Not always big but ALWAYS heavy.

When it comes to kinetic projectiles, MASS matters (as mass has a direct effect on inertia, which in turn contributes to your penetrating force). So even if you don't want your kinetic penetrator to necessarily be big, you DO want it to be DENSE. That's why the penetrator itself (not counting the sabot that lets it fit into the gun barrel) is usually a solid slug of tungsten carbide (tungsten's denser than even lead) or even depleted uranium (about as dense as you can get naturally).

Probably be a while.

There aren't that many, and it uses unique ammo. It's not like you can hop down to a local ammo dump and acquire stuff that'll work in this thing. Much like Confederate soldiers getting their hands on the odd Union gun during the Civil War. Only one problem—Union guns had a different chamber and Confederate ammo wouldn't fit.

Mortars...

...aren't nearly as precise as the XM-25's rounds. And their very nature makes them rather difficult to get the range right, especially if the situation calls for a one-shot hit. The XM-25 can also be reliable shot at low angles, whereas mortars tend to be lobbed, making them less than ideal for urban combat.

Give them credit.

The Army's not THAT dumb, and they understand the constraints of budget (thus why modern M-16s can't fire more than a three-shot burst at a time--to conserve ammo). In its current setup, the XM-25 is a SQUAD weapon, not a soldier weapon. Much like having a heavy machine gunner in the squad, now (or instead) you have a specialist gunner wielding this weapon to handle tactical situations.

Another reason for this gun.

It's a little easier for the GroPos to be able to distinguish the friendlies from the enemies since they likely were the first to encounter the enemies and usually have a better idea of their location, not like the chopper crews who fly into the scene later on and have to look from a greater distance.

Thing is...

You have to be somewhere to FIRE the thing. And once your location's pinned down, this thing could come in handy. Hidden inside a building? Airburst through the window. Down in a trench? Airburst overhead. Behind rocks? Airburst behind them. The phrase "you can't hide" seems to be the driving force behind this weapon design.

Not really.

It's just that you have to understand how Americans speak dates. We always say "month day, year" the same way that we write it down. Don't know why we switched, but we're used to it, so our date terminology is consistent as far as Americans are concerned. And we consider it succinct: no extra "of"s to say.

I think your paragraph below sums up what some people like us are looking to see:

"Well, if you use that horrible definition for intelligence, no wonder you are unable to apply it to anything. Try this one on for size: the ability to learn -- or in more task-oriented language: the ability to 1) create strategies for dealing with a task, 2) test those strategies in a meaningful manner, 3) select and refine the successful strategies for application to the defined task, and 4) generalize those strategies for analogous tasks as well. Most AI nowadays can actually do 2 and 3 quite well, but need human intervention for 1 and 4. On a scientific note, intelligence defined this way IS measurable (although it takes careful testing and long-term observation) and meaningful."

Solving the cube is cool, but let's see such a device put up against the same cube but with only the basic rules on how the cube works. No advance knowledge of solving techniques: just you, the cube, and the mechanics of it all. If a machine can solve the cube using only that much information (the same amount as anyone seeing the cube for the first time), THEN we'd be witnessing something really interesting. Similarly, if our CSII were to be put up against a cube where the colors are different or are patterned rather than coloured (or better yet, able to determine that the cube has been tampered and is in fact unsolvable) and can determine the right course of action accordingly, then we'd be seeing something novel.

Plus there's Encryption.

Routers (in fact, any form of packet sniffer) can do sod all against encrypted connections since (by design) only the endpoints know what is inside.

On top of that...

...how do you know the write-protected media you're using wasn't compromised BEFORE it was write-protected? There have been a few instances of trojaned PRESSED CDs (which are by design read-only) because an unknown trojan somehow managed to get into the gold disc production process and passed everything on into the press.

Thing is...

The mobile and tablet markets threaten to be a market DISRUPTOR. The only thing that would scare a market incumbent more than a market competitor is a market disruptor. Because that means the ENTIRE market, not just your share of it, is under threat. Put it this way. What if mobile and tablet computing were to take over the home. Instead of playing games and whatnot on PCs on desks, they took control of their tellys and played games off their tablets through OnLive or the like? Intel can't get a chip in edgewise in the phone and tablet markets, and if people buy more phones and tablets and fewer home PCs, their chip sales start dropping.

And now the enterprise market is looking into tablets. iPads are starting to appear in offices and so on, since they more closely resemble Star-Trek-esque PADDs and make the "paperless office" concept of the 80's more realistic (since you're not just reading the document, you're HOLDING it). And with cloud computing taking off, there is another chance for the thin client (which doesn't require a specific chipset) to take over the office cubible. There goes more Intel chip sales.

About the only stalwart left for Intel is the datacentre, where power efficiency is a key factor but throughput still rules (time is LITERALLY money, aka profits, here--saving energy money doesn't help if you it's offset by lost throughput profits). This is where ARM or some other company of its like still hasn't established itself. If someone can pull off Intel-level amounts of performance per second and STILL draw less power, then Intel better start praying.

And as the article notes, don't expect Microsoft to help Intel this time. With their announcement of supporting ARM in Windows 8, Microsoft is clearly hedging its bet this time.

Here's the egg.

Why hasn't Mozilla and company pushed support for TLS 1.1 and such ALREADY? And supporting TLS 1.2 is non-trivial since there are numerous implementation changes such as changing over to SHA-256.

It's TWO problems.

Not only do many browsers not support the latest TLS protocols, bur neither do the servers. And upgrading them to capable servers is non-trivial, presenting a chicken/egg problem: providers won't plunk down for the upgrade unless they HAVE to, but without a critical mass of supporting browsers, they won't FEEL they have to.

Desalination plants.

Desalination plants are not new. Trouble is, they're expensive. As for solar desalination, they've always had problems with scale...and scale (as in efficiency and maintenance). Using solar desalination exclusively for a sprawling metropolis like Los Angeles, California would be, to borrow a term, Brobdingnagian in size, not to mention fickle (as is any weather-dependent process) and potentially dangerous.

I don't think seeing all six sides are necessary, given the restrictions on the placements of colors once you know the configurations of some of them. I once saw a Commodore program that could solve the cube (albeit, not in the most efficient manner) simply by inputting the spots on the top face. One or two cameras would be all that is needed, with software trained to recognize the colors at specific positions.

Almost.

Bluetooth and USB connections weren't built with security and least privilege in mind. I think Intel envisions that this "PDA of the future" will hold all your personal data but will also be built to limit access to that data. If you tell a rental GPS to look up a contact, it requests the information but only gets back the list. When told to retrieve a contact, the GPS should only get back the address, maybe the phone number if it's call-capable. The necessary infrastructure to enact least privilege on personal data isn't yet in place, and it will be a necessary step towards this level of interactivity.

Most likely ARM.

Main advantage is that TV makers can pick and choose, with only modest overhead. With so many ARM-based designs from so many outlets, with varying degrees of performance, scale, power efficiency, etc. plus a well-established coding base for the various incarnations and a competitive market, it seems Intel simply became the odd one out in that particular arena.

Because that's not in the terms of the copyright.

You pay for a piece of the software. That let you use the piece of software. But you don't know how it's built just as you don't get the blueprints for the motorcar you drive.

Price differences.

It may be £200 in the UK, but the same tablet in the US, Wi-Fi only, runs closer to $300. not including S&H nor tax if you're in the wrong state. That's a 50% premium over the ad-supported fire and still $50 more (IINM) over the ad-free version. $300 is still rather the "maybe" territory for most people.

It forbade yeast...

...because yeast wasn't properly understood until the middle of the 19th century. Once Bavarians had a handle of just WHY wort fermented, the law was amended to account for the newfound knowledge. These days, the adherence to the law is seen as a sign of regional pride and tradition, but they don't look down on people who experiment elsewhere and come up with something good. After all, Weissbier (wheat beer) is brewed in Germany, just not in Bavaria.

Debatable.

After all, the Integrated Circuit had been around since the late 50's, before Kennedy took office. There was a cost-savings motive for developing it, since you used less materials and could mass-produce more easily. Many of the space program innovations revolved around low-power electronics due to the limited power capacity of the lunar craft, and low-power tech has only become in vogue pretty recently when phones and tablets produced another need for low-power electronics.

That's not the issue.

The 9 bit is rather a tradition with a bit of psychology mixed in. Most people see $199, equate it to $200 and let it go at that. It's the fact that it's $200 tablet that's NOT a cheap knock-off from K-Mart--compared to the iPads which are SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive--that's turning heads. For most consumer electronics, US-wise, $200 tends to be the magic number that turns it from luxury to common item (then at $100 you drop further to basic necessity--BluRay players are reaching that point as more media starts going BluRay-only).

But what happens...

...if the copycat is savvy enough to realize what you're doing and try to LEAPFROG you. IOW, while you work on the second generation, he finds a way to go straight to the THIRD generation?

Pretty much what I figured.

This analysis pretty much reinforces my hypothesis and also explains why Amazon can be cavalier about not locking down the Firmware on its Fire. Selling at a small loss can be seen as an investment into getting more customers. Furthermore, rooted Fires can still visit Amazon's store, since Amazon has an Android App already: both for its store and for the Kindle books.

To which some of us reply...

"Who ______ cares?" If Amazon is a bit cavalier about the attitude of rooting the Fire, there's a fair hint that Amazon isn't too concerned about hardware losses, meaning it's probably selling very close to cost either way, meaning at best they make a little bit with each sale and at worst they take a slight hit that's easily recovered with e-book sales that can still be made on rooted Fires (since Android already has the Kindle Reader in its marketplace). Meanwhile, a potent $200 7-inch WiFi tablet at least piques my interest. Perhaps not now, but a little later on after a little hands-on time I may get one and root it myself so I can put in additional readers such as for PDFs. Amazon, you have my attention...

Point taken...

...but we must remember the original reason for the patent system in the first place. Because without the ability to protect against copycats, inventors wouldn't have the motivation to invent. The last thing an inventor wants is to pour their heart, soul, and life savings into something truly special...only for someone else to take one of the new items in question, take it apart to learn how it's made, and then go ahead and build their own copy (without all the R&D expense).

Why use Google Wallet?

Apple could take the enemy-of-my-enemy approach and puts its weight behind PayPal and Isis instead.

SOME were private...

...but the most important expeditions were almost-always state-sponsored. Expeditions were expensive, especially if it fails, so you needed a backer with enough cash to be able to take a gamble...and still be around if he lost, and you can't get much richer than a state treasury. Europe in the 15th century was in a "sea race", if you will: trying to colonize territories holding valuable resources to exploit. The Portuguese expeditions down Africa and eventually around the Horn were all motivated by people like Prince Henry (stood to reason, too; no Mediterranean access, so the only way to go was south). Christopher Columbus's expedition to find the far east via the back door was 2/3rd funded by Spain, who gambled on him because by then Portugal had already secured the Africa route. And once the Spanish realized they had virgin territory, they sent ships galore there: practically all state-sponsored.

All good things end eventually...

...even exploration. Once you've been to a place a hundred times and back, it becomes rather dull and dreary. Those first trips to the moon and such were exciting because they were novel. But now near-earh-orbit's just part of the neighborhood, and if you want to go much beyond that, you're gonna need some SERIOUS boodle. Plus, it's hostile territory out there, so the risks are higher than before.

Privilege Escalation

Don't those two words kinda make the whole point moot? Given a Privilege Escalation exploit, all they have to do is run at any level and you're pwned. Just one more hurdle for the malware writer to clear. It's the big hurdle with Windows Vista/Windows 7 now--getting past their version of the Admin guard: the Universal Access Control. AFAIK, no one's been able to get past UAC directly from userland on 64-bit Win7 yet.

Not anymore.

Because in terms of population and global reach we've likely already passed the event horizon. A large chunk of human society is basically being reduced to crap. Now all that awaits is the inevitable kiss of the fan blades.

What man can use for good...

...man can use for ill. Picture your scenario. Guaranteed, a malware will come along, able to hijack the keyboard and USB bus on low-level, and make out like it's you monkeying with the key registry. Purpose? To add a malware's signing key to the registry. Now it can safely take over the boot sector. Next time the machine boots, it sees the malware boot sector...but it signed and the key's known. KABOOM! Remember, SIGNED malware already exists. It can happen again.

You missed the boat there...

...by about 200 years. Unless the creationists are willing to bet that Satan was as omniscient as God to be able to put forth ALL the fake geologic clues scatted all throughout the world (showing the various strata that record the eras), not to mention the fact that some strata are known to go UNDER mountains that evidence points to have been formed over MILLIONS of years. Plus, our space-borne knowledge showing pretty good evidence that God didn't create the universe (seeing as the Earth isn't at the center of it--and Satan would certainly have no abilities beyond God's), poking some more holes in the creationist hypothesis. Basically, creationists have some explaining to do. At least the scientists are doing just that: providing an explanation. Sure, they made a wrong turn here, but not concerning the theory: just one facet of it. There are still other candidates to consider.

Yes, you're allowed to leave...

...only in doing so you immediately jeopardize your prospects of being allowed back the following day. In an era where job security is rapidly dwindling to zero, and where global competition is basically drawing the worker's norm down to "slavery or starvation--your choice", most workers (especially temps, as the article notes) have to weigh their actions carefully.

Point taken.

The thunder, of course, is the result of the static electric arc that is the actual lightning bolt (think of lightning as a close encounter with a doorknob on a dry day--magnified millions-fold) rapidly superheating the surrounding air, resulting in a pressure wave that reaches us as high-amplitude, low-frequency sound much like a big drum hit really hard.

The firing of a high-energy laser beam in atmosphere has the potential to produce a similar effect: depending on the circumstances of the beam and atmosphere.

Permissions Piggybacking?

Just curious. Has any Android malware been found that exploits the fact that the app it's disguised as actually has a legitimate use for whatever service(s) it happens to need to do its nefarious business? What about bait-and-switches where apps that begin legitimate (and have the appropriate permissions for valid reasons) are later updated into malware but with no permissions change?

Geometric complexity.

The problem is that the number of possible permutations balloons with just one additional byte. Each one multiplies the total possible combinations by 2^8, or 256. Put in perspective, to actually store the two-byte words of every single 16-bit possibility from 0 to 65535 would require 2 x 65536B, or 128KiB (this from just 16 bits--double it and you leapfrog Mebibyte into Gibibyte territory).

Then I suggest you look up...

...hydroelectric dam incidents (think Banqiao Dam), power pool inundation (think Aswan Dam), radioactive coal exhausts, acid rain, and tailings and other coal waste dams, for starters. To be honest, I strongly suspect NO source of power is a free lunch. I'll bet even fusion, should it come in our generation, will have strings attached.

But then you hit a wall...

The fewer people you need for work, the fewer people you can employ. It's like having a 100,000 eligible workers (which is growing due to lack of population controls) and only 80,000 practical jobs available (which is shrinking due to increased efficiencies). With all other markets already balanced, and barring a market disruptor, where do you reach the point where you realize you have a grossly imbalanced labor system?

It also leads to Simulation Sickness

Unless the VR visor is VERY accurate in following the movements of your head on all three axes, your eyes will start to conflict with the rest of your senses because the information fed by your eyes won't match up with, say, your ears. The end result is the dreaded "simulation sickness": motion sickness while standing/sitting still. That's a big reason most VR visors don't completely obscure your outside view; with at least a reference to reality visible, the eyes have a chance to recognize the VR image for what it really is (a simulation) and ignore it, keeping your eqilibrium intact.

Because the console isn't the real money.

It's the games that make the money for console makers. But homebew environments disrupt this model by making it less likely you actually BUY games for the console (that is, OFFICIAL games that earn the console maker the big licensing bucks).

What about the blind?

Blind people can't use randomized keypads and instead must rely on the bump on the 5 to help them figure out the layout of the keypad (and yes, ATMs have to accommodate the blind--by law; that's why they have Braille instructions). Blind people MUST type by touch.

Wanna bet?

Thousands of computers in a Botnet means thousands of potential Bitcoin wallets. If the 50BTC goes to a different Bot each time, which is then forwarded to the Botherder (and BTW, pure Bitcoin transactions are DESIGNED to be damn near impossible to block if both parties are willing), then how will Bitcoin be able to tell the difference? Plus, a Botnet minig pool with enough power becomes ahead of the curve if the POW puzzle gets inevitably harder.