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I'm not sure. It depends on how it's done. Poisoning the intended schematics would probably be discovered, although I'm not entirely convinced by that, but It seems it would be almost trivial to introduce hardware MITM components which would be invisible and go unnoticed by most people in the fabrication process.

Agreed. Sad to see that it hasn't been upvoted much.

To me the article was a very clear warning on the horrific state of software security and that no one should be under any illusions of how little protection they have. My tangible take away is what you've mentioned: stop using C.

Does anyone else think that they've lost control of this vehicle and that's why, despite it having re-entry capability, it isn't doing a lot of re-entering?

I think most cryptocurrencies will begin to shed their blockchains. They're beginning to get unweildly, especially for Bitcoin (17GB). There's no need to retain a list of all transactions. You only need a consistent set of balances.

Also the energy cost of mining is beginning to become a legitimate environmental concern. I think the new slew of proof of stake currencies are going to give the proof of work currencies a run for their money (pardon the pun).

You've posed some interesting questions.

> Then again, if an AI system can't understand how itself works, is it really intelligent?

This question is particularly interesting as it can be applied to us as well.

I think AI might well be a product of evolution. Having virtual organisms competing in an environment that rewards ever greater problem solving ability may lead to organisms that fear their own death and view other organisms as potential threats.

Pretty cool. Is it possible to have the sentiments ranked by frequency?

Hierarchy may be superior but I think it might be a bit early to declare holacracy a failure. Presumably there are a multitude of successful holacracies that we aren't hearing about because they are actually working.

It will be interesting to see statistics on law enforcement expenditure in Colorado.

I think you've missed the point which is to ridicule the criticism of crypto-currencies, not cash. Also the article talks about the properties of cash in general, not central banking.

The differences between the successes of north and south America has been explored by economists. One significant factor was the lack of property rights of south Americans. Basically traditional serfdom was exported to south America, whereas the people in the north were able to buy and own their land allowing them to become independently wealthy. Those in the south had to pass nearly all their wealth to the landlords.

There are also other factors like the dominant protestant work ethic in the north (i.e. that working hard is the best way to get close to God, as opposed to focusing on observing dogmatic traditions).

There was also a more established rule of law in the north and there are other differences. So although the potential for similar outcomes was there at the start when the Americas was being founded, they set off on wildly different trajectories.

Edit: I'd recommend reading Civilization by Niall Ferguson.

Just to be clear, he took an oath to defend the constitution and he appears to be one of very few people actually doing that.

Just to muddy the waters further, most people are at work when the sun is strongest leading some to recommend that home PV arrays should be orientated towards the evening sun. Of course if your home and work electricity grid is connected then this could be mitigated.

At the very least it looks like it is now essential to manually secure your router from firmware backdoors:

http://cryptome.org/2013/12/Full-Disclosure.pdf

Totally agree. This figure is ridiculous. I actually laughed out loud when I read it. Like anything the price is based on supply and demand. The supply is fairly predictable. The demand is a complete guess at the moment. A maximum market capitalization of $15Bn? Why? The 100 fold increase risks getting ahead of its fundamentals. What fundamentals? The nature of Bitcoin since its inception has been expotential growth. I'm not saying that will continue forever - it can't - but there's nothing to suggest that this rate of growth will stop when that value of a bitcoin reaches $1300.

Anyone can predict a change of a few percent in the short term and be correct to within 10%. But where does that get you? Which one of these financial analysis publications told their readers something useful, like in 2007 there's a financial crash coming or 2009 invest heavily in bitcoin? None.

Sorry, that was a bit ranty.

A QR code is a nice idea. Another solution could be to take a picture or a short video of the place you want the drone to leave the package. Machine vision technology is easily sophisticated enough to translate this into an accurate 3D model which could be correlated with known GPS information.

This kind of process will probably happening anyway for hazard avoidance.

Also I would imagine that the drone could be transmitting a live video feed. Anyone trying to steal/attack the drone would be recorded trying to do so.

If range is a problem (and I have to assume that Bezos and team are aware of the performance characteristics of current/near term drone tech) they don't have to limit themselves to batteries.

I (like many people) have had this idea an energy storage mechanism. Unfortunately gravity batteries have an extremely low energy density for weight [1] or volume and so are only really a valid choice for something that operates at the scale of a hydroelectric dam.

Heat batteries make more sense for energy storage at a household level, whether it's heating or cooling. They're smaller, can require almost no maintenance and have a much higher energy density.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Energy_densitie...

This method would still preserve a free market and not require top down control. In fact it could remove a great deal of government/bureaucracy.

I think the key would be to make sure that people are paid not too much so that the low paid, menial but essential jobs are still filled and inflation doesn't sky rocket.

The graph of library growth is stunning: http://modulecounts.com/

For all of JS quirks it is clearly getting something(s) very right.

I think a major reason for the indifference is ignorance. Many people here in the UK are not well informed on this issue. I'm shocked at how many people I've spoken to about this and they're only hearing it for the first time. Apart from the Guardian no major news outlet that I have seen has given this scandal any prominence. They have mostly acquiesced with the recommendation from our security services that they don't report on this issue. In my opinion another scandal in itself.

Another factor may be that people in this country don't think the risk of tyranny returning as credible. They don't believe that the danger posed by mass surveillance will ever be anything but hypothetical, that somehow a free society is our national destiny. This shocking complacency manages to both totally ignore human nature and the lesson from almost every history book ever written.

As a country I really hope we get real about these issues and that we stop taking our hard won civil liberties for granted. Ultimately they're the only things that can be trusted to truly protect our democracy.

I never clicked with Unity so I tried Linux Mint with Cinnamon. Don't regret it one bit.

A great way to expedite that transition is to disrespect them, treating them like your enemy when they're still your ally.

The US public expects the NSA to devote its resources to protecting it from foreign threats, like terrorists, not its allies.

True, but there are things that governments can do to influence how infationary/deflationary their currency is. Bitcoin by design cannot be influenced in this way. Once the production of new bitcoins end (which is guaranteed by its algorithm), then it is highly likely there will be deflation, possibly a deflationary spiral.

Sorry to be a grump but I think we're actually worse off for having these very shallow and simplistic analyses of data. Also, patent != innovation.

That being said aesthetically it's very pleasing and with some rigour there might be something of value here.

If we do, we need to make sure there are clear limits to their powers, which are respected and enforced.

Who cares what percentage of the total internet traffic is monitored? This is a totally disingenuous metric to put forward. Most of the traffic on the internet is not meant to be private. Most of the traffic probably even isn't created by humans.

Interesting metrics to debate:

What percentage of American emails are recorded by the NSA? 0.0004% or 100%? What percentage of American phone calls are recorded by the NSA? 0.0004% or 100%? What percentage of American text messages are recorded by the NSA? 0.0004% or 100%?

I find it weird how this story/event/business is positioned. Basically Zynga is a collection of mostly similar games. All popular games follow the same life cycle. If a game is good, people play the game. The game becomes popular. Then people get bored of the game, and they stop playing. I feel sorry for people, especially those at Zynga, who didn't see this.