This is the reason I won't buy anything with DRM- it removes the control from me and gives it to the supplier.And the suppliers' interest is that I buy all I can from them, so they have a vested interest in "losing" keys, limiting the number of computers I can use it on etc.

As someone who is studying in hopes of researching that general area I must say that from the technological POV most of that article is pure scaremongering:trying to detect what someone is thinking using fMRI gives results that need a lot of work by professional statisticians to give even vaguely usefull results.And that's before we take into account that it samples each point in the brain only once every 3 seconds...

And whatever people tell you we're very far from understanding the brain on that level: as my one of my first year profs told us "we don't understand what fish think yet.It would be a long time yet before we graduate to humans."

should be *copying* notes, obviously....

To all the people who decry taking notes as "unethical":I, and several people I know, simply can't both write legibly and listen in class.Not to mention that my preferred way to "get" to the material is by understanding it from the base up rather then learning it by rote.So instead of taking notes I participate heavily in class discussion, and photocopy notes from other people taking this class or who have taken it in previous years.I don't see anything ethically wrong with people selling their notes, although I prefer to get mine for free.

Also, @50:cheating isn't buying education, it's buying grades- since after cheating you won't know the material any better.A whole different beast- and very ugly one at that.

Crowley would probably approve of this cap:)

JonJonZ @6: used toyotas won't survive a day on the moon.Not unless you can reconfigure them to stand temperatures of both above 100C and below -50C(sunlight and shadow, respectively), make sure the steering is immune to vacuum welding and about a hundred other problems.It's probably cheaper to design something from the ground up.

Zikzak @16:Skeptics aren't afraid to admit they don't know.They just expect the people who try to convince them in the existence of a phenomenon that has piles of evidence going against it to provide some evidence of their own.

I'm a neural science undergraduate, a skeptic and an atheist.One of the things I like to hear from my lecturers:"I don't know", "It's controversial", etc.Why?Because it shows me these lecturers have enough intellectual honesty to tell me the limits of their knowledge, and of the current knowledge in the field.

To me, magic is the exact counter of wonder and admission of ignorance: the "magician" claims to know the forces he's dealing with well enough that he can manipulate them at will.No magician I ever saw/heard about was willing to say "I don't know".They claimed "mystery" but mystery is very different- it implies that the initiated knows, and only the uninitiated are ignorant.

@13:that is, until they find out that long-term intensive use causes harm....And then you'll see multi billion lawsuits.

Pyros, I'm trying to understand what you're proposing, and I'm very unsure I understand.Are you proposing out-and-out anarchy?Simply reforming the constitution from the ground up, keeping the good bits and throwing away deadwood?Something else?

Ebay claims that it doesn't know the item number...

I'm sorry, but it sounds like bullshit to me, for several reasons:

a)Generally speaking, the main thing infra-red radiance does is heat up the area, which will tend to accelerate cell metabolic processes and thus the creation of plaques(which are one of the big culprits implicated in Alzheimer's)

b)As far as anybody can determine, excepting some very narrow and specific areas of the brain neurons are impossible to replace, and since the problems in Alzheimer's come from accelerated death of neurons...

c)Plaques are a form of prion, and thus very resistant to any method of dissolution- whether by heat, acid or whatever, and they tend to cause the misfolding of other proteins into similar prions.

All in all- I won't hold my breath, although this is one instance in which I very much wish to be wrong.

@Takuan: The chances for error very much depend on the amount and nature of safety features that any system has.In potential using computers instead of humans to implement decisions can be very much safer- and don't make mistakes, this system just implement a decision via coordination of missile batteries and radars.I naturally don't know the details of the system, so I can't tell if there even a risk of it misidentifying a civilian plane as a missile- from a layman's perspective I would guess they're pretty easy to tell apart, by velocity and acceleration if nothing else.

@Takuan:The guy who pushed the button that made the system go from "ready" state to "kill" state, as well as the guy who ordered him to do so, if any, would be the ones who have to stand before the court.The human commander isn't removed from the loop, it's just that the human component is reduced by significant amount, allowing faster reaction time and better coordination.

As to the "pro every Israel policy":I'm definitely not that- there are many policies of my government that I have criticized in the past, and there will probably be many more in the future.What I mean by Pro and Anti bias is our "default" position on the spectrum:I tend to look on the positive while you tend towards the negative- optimist vs. pessimist if you will.

PS please reread the sentence under discussion(65) and think about what it implies about the people who make such "mistakes".I think you would understand my reaction.

@Takuan In addition:you continually say I misconstrue the sentence- would you please explain it in plainer language, although I am proficient in English it still is my second language.

Takuan, by that logic we should have had nuclear war ages ago- both the US and USSR had(and still have) massive nuclear arsenals, not to mention other smaller arsenals across the globe.What makes you think Israel will be less careful with this system?And yes, I am talking about Israel as a state/system because this system will be the one that determines who has access to the system.

As to ad-hom:for me "anti-Israel bias" isn't an ad-hom, it is a simple observation I make about you from the content of your post.If I cried "Antisemitism" it would be ad-hom, "anti-Israel" simply accepts that you have a position about Israel and its policies, the same as I'm unabashed of having "pro-Israel bias" and consider myself an Israeli patriot.We all have various biases:in addition to my pro-Israel bias I have a very strong pro-SF, pro-Technology and a mild anti-religious bias, and am unashamed of all three.

@Takuan: I wasn't thinking about "jew hater" as much as about "anti-Israel bias"

As to the passport thing:do you think just everyone will have access?The people with access will most probably vetted very carefully and belong to very high echelons, by implications you're both calling everybody in that department of the government of Israel stupid and murderous- stupid because you assume these (highly placed, presumably competent)people won't know the impact of a large number of civilian jets being destroyed by Israeli missile defense system on world opinion(murderous is obvious).There are many things I would call government officials here, but imbecilicaly stupid and murderous are definitely not on the list.

WN, although I agree with you about the overbursting of hysteria from Takuan's posts, and apparent anti-Israel bias on both his posts and TheDigression's sole post, Takuan at the very least isn't stupid in the least(hard to judge from one post, so I just assume TheDigression isn't a troll).Your own post shows a disturbing level of ignorance: for the most part these states aren't whipping up the mob in the street against Israel for religious reasons but so the dictators their have a scapegoat for all of their internal problems(Iran and Hizzballah being two probable exceptions).

As to giving back land, it is much more complicated then that, which you should know if you have any knowledge of the conflict, but the refusal of Arab states to allow Palestinian nationals to get citizenship and integrate into society if they wish to sure isn't helping.And I would take Wisdom and Practicality over Justice any day- much easier to live with the results(and yes, both sides never "lost an opportunity to lose an opportunity" as Abba Even's saying went).

De-escalation at every step:let me laugh now.Israel has escalated fighting in the past both for good reasons(preemptive attack) and bad ones(adventurism), and we do have our share of fanatics and extremists.As to "not killing the armies" what exactly do you think the IDF did to those armies?Pat them on the head and send them home?Of course the IDF kills people, that is part and parcel of being the military of a state at war- you make the other guy die for his state before he makes you die for yours.

@Gitaiba: I would use "Reshet" rather the "Kesher", rendering the meaning closer to the original.

@Takuan 65:You are aware that the way your sentence is structured implicates that you believe Israel would use it in such a way?As an Israeli I find it both abysmally ignorant and deeply offensive.

@43 I don't know if you noticed, but those "high explosive" warheads that are used in anti-missile missiles are quite small,comparatively.You don't need much to incapacitate a missile and/or change its course.If they'll hit a civilian aircraft there will be a lot of people killed, but such craft are unlikely in the sky during wartime, and the system wouldn't be active continuously.If they miss and land somewhere they'll do very little damage.

As to tactical nukes:these are likelier to be on the barrage heading into Israel.they're heavy, which makes the defensive missile both slower and less maneuverable, and so hamper its effectiveness very much.Add in the fact that at least some of the missiles will, by necessity, be intercepted above Israel and you get unacceptable damage.