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Use empty toilet paper rolls to take up the slack, that makes most cable messes a lot neater. Either for individual cables or for storage

Who gets to decide what is fair? Who decides what is ethical?

Personally I'd rather that be up to me rather than the government. The majority of corporations out there are ethical far beyond the standards required by law. Take for example, those who I know slashdot loves to target, big pharma, specifically Johnson and Johnson. When some psychopath put cyanide pills in the bottles and replaced them back on the shelf, they knew the incident was isolated to a very specific area. Yet just to be sure, they recalled all tylenol bottles across the US, costing them untold millions of dollars when there was really no ethical standard requiring it, rather they just wanted to be sure.

I trust private entities over the government. If you don't like them, you can always boycott them or disassociate yourself with them. If you boycott the government though, you go to jail.

I'm a libertarian because I believe that we know what is best for us, not the government. So what if somebody wants to drink soda or eat food with salt, that's their decision. Same thing if they want to own firearms. That doesn't mean I'm a republican either. I believe that marriage for example isn't something that the government should be involved in to begin with, and I also believe in the full legalization of all drugs, and legalization of brothels.

Here, have a look at some pictures of what happened when East Germany went from socialized ownership to privatized ownership:

http://www.petapixel.com/2012/05/08/photographs-of-east-germany-locations-captured-decades-apart/

You know why we eat high fructose corn syrup, where the rest of the world eats sugar? Because of sugar tariffs that are supposed to keep farmers jobs, even though they don't actually benefit them in any way. If the market decided what we ate, it would be sugar. Instead the government effectively tells us that we must eat high fructose corn syrup, or pay up.

That's why I'm a libertarian. I lose karma all the time for making libertarian statements on here, but so what, it's worth it.

iCam... Photoshopped? I've seen worse...

Link. Oh and he lives in Houston not Dallas:
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/05/25/photographer-threatened-with-lawsuit-after-protecting-his-copyright/

More information here: GoDaddy took down the entire account because she was a repeat offender, and this is their policy. Evidenced by the comment by Troy Heagy in the petapixel discussion.

Sorry, even the best applications of vision in robotics at the top universities and companies in the world are not this accurate.

Um, yes they are.

And funny you should mention the grain of salt since they built a camera that thin.

Those things are old hat. Here's one that was in the news recently: http://www.petapixel.com/2011/10/17/the-leica-gun-for-wildlife-and-sports-photography/ but virtually all the major camera and accessory makers have done something similar at one time or another.

In the 1850's, aluminum was much more precious than gold. At that time, the ore was believed to be so tightly bonded to other elements (mostly oxygen) that it was impossible to believe that they could be separated and to attempt it was folly. Charles Martin Hall figured it out and changed the world and made a fortune. The Wright brothers were not believed. Sometimes radical things happen in science that defy the common wisdom of the day.

Comments like this make me think of the Frazier Lens. All the scientists and experts in optics that he talked to said it was impossible to make a lens (or system of lenses) that had perfect focus at infinite depth of field. (Not sure if I have the correct terms - Everything is in focus no matter the distance from the lens.) He tinkered away in his garage and figured it out. Frazier Ultimate Lens

Sure, someone who wants to claim ownership of a picture would never be able to insert desired metadata in the file.

Sure, it has been done. Most notably demonstrated here. I only mentioned that the camera metadata protects me in case of a lawsuit.

There is a stock photography provider called Getty Images that looks for people that have been using their images without approval or payment. To those that infringe they send a RIAA-like letter offering a settlement if a fine is paid. I use a lot of stock photography (mostly through a different but well known and very legitimate site). When possible I use my own puny 6 megapixel camera (and sometimes my 3 megapixel droid) to take stock photos. I always proof that the photos are mine. These photos of mine save me a lot of money.

Even so I've gotten 1 photo infringement letter from a San Diego law firm informing me of pending action. Even though I knew I was right it was extremely worrisome. I did not want to fight the good fight and win a Pyrrhic victory by going bankrupt in legal fees. I sent full details to the firm about the photo, that it was mine, and that I had the raw camera footage for it (including one that had me in the picture). This was a little before camera metadata but that would have been additional proof to make it easier. Regardless I never heard from that firm again.

The point is that these features should be opt in and disabled by default

In a perfect world, yes. However this is not a perfect world so security measures need to be opt-out. All software security measures are opt-out. This includes everything from serial numbers that must be entered so that the software will work to phone-home information that is used by everything from on-line games to the latest version of MSOffice (it must contact MS online every 6 months or it stops working). If this wasn't done the pirates would be disrupting software sales more than they are. Right now pirates are honestly a major nuisance to software developers. If everything was opt-out by default it would be impossible.

However you never really address my original point - that being that these automatically enabled features are helpful and hardly hurt my freedom to do what I want. In fact those are helpful features.