers, because there's no way the police departments can afford a similar number of equipment-and-compensation packages without the income from traffic citations.
Well, unless they increase income from somewhere else. Fighting serious crime doesn't actually pay much; most of what the cops confiscate either can't legally be resold or already has a legal owner. You can increase other sources of income - such as things like tire taxes (I like this one) or even general income taxes - to compensate for the loss from traffic citations, but then you're giving up the "saving the common people several billions per year" thing that you quoted.
Guess what, serious policing isn't free! In fact, it's quite expensive. Traffic patrols are the current way cops are even *able* to be in your neighborhood.
Um, yeah I can, no shit? I mean, 1366x768 is the same resolution as the original Surface (RT, not Pro) and the limitations of that display are totally obvious when browsing the web or trying to view documents side-by-side. Forget serious coding (yes, I jailbroke the RT so I can run an IDE on it, but that doesn't make up for the resolution problem). I don't know, maybe you're half blind, but I'm 27 and have 20/20 vision, and quite happily use 1920x1080 on a 10" screen... 1366x768 on an 11.6" screen sucks. That's worse PPI than the much-derided Surface RT has, in fact!
Touch screen is great for web browsing, whether you're on a "real" desktop browser or a "Metro-style" or "mobile" one. Not great for Slashdot commenting, but great for actually browsing. It's also fine for things like reviewing a Word document or Powerpoint presentation. The touchscreen doesn't just *stop* because you're on the desktop.
The digitizer+stylus are brilliant for taking notes (including drawing diagrams and formulas) in OneNote, including (or even primarily) on the desktop. You can also annotate PDFs. For engineering types and for students, those are killer features; if you haven't tried them then you really should. For artists, the appeal is obvious: a high-precision pressure-sensitive stylus that works on a reasonably large and high-res screen is, well, kind of a huge deal. I'm sure it's useless for *some* people, but it's not just outright useless (even on the desktop).
Your entire last line is so idiotic I'm not even going to respond to it except to say that it invalidates any other legitimacy your post may have had.
Better than just discounting once development is paid off, actually... part of that R&D investment is into making the first stage, the Falcon 9 booster, re-usable. Currently they are single-use and amount to 70% of SpaceX's costs per launch. A reusable first stage would let SpaceX cut their costs by a tremendous margin.
It's really astonishing how much SpaceX is achieving with the budget they have. The space shuttle may have been a technological marvel in terms of capabilities, but it was unreliable, expensive as hell, and actually less capable than the Falcon Heavy rocket that is another main consumer of SpaceX's R&D budget. At the current rate, Falcon Heavy will be flying before the (amortized) cost of even one Space Shuttle mission is paid to SpaceX by NASA (if you amortize the 1.6B).
Slashdot Mirror
As harsh conditions (for non-living things) go, Space isn't bad. There's no corrosion, no erosion, no wind or rain or waves (or windblown debris or acid rain or ocean salt). Temperature stresses are a problem, but all spacecraft, including the shuttle, are designed to accommodate them. Radiation is a problem, especially for the computers, but that's why spacecraft use redundant and hardened electronics. Micrometeorites are a valid concern; you need to make sure that they can either be resisted or their damage can be absorbed safely.
We've had space probes and artificial satellites that remained operational for decades. An unmanned Soyuz capsule is capable of manned re-entry after 6 months (unmanned) in space; why do you think that the same wouldn't be true of the SS?
Hadn't been updated much... but there's a big ongoing audit of the code that already turned up some findings. Nothing major, certainly not enough that I'd say it warrants the kind of warnings currently all over the site, but enough that there really *should* be a newer version to patch them.
Flaws will continue to be discovered, including after the audit. They don't even have to be flaws in TC itself, properly speaking; if somebody finds a major break in some cryptographic primitive (cipher, hash function, etc.) that TC uses, then TC needs to stop using that primitive even if it implemented it correctly (or consider something like DES, which was secure 30 years ago but today can be brute-forced quickly and inexpensively, though none of the current primitives we use should be *that* weak anymore). In any case, if flaws do not get patched as they are discovered, they will accumulate, and sooner or later there will be one that's either too big to accept or some combination of them that makes attacks on the software or its data practical.
The initial report of the audit includes the SHA1 hash of the source archive (for 7.1a) that they built from. That should help...
You know, the last part of your question is actually a pretty good one. With the exception of the "Elephant" diffuser, every part of BitLocker is pretty standard and well documented and/or easy to figure out with a little analysis (doesn't even need disassembly, I suspect). There's no good reason (patents may be *a* reason, but not a good one) why it couldn't be implemented in a FOSS system. In fact, I know Elephant was externally reviewed, so even if it's not patented there's probably people who know how it works too (pretty sure it's optional in any case, though I believe it's enabled by default).
Getting Linux to boot off of a BLed volume would be hard, but just being able to access and mount removable or shared data volumes shouldn't be too hard. You'd need to not be using the TPM key, most likely, but I know that's optional in BL.
7-Zip is FOSS and supports file (well, archive) encryption. It's not a replacement for volume-level encryption, but it's a thing.
GPG still works fine for file encryption too... but again, not for volumes.
That works fine for now, but it's a terrible idea to just keep using software that has known flaws (which will continue to accumulate) but no longer gets patches. At some point, while 7.1a will still be executable, it will no longer be safe in any way.
I took Archeron's question to mean "So, what should we start migrating to now?" That's a very good question, sadly...
7-Zip encrypted files? I kind of hate to recommend them as a "safe" alternative, and they're definitely not as convenient from a "mount this volume, work in it, save your files, unmount the volume, it's now securely encrypted" user experience standpoint.
Yeah.. the TC site gives you a step-by-step on how to upgrade your Windows edition, but they don't seem inclined to hand over the money it costs. Not that they're under any obligation to - it's not as if they were under any obligation to develop TC in the first place, either - but as a guide its usefulness is severely limited.
Win8 at least has BL in the Pro edition (having reduced the range of SKUs considerably from Win7) but... yeah. Vista doesn't even (officially) support BL on removable media at all, in addition to (like Win7) only offering it on Enterprise and Ultimate SKUs.
If it weren't for the new binary that is signed (but the same key as before), that would be the obvious answer. As is, it could still be correct but seems less likely.
I don't have enough info on the priors of this kind of thing yet to establish a Bayesian probability. We've got clues but no idea what *their* probabilities are.
They could get the signing key, and release their own version of the software that appears legit? It's a stretch, but maybe even (secretly) take over the project to *add* backdoors, so TC decided to commit seppuku first?
I really don't know. It's a mess. If they come back and *say* it was just defacement/mis-timed April Fools/whatever, they're going to be under even more scrutiny than before for a good long while.
Oh come on, there are plenty of perfectly reasonable compromises you can make there. For example, require that the user have an additional authentication factor for remote login. TOTP (things like Google Authenticator) is popular, but (physical) smart cards are more secure.
Make it so that remote login can only be performed from a machine which has a client certificate on it that is tied to the user in question. There are a range of ways to do this, of varying degrees of usability vs. security/paranoia. Putting the cert only on a work-issued machine that is pre-loaded for telecommuting is one option; automatically installing it on any device that the user brings onto the corporate network (including personal laptops) is another. Even the weakest option of this flavor is still vastly more secure than most companies, but at relatively little cost. Combine it with multi-factor auth, and you've got a damn secure system without sacrificing much usability at all.
For the record, my employer does this. Remote work is not only accepted but actually required in my profession, so our work-issued laptops come with a user-specific client certificate and our new-hire process includes configuring a TOTP generator (usually a phone app) for the VPN. VPN thus requires my computer (for the cert), my phone (for the TOTP/authenticator value), my VPN password, and for good measure also my laptop's user account password (the private key for the cert is transparently encrypted with a key derived from my password), BitLocker password, and phone's PIN. The combination of theft, password-cracking, and social engineering required to obtain all this is truly awesome, yet the actual process of remote login only takes about 30 seconds once I'm logged in (requiring BitLocker, and therefore requiring hibernate instead of suspend, costs me significantly more time).
136k isn't an unreasonable mileage for a car. Actually, it's on the low end for a good car. My last car broke 240k - all on the original engine block - before it incurred damage that was uneconomical to repair, and that was due to driver error, not breakdown.
The new version is effectively hinged (the kickstand supports any angle out to 150 degrees). The larger form factor and additional keyboard magnets will help with a lot of the wobble, too.
If by "without a mouse" you mean "with a trackpad, like the Surface covers all include" then yes I have. It works fine. Touch is fine for reading the docs, but for creating them, yes, you'll want the keyboard+trackpad cover. That would be why Microsoft sells them. Crazy, right?
I run legacy Windows software on Win8 all the time. I really don't even begin to understand your complaint there. It works exactly like it does on Win7 except the corners of windows are sharp and the borders aren't transparent. Oh, and the RAM usage is lower due to page combining. What the hell are you complaining about?
Surface Pro runs Win8 Pro, which is perfectly compatible with Active Directory unless you're still running your domain controllers on Server 2003 or older, in which case you have *FAR* bigger problems. GPO works just fine. If you absolutely must, though, you actually can install Win7 on a Surface Pro...
I'd ask if you've ever actually tried using one, but your moronic questions make it pretty clear you haven't. Or that you are utterly incompetent at all things IT-related, I suppose. In either case, your post is valueless and irrelevant.
Yes, of course. I'd say "duh, obviously" but apparently even on Slashdot the fact that it's an x64 processor running standard Windows seems to have escaped peoples' attention. The RT line can't run legacy apps, due partially to not being the "intel" part of "Wintel" and partially due to Microsoft intentionally crippling it (there's a jailbreak that allows you to run ported apps, but it doesn't work on RT 8.1 yet).
Windows RT *IS* "normal Windows". The only differences are .NET and DirectX, for example) to save space.
1) It's compiled for ARM (THUMB-2 specifically).
2) It's missing some legacy stuff (old versions of
3) It has a special kernel flag set, which prohibits loading non-MS-signed "full trust" apps (meaning anything that doesn't run in an AppContainer sandbox).
That's it. The jailbreak fixes item #3, at which point native code can be recompiled for it (and recent .NET apps will run unmodified). There's a number of runtimes for various languages (much of Java, Python, Ruby, Perl, Node.JS, etc.) and some game engines / emulators, so a fair bit of software can actually be run without recompilation (for example, anything that runs in DOSBox - like many of the games from GOG.com - can be run on RT's DOSBox port if you jailbreak). There's even an (incomplete, but sometimes sufficient) x86 compatibility layer that uses dynamic recompilation.
Of course, MS not only had to be boneheaded enough to cripple RT in the first place, they doubled down on the stupid with 8.1, where they added a bunch of additional restrictions squarely aimed at preventing jailbreak. People have sort-of managed to get jailbreaking working again, but it's unstable; PatchGuard now monitors that flag value, and will bugcheck (BSoD) the system when it checks (which takes a little while but not long enough to make it practical). I really don't understand why MS would throw shit in the face of people who care enough about their tablets to actually put that kind of effort into them, but it looks like they're getting what they deserve; RT is dying.
Yes he did. That was the point at which I stopped supporting him; it was too blatant a lie and too much an unjustified reversal on an important position for me to forgive.
I don't support the Republican candidates either, mind you. I vote third-party because WA is about as far from a swing state as you can get, so it's a good place to try to give the third parties some visibility and hopefully scare the Dems and entice the Repubs just a bit.
Firefly (and, relatedly, Serenity) are more recent than the Matrix and fill that space for me, but I agree.
Unfortunately, economics are against us. SF is expensive to make and has a relatively niche audience. The fiscally responsible way to make SF is to go with what is known to be popular and works well. Experimental plots and untested settings are a huge risk. Avatar was one of those (the setting, not the plot) and did fantastically... but it was also a massive gamble in terms of investment.
There are actually DVDs of the original releases, Vaseline blur hiding the speeder's wheels and all. I've got a set of double-sided DVDs for the original trilogy that are the special edition (the "original" Special Edition) on one side and the actual original release on the other. It's interesting (and weird) to compare them on an effects basis; these days the SE effects are primitive (black lines around CGI stuff, for example) but at least they're recognizably modern special effects whereas many scenes in the original releases remind me of strongly that "this is a prop" (same way the wobble in the Enterprise's fly-by, TOS opening credits, does).
That moron (shill? Probably just Apple fanboy) has posted the same thing multiple times in this discussion. The lightest MBA is about 1080 grams, vs. 800 grams for the Surface Pro 3 (not counting keyboard, though). That's a 35% increase in weight, which is very significant. They keyboard cover narrows the gap, but you're still getting a significantly heavier computer if you go with the MBA, despite one of the key selling points being how light it is!
As for the resolution, that's a huge deal. Once again, it's amusing to see that early adopter (and heavy pusher) of high resolution, Apple, being beat at their own game... and the fanboys coming out to defend them. Whether or not you can see the pixels individually isn't important. Many aspects of image quality degrade long, long before then. A key example is text; high resolution displays can produce readable text at smaller sizes (and therefore fit far more text on the screen usably) than mid-resolution displays. xda-developers.com, a site I'm very active on, is much more usable on a 1920x1080 display than on my tablet's 1366x768 display. I wish the tablet had higher resolution, and it's less than 11" instead of nearly 12" like the cheapest MBA.
The stylus-and-touchscreen stuff is just BS.
Police enforcement doesn't generate anything for the economy. That's an obvious, "well, duh" kind of statement, but I notice you failed to mention it and went after traffic citations specifically as if those are different (in terms of overall economic benefit) from any other way the cops are funded.
Now, having the availability of police enforcement is of course vital to a functioning economy. However, the police themselves are always going to be a drain on that economy. If you don't want that drain to come from traffic tickets, then you either need to cough up the dough somewhere else, or make do with less police enforcement. Of course, at some point *that* will start having a negative impact on the economy too...
Wow, you are wrong on *SO* many levels, it's ridiculous. makes me really sad (for this community) that you got to +5!
Traffic tickets are a reason to distribute officers around the municipality. Every officer operating a radar gun and handing out traffic tickets is one MORE police officer available to go after real criminals, because they are in the area that needs protecting and are able to bring in income sufficient to pay the upkeep on their equipment (car included) and their compensation (salary + benefits). What, you didn't think cops with radar guns weren't allowed to respond to 911 calls or some such bullshit, did you? Hell, I've actually seen cases where a cop gets a call and drives off without ticketing the person they pulled over.
If cops aren't handing out tickets, then either they're sitting at the station - probably nowhere near as close to where the crime is happening as is the case today - or they're out on the roads in *way* smaller numbers, because there's no way the police departments can afford a similar number of equipment-and-compensation packages without the income from traffic citations.
Well, unless they increase income from somewhere else. Fighting serious crime doesn't actually pay much; most of what the cops confiscate either can't legally be resold or already has a legal owner. You can increase other sources of income - such as things like tire taxes (I like this one) or even general income taxes - to compensate for the loss from traffic citations, but then you're giving up the "saving the common people several billions per year" thing that you quoted.
Guess what, serious policing isn't free! In fact, it's quite expensive. Traffic patrols are the current way cops are even *able* to be in your neighborhood.
Um, yeah I can, no shit? I mean, 1366x768 is the same resolution as the original Surface (RT, not Pro) and the limitations of that display are totally obvious when browsing the web or trying to view documents side-by-side. Forget serious coding (yes, I jailbroke the RT so I can run an IDE on it, but that doesn't make up for the resolution problem). I don't know, maybe you're half blind, but I'm 27 and have 20/20 vision, and quite happily use 1920x1080 on a 10" screen... 1366x768 on an 11.6" screen sucks. That's worse PPI than the much-derided Surface RT has, in fact!
Touch screen is great for web browsing, whether you're on a "real" desktop browser or a "Metro-style" or "mobile" one. Not great for Slashdot commenting, but great for actually browsing. It's also fine for things like reviewing a Word document or Powerpoint presentation. The touchscreen doesn't just *stop* because you're on the desktop.
The digitizer+stylus are brilliant for taking notes (including drawing diagrams and formulas) in OneNote, including (or even primarily) on the desktop. You can also annotate PDFs. For engineering types and for students, those are killer features; if you haven't tried them then you really should. For artists, the appeal is obvious: a high-precision pressure-sensitive stylus that works on a reasonably large and high-res screen is, well, kind of a huge deal. I'm sure it's useless for *some* people, but it's not just outright useless (even on the desktop).
Your entire last line is so idiotic I'm not even going to respond to it except to say that it invalidates any other legitimacy your post may have had.
The reports in TFA(s) are "up to 9 hours". That's not ground-breaking even for an x64 device, but it's excellent for a super-thin core i7 device.
Better than just discounting once development is paid off, actually... part of that R&D investment is into making the first stage, the Falcon 9 booster, re-usable. Currently they are single-use and amount to 70% of SpaceX's costs per launch. A reusable first stage would let SpaceX cut their costs by a tremendous margin.
It's really astonishing how much SpaceX is achieving with the budget they have. The space shuttle may have been a technological marvel in terms of capabilities, but it was unreliable, expensive as hell, and actually less capable than the Falcon Heavy rocket that is another main consumer of SpaceX's R&D budget. At the current rate, Falcon Heavy will be flying before the (amortized) cost of even one Space Shuttle mission is paid to SpaceX by NASA (if you amortize the 1.6B).