Actually, the after-effects from a surge adrenalin was why he was shaking.
Admittedly, caused by the "fight or flight" reflex triggered by the fear engendered by the abusive of authority administered upon his person.
Its literally his body and muscles, all hyped up to run but having no escape, trembling as it releases all that energy and tension to return to normal functioning.
Remember when "fear of flying" used to be about the planes crashing?
Yes, Bradley Manning is an important person. But the details of his personal issues are not newsworthy, except as how they may have effected his decision to provide the information to Wikileaks. Its certain his sexual identity problems played some role in his unhappiness with his position in the army. But ultimately this is a man depressed about who he is and wanting to change. At root, it's not much different from scrawny guy wanting to be big and butch and - unable to live up to that fantasy - doing something reckless. But if that were all there was to the story, you can be sure it wouldn't get half the coverage this one does.
And why is this so much more exciting? Because transexualism is still considered indecent and indicative of severe psychological problems by our society. Manning is being demonized as a a nut, a freak; certainly not someone to look up to as a patriot standing up for the ideals of his country. The release of this information is an attempt at distracting the public from the much more important problems his actions brought to light, and as a warning to other whistleblowers. It's an underlying message that says not only says "Fuck with the government and all your dirty laundry will be made public" but also "only weirdos and loons would consider a 'traitorous' act like Manning's in the first place!")
So, yeah, not being personally involved with Bradley Manning I find the details of the problems that led to his actions inconsequential. They are his private demons that he needs to deal with alone. I'd rather the focus be on the other, far more newsworthy problems brought up by his case, be it the revelations in the leaks themselves, the response by the government to said leaks, or even how poorly the US Army is dealing with the psychologically vulnerable members of its armed forces. THAT is news, not whether Mr. Manning is happy with his dick or not.
They'll just use this as an excuse to fleece their customers. "We're now adding a $1/month anti-wire-payment-switching fee to all accounts."
But first, they need to collect from the insurance companies. And then they need a government subsidy to help protect their infrastructure in the future Next, they'll re-negotiate costs with their partners who failed to protect them ("Why are we paying you so much? If you want to keep us as your customers then we need to talk price. Oh, no need to actually fix anything; we'll keep the current service... we'll just pay less") THEN they can add a fee to squeeze more from the customers.
That's why banks are the true visionaries of capitalism.
I mean, Highlander deserved a sequel. I always thought they could have done more with that Riddick character from Pitch Black. I don't recall any movies from the New Generation era of Star Trek (wait, there might have been one). And one day I wish they'd show how the Star Wars universe came to be before Luke Skywalker was born.
But I guess we can't always get the movies we want and anyway, this lack surely allows the studios to focus on creating new and original content. Anyway, could you imagine how awful if would have been if they DID make sequels and they sucked?;-)
And lets us not forget that most of the nominal lawmakers are JUST AS LAZY as their constituents. They will quickly go for the easy answer and not take the time to consider the larger ramifications. This may include their just accepting any law proposed to them from biased parties (e.g., corporations or lobbyists) without understanding or even reading it. Or they may see a problem, think up a solution and push for that regardless of what its larger effects may be (the usual result of crisis-based lawmaking).
Things get worse when biased parties (corporations, lobbyists) create some sort of crisis (usually an imagined one) to force the politicians to thoughtless action. Hence all the problems with IP laws, for instance.
And not only aren't politicians/punished/ for this sort of activity, they are actively rewarded for it. Corporate sponsors love the politicos because they push laws in their favor and their constituency loves them because the lawmakers are actively responding to a problem. Best of all, when those very laws they supported become problematic themselves, the politicians have a new cause to fight against!
He's made one huge success. Let him live off it. He doesn't/have/ to keep producing games for us. It's great that he was so successful and I wish him the best. Maybe one day he'll return to 0x10c, or think of something new. It's wonderful that he has that sort of leisure. And it's awesome that he hasn't just shoved the code for 01x10c in a (virtual) drawer somewhere; he's letting others on his team keep working on it.
Frankly, 0x10c never sounded that interesting to me so I'm not that upset about it. I'm sure it would have sold well, but more because of its connection to Minecraft than because of its inherent value. That Notch can step back and look at the project and say, "ehn" is encouraging; it shows his focus is on the love of the game and not just about the money. Isn't that what we love about independent developers over the mass-produced pablum coming out of the big publishers?
So good for you, Notch. Do what you want and even if you never produce another title, Minecraft will remain an awesome legacy and your success helped pave the way for thousands of other independents.
Another reason for the death of drive-in theaters is because the United States has become increasingly urban.
Drive-ins work best where open land is plentiful and cheap. You buy one or two acres of useless scrub and throw up a big screen and a few cheaply built structures for the projector and conveniences and you're done. It's a small initial outlay of cash and - more importantly - low maintenance and taxes. And in the 1940s and '50s, when the drive-in was king, enough of the population was out in the country with you, so you were assured of plentiful customers.
Today, however, the situation is quite different. The population in the country is much more urban (33% in cities, 51% in the suburbs). And land and taxes are much more expensive in those locations. The initial and yearly costs are much higher. Plus, drive-ins aren't like regular theatres which - if they are struggling - can subdivide their theatres in an attempt to squeeze in more customers; they're stuck with whatever income they get. Meanwhile, rural drive-ins have to try to survive on many fewer customers because everyone's moved away.
A few drive-ins will make it, largely based on their value for novelty and nostalgia but the changes in where people live make it unlikely they will ever really make a comeback.
Why is the government bothering with secret court orders at this point? Do they think that maybe Snowden isn't aware that they are out to get him? If the government was above board with the situation, then perhaps people would be more willing to comply. Is there something in these orders that needs to be hidden from the public eye?
Just issue a regular warrant for the information. Nobody is arguing about those and they get the same results.
Unless there is more to this than is apparent.
(Although, cynical as I am, my first take on this article was not "Evil Government" but "Lavabit's Founders Are Trying To Drum Up Sympathy And Publicity For Their Next Venture". I just can't trust anyone these days;-)
Not to mention, it's debatable whether Valve has the authority to release patches for games they don't actually publish. Sure, they can do what they want as regards the DRM in Half Life 2 or Left 4 Dead, but I'd be highly suspicious as to any claim that they have the right to remove DRM from games developed by other publishers.
And despite fans trotting out the "Valve promised" line everytime the discussion comes out, I've never seen a citation to where Valve has clearly stated this intent; the closest I've seen was some messageboard article. If Valve truly does intend to protect its customers' rights this way, you would think they would have a statement on their website somewhere. That lack is telling.
Whether this new cure is a true breakthrough or not, it is really exciting to live in a time where things such as CURING CANCER are possible (even living on the verge of such a time is breathtaking). The places science and technology are taking us are out of a science-fiction novel. We might not have flying cars or jetpacks (except we/do/!), but we truly are living "in the future". A thousand years ago what we take for granted would have seemed magic or even godlike. And who knows what tomorrow will hold for us - a cure for death, perhaps?
Even knowing that no such advance comes without its unforeseen darkside, it is still enough to give me a childlike glee and hope again.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the reviews on this page yet for Denon's AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable, a $500 gold-connector CAT5 cable. Possibly the greatest fake reviews on Amazon.com
Oh, wait. It's mentioned on TFA. Well, since nobody reads that anyway so can we still say I was the first guy to mention it? Plus, they deserve being mentioned twice anyway;-)
I recall my controller-based internal modems had blinkenlights too; two green LEDs for, I believe, transmit and receive. I think it was a US Robotics 56k, but it's been a while so my memory is understandably hazy as to the brand. It might have been an Actiontec.
Of course, since the device was installed internally and the backplate was facing the wall, the LEDs were functionally useless to me.
Nonetheless it was possible to have a decent internal modem that both was no/ a Winmodem/and/ had blinkenlights.
(I also vaguely recall owning an internal modem - it might have been a Zoom 28.8 - that had blinkenlights on the board itself. You could only see them if you popped the cover off the beige box.;-)
The fault of any harm lays solely on the US government's shoulders.
If Manning had released all that information and all it revealed was that the US was handing out puppies and lollipops, there wouldn't be any harm. Unfortunately, the leaked information showed how underhanded the US government has been acting. Our nation has been revealed to be decidedly untrustworthy and hypocritically opposed to the very ideals it espouses. The harm isn't because Manning shed some light on these underhanded dealings, the harm comes from those dealings themselves!
Now, true, in realpolitik it is impossible for any country to behave with 100% nobility. But as is increasingly becoming obvious - thanks to people like Manning, Assange and Snowden - the United States has gone far beyond the needs of realpolitik and is heading towards cartoonish supervilliany. If the US government wants people - be it foreign nationals or their own citizens - and other nations to trust them, then maybe they should reform their own actions rather than attempt to tar and feather others for offering concrete evidence as to their misdeeds.
I remember growing up and reading about forced confessions in the USSR and being so proud as how this sort of thing doesn't happen in my country. Those days are long gone.
If you're managing large numbers of mobile devices then you also want to manage app versions, manage upgrades... BlackBerry does all of that very well....Is it enough?
Unfortunately, no, it is not enough.
What you are talking about is mostly something only large businesses are interested in doing. For the vast percentage of companies - the small and medium enterprises (SME) - the above is not a priority for them (arguably, it/should/ be). They want to minimize IT spending, which usually means letting employees use their own devices (again, arguably a more central control might reduce the overall IT cost but it requires a larger outlay up front, which SMEs want to avoid).
When Blackberry was king, these added features - app management, etc. - were nice bonuses to Blackberry's central advantage: email everywhere. But its not why most people used the phones. Now that other smartphones have (mostly) matched Blackberry in its central strength -email - , SMEs are debating whether those extra features are worth the cost. Increasingly, they are deciding it is not, especially since they require IT cost to maintain BES server to take advantage of those features. Better to just let the employees bring their own cheap devices and let them connect via Exchange. There's no need to provide the hardware (either by directly providing the employee with the phone, or indirectly by making the employee get his own Blackberry but balancing that out with better pay) or worry about support costs.
For large enterprises, the additional features of the Blackberry bring worthwhile benefits, and the extra cost is practically unnoticeable to them, so they will likely keep to Blackberry as long as they can. More, large enterprises already have large IT teams so BES is just another assignment for that division. But large enterprises comprise only a few percent of total businesses. SMEs are 95% of all businesses in the US and 75% of the workforce. Its a significant loss.
Can you rebel when you have handguns and they have hellfire missiles?
Yes.
The people with the guns can still kill and destroy at will. They will strike at the vulnerable parts of the civilization. They will also be likely to give up their lives for the cause.
The people with the hellfire missiles, however, will be hamstrung by the sheer destructiveness of those weapons. A Hellfire missile is of no use if the target is in the very location you are striving to protect. Yes, you/could/ kill the insurgent, but the collateral damage would vastly outweigh the gains you would achieve with such a "victory".
Given the history of the last seventy years, it's surprising this is even a question anymore. Those super weapons are great for destroying (other) civilizations, but not so awesome for protecting or maintaining your own. For that you use psychology and propoganda; that way it doesn't even/occur/ to your own people to rebel. It's the old "bread and circuses", a maxim that's been known and in use for over 2000 years.
I don't know. Many is the time I have been relaxing in the tub (well, shower, but the idea is the same) when I wished I could access the Internet for some random piece of information. I wish I could just say "computer, what were the lyrics to 'Velcro Fly'?" or "what was the Seventh Amendment?" and I'd see that information in some sort of display (I imagined a free-floating hologram against the shower mist). I could see a device like this very useful for bathing.
I'm not sold on using it for anything productive or even for games, though. It looked incredibly unwieldy and inaccurate in use.
And while I'm sure the Japanese are quite in favor of it, bathing in all that murk seems... dubious to me. I shower to get clean; getting out of the water with all that residue clinging to me?
I'm wondering if this technology could be up-scaled to be useful for detecting persons lost at sea during the night
That shouldn't be too hard to achieve:
Step 1: Launch the MegaKinect into L5 orbit so that it may look down upon us all. We may need to harvest Mercury for materials and energy. Step 2: line the shorelines with LEDs. Step 3: line the ocean bottom with waterproofed loudspeakers. Step 4: dump additives into the ocean water so it becomes appropriately murky (I believe we've already started on this one)
Result: never worry about being lost at see again, or if you do get lost, rest assured that you'll be able to play games in the waves until you drown.
"Hey honey, I'm going to McDonald's to grab a bite to eat, be back in 10!" (A few hours later) "... Umm, honey, how did you manage to spend $710 dollars at McDonalds?"
But let's be fair, the actual breakdown is probably more along these lines:
$6 Happy meal (expected budget)
$250 consultants and managers haranguing you about how you are hungrier than expected
$200 to replace provided hamburger with a specialty burger
$250 "expert eating" trainers who advise you on the how to insert hamburger into mouth
$4 extra hamburger you ate because the above three took so much time lecturing you that you got hungry again
As to "what more do I (you) need?": tell me if it's a custody dispute or a "stranger" kidnapping.
AMBER alerts are only issued (or are only supposed to be issued) in the case where there is a chance of violent harm to the child; e.g., kidnapping by a stranger. In most cases, those result in the death of the kid. Custody abductions (which make up the vast number of kidnappings) do not trigger AMBER alerts.
So if you see an AMBER alert, its because some nutcase has grabbed the kid, not because Mom thinks she would be the better parent.
Whether these alerts are in any way effective is an entirely different matter.
Predicted results, in order of severity (best results first)
1) "But when are you starting to serve the lab-grown meat?" 2) "Tasty!" 3) "Not bad" 4) "Tastes like chicken" 5) Vomiting 6) Addictive; taster cannot stop eating... literally 7) Turns taster into cow 8) Turns taster into cannibalistic mutant psychotics 9) Triggers the Rapture 10) "Tastes like McDonalds"
Even scarier is the acceptance of NSA monitoring as evidenced by the last line:
Perhaps the lesson is to be a bit more careful about your privacy, so that what you do on the internet remains between you and the professionals at the NSA."
It's not just/known/ that the NSA is monitoring everyone's conversation, it is seen as a good thing. Of course these "professionals" are listening. It's for the good of the country that the every citizen is monitored, after all.
The bar is being set ever lower and comments like these train people to see it as perfectly alright. Increasingly I am of the opinion that this is not accidental.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the after-effects from a surge adrenalin was why he was shaking.
Admittedly, caused by the "fight or flight" reflex triggered by the fear engendered by the abusive of authority administered upon his person.
Its literally his body and muscles, all hyped up to run but having no escape, trembling as it releases all that energy and tension to return to normal functioning.
Remember when "fear of flying" used to be about the planes crashing?
US Deaths caused by illicit drug overdose - ~5,000 per year
WAR ON DRUGS!!!!
US Deaths caused by terrorists - 3000, twelve years ago
WAR ON TERROR!!!!
US Deaths caused by hacking - 1 (and that one by "friendly fire", sorry Aaron Schwartz)
WAR ON HACKING!!!!
US Deaths caused by automobile accidents - 30,000 per year
umm...
We'll get back to you on that.
(admittedly not a fair or entirely accurate comparison... but it does say something about America's priorities.)
Equally important is why this is news at all?
Yes, Bradley Manning is an important person. But the details of his personal issues are not newsworthy, except as how they may have effected his decision to provide the information to Wikileaks. Its certain his sexual identity problems played some role in his unhappiness with his position in the army. But ultimately this is a man depressed about who he is and wanting to change. At root, it's not much different from scrawny guy wanting to be big and butch and - unable to live up to that fantasy - doing something reckless. But if that were all there was to the story, you can be sure it wouldn't get half the coverage this one does.
And why is this so much more exciting? Because transexualism is still considered indecent and indicative of severe psychological problems by our society. Manning is being demonized as a a nut, a freak; certainly not someone to look up to as a patriot standing up for the ideals of his country. The release of this information is an attempt at distracting the public from the much more important problems his actions brought to light, and as a warning to other whistleblowers. It's an underlying message that says not only says "Fuck with the government and all your dirty laundry will be made public" but also "only weirdos and loons would consider a 'traitorous' act like Manning's in the first place!")
So, yeah, not being personally involved with Bradley Manning I find the details of the problems that led to his actions inconsequential. They are his private demons that he needs to deal with alone. I'd rather the focus be on the other, far more newsworthy problems brought up by his case, be it the revelations in the leaks themselves, the response by the government to said leaks, or even how poorly the US Army is dealing with the psychologically vulnerable members of its armed forces. THAT is news, not whether Mr. Manning is happy with his dick or not.
Argh! Is it September already?
They'll just use this as an excuse to fleece their customers. "We're now adding a $1/month anti-wire-payment-switching fee to all accounts."
But first, they need to collect from the insurance companies.
And then they need a government subsidy to help protect their infrastructure in the future
Next, they'll re-negotiate costs with their partners who failed to protect them ("Why are we paying you so much? If you want to keep us as your customers then we need to talk price. Oh, no need to actually fix anything; we'll keep the current service... we'll just pay less")
THEN they can add a fee to squeeze more from the customers.
That's why banks are the true visionaries of capitalism.
Add
Adventure Construction Set(1984)
The Bard's Tale Construction Set (1991)
and
Ultima IV Construction Set (1989?)
to that list. Great stuff.
Yeah, but that applies to so many movies.
I mean, Highlander deserved a sequel. I always thought they could have done more with that Riddick character from Pitch Black. I don't recall any movies from the New Generation era of Star Trek (wait, there might have been one). And one day I wish they'd show how the Star Wars universe came to be before Luke Skywalker was born.
But I guess we can't always get the movies we want and anyway, this lack surely allows the studios to focus on creating new and original content. Anyway, could you imagine how awful if would have been if they DID make sequels and they sucked? ;-)
And lets us not forget that most of the nominal lawmakers are JUST AS LAZY as their constituents. They will quickly go for the easy answer and not take the time to consider the larger ramifications. This may include their just accepting any law proposed to them from biased parties (e.g., corporations or lobbyists) without understanding or even reading it. Or they may see a problem, think up a solution and push for that regardless of what its larger effects may be (the usual result of crisis-based lawmaking).
Things get worse when biased parties (corporations, lobbyists) create some sort of crisis (usually an imagined one) to force the politicians to thoughtless action. Hence all the problems with IP laws, for instance.
And not only aren't politicians /punished/ for this sort of activity, they are actively rewarded for it. Corporate sponsors love the politicos because they push laws in their favor and their constituency loves them because the lawmakers are actively responding to a problem. Best of all, when those very laws they supported become problematic themselves, the politicians have a new cause to fight against!
I think he's a great example of an indie dev.
He's made one huge success. Let him live off it. He doesn't /have/ to keep producing games for us. It's great that he was so successful and I wish him the best. Maybe one day he'll return to 0x10c, or think of something new. It's wonderful that he has that sort of leisure. And it's awesome that he hasn't just shoved the code for 01x10c in a (virtual) drawer somewhere; he's letting others on his team keep working on it.
Frankly, 0x10c never sounded that interesting to me so I'm not that upset about it. I'm sure it would have sold well, but more because of its connection to Minecraft than because of its inherent value. That Notch can step back and look at the project and say, "ehn" is encouraging; it shows his focus is on the love of the game and not just about the money. Isn't that what we love about independent developers over the mass-produced pablum coming out of the big publishers?
So good for you, Notch. Do what you want and even if you never produce another title, Minecraft will remain an awesome legacy and your success helped pave the way for thousands of other independents.
Another reason for the death of drive-in theaters is because the United States has become increasingly urban.
Drive-ins work best where open land is plentiful and cheap. You buy one or two acres of useless scrub and throw up a big screen and a few cheaply built structures for the projector and conveniences and you're done. It's a small initial outlay of cash and - more importantly - low maintenance and taxes. And in the 1940s and '50s, when the drive-in was king, enough of the population was out in the country with you, so you were assured of plentiful customers.
Today, however, the situation is quite different. The population in the country is much more urban (33% in cities, 51% in the suburbs). And land and taxes are much more expensive in those locations. The initial and yearly costs are much higher. Plus, drive-ins aren't like regular theatres which - if they are struggling - can subdivide their theatres in an attempt to squeeze in more customers; they're stuck with whatever income they get. Meanwhile, rural drive-ins have to try to survive on many fewer customers because everyone's moved away.
A few drive-ins will make it, largely based on their value for novelty and nostalgia but the changes in where people live make it unlikely they will ever really make a comeback.
Why is the government bothering with secret court orders at this point? Do they think that maybe Snowden isn't aware that they are out to get him? If the government was above board with the situation, then perhaps people would be more willing to comply. Is there something in these orders that needs to be hidden from the public eye?
Just issue a regular warrant for the information. Nobody is arguing about those and they get the same results.
Unless there is more to this than is apparent.
(Although, cynical as I am, my first take on this article was not "Evil Government" but "Lavabit's Founders Are Trying To Drum Up Sympathy And Publicity For Their Next Venture". I just can't trust anyone these days ;-)
Not to mention, it's debatable whether Valve has the authority to release patches for games they don't actually publish. Sure, they can do what they want as regards the DRM in Half Life 2 or Left 4 Dead, but I'd be highly suspicious as to any claim that they have the right to remove DRM from games developed by other publishers.
And despite fans trotting out the "Valve promised" line everytime the discussion comes out, I've never seen a citation to where Valve has clearly stated this intent; the closest I've seen was some messageboard article. If Valve truly does intend to protect its customers' rights this way, you would think they would have a statement on their website somewhere. That lack is telling.
Whether this new cure is a true breakthrough or not, it is really exciting to live in a time where things such as CURING CANCER are possible (even living on the verge of such a time is breathtaking). The places science and technology are taking us are out of a science-fiction novel. We might not have flying cars or jetpacks (except we /do/!), but we truly are living "in the future". A thousand years ago what we take for granted would have seemed magic or even godlike. And who knows what tomorrow will hold for us - a cure for death, perhaps?
Even knowing that no such advance comes without its unforeseen darkside, it is still enough to give me a childlike glee and hope again.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the reviews on this page yet for Denon's AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable, a $500 gold-connector CAT5 cable. Possibly the greatest fake reviews on Amazon.com
Oh, wait. It's mentioned on TFA. Well, since nobody reads that anyway so can we still say I was the first guy to mention it? Plus, they deserve being mentioned twice anyway ;-)
I recall my controller-based internal modems had blinkenlights too; two green LEDs for, I believe, transmit and receive. I think it was a US Robotics 56k, but it's been a while so my memory is understandably hazy as to the brand. It might have been an Actiontec.
Of course, since the device was installed internally and the backplate was facing the wall, the LEDs were functionally useless to me.
Nonetheless it was possible to have a decent internal modem that both was no/ a Winmodem /and/ had blinkenlights.
(I also vaguely recall owning an internal modem - it might have been a Zoom 28.8 - that had blinkenlights on the board itself. You could only see them if you popped the cover off the beige box. ;-)
This.
The fault of any harm lays solely on the US government's shoulders.
If Manning had released all that information and all it revealed was that the US was handing out puppies and lollipops, there wouldn't be any harm. Unfortunately, the leaked information showed how underhanded the US government has been acting. Our nation has been revealed to be decidedly untrustworthy and hypocritically opposed to the very ideals it espouses. The harm isn't because Manning shed some light on these underhanded dealings, the harm comes from those dealings themselves!
Now, true, in realpolitik it is impossible for any country to behave with 100% nobility. But as is increasingly becoming obvious - thanks to people like Manning, Assange and Snowden - the United States has gone far beyond the needs of realpolitik and is heading towards cartoonish supervilliany. If the US government wants people - be it foreign nationals or their own citizens - and other nations to trust them, then maybe they should reform their own actions rather than attempt to tar and feather others for offering concrete evidence as to their misdeeds.
I remember growing up and reading about forced confessions in the USSR and being so proud as how this sort of thing doesn't happen in my country. Those days are long gone.
If you're managing large numbers of mobile devices then you also want to manage app versions, manage upgrades... BlackBerry does all of that very well....Is it enough?
Unfortunately, no, it is not enough.
What you are talking about is mostly something only large businesses are interested in doing. For the vast percentage of companies - the small and medium enterprises (SME) - the above is not a priority for them (arguably, it /should/ be). They want to minimize IT spending, which usually means letting employees use their own devices (again, arguably a more central control might reduce the overall IT cost but it requires a larger outlay up front, which SMEs want to avoid).
When Blackberry was king, these added features - app management, etc. - were nice bonuses to Blackberry's central advantage: email everywhere. But its not why most people used the phones. Now that other smartphones have (mostly) matched Blackberry in its central strength -email - , SMEs are debating whether those extra features are worth the cost. Increasingly, they are deciding it is not, especially since they require IT cost to maintain BES server to take advantage of those features. Better to just let the employees bring their own cheap devices and let them connect via Exchange. There's no need to provide the hardware (either by directly providing the employee with the phone, or indirectly by making the employee get his own Blackberry but balancing that out with better pay) or worry about support costs.
For large enterprises, the additional features of the Blackberry bring worthwhile benefits, and the extra cost is practically unnoticeable to them, so they will likely keep to Blackberry as long as they can. More, large enterprises already have large IT teams so BES is just another assignment for that division. But large enterprises comprise only a few percent of total businesses. SMEs are 95% of all businesses in the US and 75% of the workforce. Its a significant loss.
Can you rebel when you have handguns and they have hellfire missiles?
Yes.
The people with the guns can still kill and destroy at will. They will strike at the vulnerable parts of the civilization. They will also be likely to give up their lives for the cause.
The people with the hellfire missiles, however, will be hamstrung by the sheer destructiveness of those weapons. A Hellfire missile is of no use if the target is in the very location you are striving to protect. Yes, you /could/ kill the insurgent, but the collateral damage would vastly outweigh the gains you would achieve with such a "victory".
Given the history of the last seventy years, it's surprising this is even a question anymore. Those super weapons are great for destroying (other) civilizations, but not so awesome for protecting or maintaining your own. For that you use psychology and propoganda; that way it doesn't even /occur/ to your own people to rebel. It's the old "bread and circuses", a maxim that's been known and in use for over 2000 years.
I don't know. Many is the time I have been relaxing in the tub (well, shower, but the idea is the same) when I wished I could access the Internet for some random piece of information. I wish I could just say "computer, what were the lyrics to 'Velcro Fly'?" or "what was the Seventh Amendment?" and I'd see that information in some sort of display (I imagined a free-floating hologram against the shower mist). I could see a device like this very useful for bathing.
I'm not sold on using it for anything productive or even for games, though. It looked incredibly unwieldy and inaccurate in use.
And while I'm sure the Japanese are quite in favor of it, bathing in all that murk seems... dubious to me. I shower to get clean; getting out of the water with all that residue clinging to me?
I'm wondering if this technology could be up-scaled to be useful for detecting persons lost at sea during the night
That shouldn't be too hard to achieve:
Step 1: Launch the MegaKinect into L5 orbit so that it may look down upon us all. We may need to harvest Mercury for materials and energy.
Step 2: line the shorelines with LEDs.
Step 3: line the ocean bottom with waterproofed loudspeakers.
Step 4: dump additives into the ocean water so it becomes appropriately murky (I believe we've already started on this one)
Result: never worry about being lost at see again, or if you do get lost, rest assured that you'll be able to play games in the waves until you drown.
"Hey honey, I'm going to McDonald's to grab a bite to eat, be back in 10!"
(A few hours later)
"... Umm, honey, how did you manage to spend $710 dollars at McDonalds?"
But let's be fair, the actual breakdown is probably more along these lines:
$6 Happy meal (expected budget)
$250 consultants and managers haranguing you about how you are hungrier than expected
$200 to replace provided hamburger with a specialty burger
$250 "expert eating" trainers who advise you on the how to insert hamburger into mouth
$4 extra hamburger you ate because the above three took so much time lecturing you that you got hungry again
IBM only got $25 million of that $1.2 billion. The rest was a result of "the state failing to properly articulate its requirements or commit to a fixed scope."
As to "what more do I (you) need?": tell me if it's a custody dispute or a "stranger" kidnapping.
AMBER alerts are only issued (or are only supposed to be issued) in the case where there is a chance of violent harm to the child; e.g., kidnapping by a stranger. In most cases, those result in the death of the kid. Custody abductions (which make up the vast number of kidnappings) do not trigger AMBER alerts.
So if you see an AMBER alert, its because some nutcase has grabbed the kid, not because Mom thinks she would be the better parent.
Whether these alerts are in any way effective is an entirely different matter.
design a fusion reactor.
Easy.
Components required
3 light years cold, empty space
2.0 E30 kg molecular hydrogen
insignificant chunks of other elements
1 billion years
Instructions
disperse hydrogen in center of open space.
give hydrogen a little whirl to get things going
add other elements to taste
wait.
Predicted results, in order of severity (best results first)
1) "But when are you starting to serve the lab-grown meat?"
2) "Tasty!"
3) "Not bad"
4) "Tastes like chicken"
5) Vomiting
6) Addictive; taster cannot stop eating... literally
7) Turns taster into cow
8) Turns taster into cannibalistic mutant psychotics
9) Triggers the Rapture
10) "Tastes like McDonalds"
Even scarier is the acceptance of NSA monitoring as evidenced by the last line:
Perhaps the lesson is to be a bit more careful about your privacy, so that what you do on the internet remains between you and the professionals at the NSA."
It's not just /known/ that the NSA is monitoring everyone's conversation, it is seen as a good thing. Of course these "professionals" are listening. It's for the good of the country that the every citizen is monitored, after all.
The bar is being set ever lower and comments like these train people to see it as perfectly alright. Increasingly I am of the opinion that this is not accidental.