Yeah that was basically my point. But although it's been a while since I read the bible, I know it says we are all sinners, but I don't remember that applying to pre-birth (particularly because nearly nothing does... the times). Do you know where it says that? If not, it's fine, but I'd still have to agree with you on that God is just thing (otherwise this whole discussion is pointless), so what's the big deal? What makes me so suspicous of the the anti-abortion crowd (among others) is that is seems that (perhaps excepting yourself), they haven't thought through any of these issues. It's a bit of "you mean to tell me you get that upset over abortion, but you can't be bothered to think about it at more than a first grade level?" Which suggests to me other motives.
And also, fwiw, I'm pretty sure that the metaphorical interpretation of the creation story is more prevalent then you think. There are many Christian scientists obviously, and you can't be a scientist if you think dinosaur bones were planted to fool with us, and that carbon dating is baloney.
I think you're right that they do know, but you're wrong about your conclusion. I mean come on, I think dell can handle mailing a bunch of disks. I'm pretty sure they don't move _that_ many computers without having some logistic skill. Anyhow, I think this is a carefully worded lie. They just don't want to come out and say they know the drivers aren't up to par, because that would embarrass people they use and depend on. So they can't mail the disks, because they are fully aware that users will have a substandard experience that will reflect badly on them, but its easier to say they "don't know" then to say yeah, there are problems, some of these are bad.
Well, on that abortion thing, to be fair to you I probably did over generalize. I guess it's really the anti-stem cell people that I'd be able to nail best. Anyhow, I'm still not sure that your abortion stance makes sense. I mean, fewer than 25% of zygotes become people due to entirely natural causes. I'm pretty sure that doesn't keep you awake at night. But if abortion is wrong, then we have a terrible tragedy on our hands, and more people are dying (children even) all the time than the nazis ever killed, or whoever's killing all those people in Darfur, etc. So at the very least, it's not a well thought out stance. And even ignoring my previous point, don't the zygotes die sinless, and therefore go to heaven? I'm not trying to be rude, particularly because I appreciate intelligent debate on this type of stuff. So what's your answer?
No, they didn't miss a golden opportunity, and in fact it would have been a major blunder had they done anything other than what they did, which was politely say that they support Russia's ability to make its own decision. Can you imagine what a disaster it would be if they set a precedent for letting people off the hook, if it seemed like the right thing to do? Now MS would be inundated with similar requests, from single moms, other teachers, etc, and what then? Either they let those people off too, and now get even _more_ requests, or they (publicly) say no to them. So their choice was say no once, and don't start anything, or choose to say no many many times later on (or constantly have to examine these individual cases, and waste a lot of time and money, which is no option at all). So sorry, it was kind of cold of them, but any other choice would be so stupid as to border on the insane. Welcome to the world of the corporate.
At the end there you said that they hate evolution because it justifies immorality. Is that really it? I always had that stance on abortion, that the reason they hate abortion has nothing to do with fetuses and everything to do with hating young, promiscuous girls and not wanting them to be able to escape from (what they consider) their deserved consequences.
But where is the connection with evolution? It would have to be a sort of statement of immorality being a survival trait, or that immorality is inherent to the universe, both of which seem overly complicated for what isn't really an intellectual side to take. Evolution complaints, near as I can tell, are about it undermining the authority of God and the Bible, plain and simple. So imho, the best way to convince people to allow themselves to be educated is to convince them to to treat the creation story as metaphorical, i.e. that yes oceans were first... and then there were some animals... and finally came people. It's not entirely honest from a purely atheistic standpoint, but it's a pretty good compromise. So give that a shot too.
Interestingly enough, in nearly all states the penalties for kidnapping equal or exceed the penalties for murder (particularly if it's not first degree). So the same goes for if someone is trying to kidnap you... there's no compelling for them to leave you alive, and in fact there are a lot of compelling reasons for them not to, so you should do your best to escape. Not that that will probably ever be useful information for any of us, but it is somewhat interesting (at least imo).
That's actually more insightful than funny, in my opinion. If I buy a laptop that burns my house down, you think I really want store credit? The worst thing is that I suspect it's actually profitable for the "losing" company when coupons are forced. Customers are drawn back to someone they never would have bought from again because bargains are attractive. Some punishment.
Library computers shouldn't be used for myspace, but nevertheless this is no place for the law. Have it be library policy, and give the library tools to enforce it, i.e. throwing people out, then banning them, and then trespassing carries hefty enough penalties that I'm sure it will be fine. The desire to fine people or (worse) criminalize them for things that annoy you when far less severe measures are available and effective is just plain wrong. We don't need anymore criminals in this country, and we don't need anymore people thinking that it's ok to fine them a couple hundred dollars for browsing a website when they're not supposed to. It's just a site.
And to the extent that, in good slashdot tradition, I didn't read the article, this statement should be intrepeted as broader than this specific instance. I.e. I don't know what the actual suggested "consequence" of violation would be, so MMMV here.
Hmmm but how's this for a flaw. All (nearly) the super high energy impacts between cosmic rays and our atmosphere happen out in the thermosphere, which is thousands of times less dense than the atmosphere where we are, and even less dense than all the tables, ground etc. Since the perceived safety of these black holes comes from the fact that mass/energy emitted through hawking radiation > mass/energy consumed from surroundings, wouldn't changing the amount of mass in the hole's surroundings be significant? IANAPP, but it's not entirely honest to pretend that conditions are the same where the collider is and at the edge of our atmosphere. Although I suppose the shear number of (assumed) natural interactions would imply that ones with similar conditions had occurred... but I don't actually know the answer to that. Either way, I can't help but get the impression that we're really putting our balls on the table with this one.
Isn't scientific shortsitedness a frequent complain on slashdot? I just don't feel like there's enough skepticism directed at the claims of safety. Not because I neccassarily thing they're wrong, but because big claims require big evidence, and these are big claims (Black hole, safe?).
There's that key word "represented". As a college student, I can tell you I felt much much better on average once I stopped eating cheap processed crap that pretended to be healthy and started cooking for myself. It was a good trade of for me, I guess is what I'm saying.
Although it sort of defeats the purpose if all you make is a cheese pizza.
The plans are kind of stupid on the whole, but (no offense) so is yours. After 100's if not thousands of years of countless people saying "but if we just used less" with regard to common resources and being ignored, you'd think they'd stop suggesting it.
Look at it this way: anyone that's predisposed to use less for no return to themselves is selected against evolutionarily. So it's not surprising that things have turned out this way. PEOPLE ARE NOT, AND NEVER WILL BE, THAT ALTRUISTIC. MOVE ON.
It would be nice, just like it would be nice if people weren't violent, but unfortunately they are, and we need to realize that stepping backwards as a race or nation is a last ditch solution, not the first. Even if SUV drivers are annoying.
This is true, and even includes known insurgents. While I think it's a mistake that soldiers sometimes wind up in beds next to the person that just shot them, I'm proud that this is one of the areas where America still has moral highground. We're not the city on the hill that often anyone, sadly. I wonder what the recidivism rate is of American-treated insurgents. Any frequent Time/Newsweek reader know the answer to that?
Er.. you tried to prove that long guns constitute a significant amount of crime by naming three annecdotal stories. It's great that they made the news and left an impression on you, but a naming a few incidents is entirely meaningless other than proving that the number of incidents is nonzero. For all I know the actual statistics support you, but I hate all the misinformation and illogic that talk of gun control seems to breed, and let's not encourage that.
For better or worse (with respect to America's view on terror) I'm glad these guys got hammered. If it takes the vindictiveness of city officials to put an end to what amounts to corporate littering, that's fine with me. I hate the idea that a wealthy corp that can easily handle fines designed for highschool and college kids takes advantage of said legal situation and puts crap like this around town. I don't have young kids, but if I did, driving past a moonite flicking us off that I knew was somonee's illegal ad campaign would annoy the hell out of me. And don't forget, they put these things on private property too. So if one good thing comes of all this, maybe it will be that these ad agencies will stop this "guerilla marketing" crap, and stop paying kids to commit crimes on their behalf. The whole thing annoys the shit out of me. This is largely tangental to the terror idiocy, however.
Right but my point was that at some point monetary loss _is_ physical damage (I think damage fits better here than abuse). Does it really matter how you die? Cancer is just as final as a clip of bullets, and frequently as painful. It just doesn't have the emotional pull.
They could just post complaints on slashdot. But seriously, I don't know why more attention isn't payed to managerial malice. How many companies have we seen suffer because leadership knows long term problems are irrelevant as they plan on using their golden parashute before then?
And for the IT thing again though, it's not a good idea to commit crimes when you are one of only a few with capability, oppurtunity, and motive. So the hands of your average IT worker are generally pretty tied. Hence the slashdot posting.
Depends on how you measure it. Your phrasing makes it seem obvious (hence you 5). But what if I say that spam costs the US 10's billions in lost time every year, and oh let me ad that for 50 dollars a year you can save someone starving in bangladesh (or wherever you like to be frank). Reducing the size of the global or national economic pie _does_ kill people, just not as directly. Remember, the only reason our life expectancies are so high here are because we have the money to pay for crap like antibiotics and transplants and life support machines etc etc. Money is important.
Whether jailing people that contribute to it in this way is right, well that's another debate entirely. Just wanted to point out that spam is something to be pretty upset about, even if inconvenience itself doesn't upset you.
Hmm... where could we find that kind of money... If people cared about public works, and actual societal improvement instead of entertainment improvement, it would get done.
It's not about the nationallity of it. It's because the whole slant is that there are "bad people" among us (illegal aliens and the terrorrists), and that the way we can fight them is by knowing who everyone is at all time. Then (so they say) something like the no fly list might actually be effective. This is a bit offensive because it's only effective if we _always_ know who everyone is. If the whole point is that individuals can never hide from past (terrorrist) activities, or from the fact that they don't live here... then the downside of that is we now live closer to a paper's please society, where people are owned by their pasts, and can't go anywhere or do anything without proving that they're "legit" with their papers.
So it's not the standardization. In fact, I think that part is good and sort of a no brainer. What's the point of me having to confuse people out here in California because I have a New Hampshire driver's license? One could argue about the danger's of a monoculture from a security standpoint, but because all states honor eachother's licenses, it's irrelevant. Anyhow, the danger lies in its attempted pervasiveness, not in its efficiency.
And don't think the states care about that (except maybe NH from what I've seen, live free or die baby). The opposition is largely from the fact that the huge burden of funding the change falls entirely on state shoulders, and it's money they don't have, and aren't interested in spending.
I don't actually think this is true. The DMCA (IIRC) has provisions for "derivative works," and I suspect his argument (and he'd be right) is that these attempts fall under that category. Unfortunate, but that's the way the law was written.
I hate to be mean, but this is in no way insightful. You really think "terrorists" are stupid and uninformed enough to need someone's map censorship to tell them what is important infrastructure? Anyone with the resources to blow up a bridge or an embassy probably already knows what a bridge and embassy are, and where they are. Or do you think someone is going to get on google earth looking for blurs, then load up his truck with explosives and start driving? Rediculous.
I'm amazed that apparently enough people to mod you to a 4 think that the locations of important infrastrucure is somehow particularly "secret," and omg this is a huge exploit!
Space exploration is cool in all, and I too find a moon base exciting. But you realize you couldn't come up with any real benefits to humanity? Iron mining? Come on. And if you think shipping waste at 10k/kilo up to the moon so we don't put it in the ground is a solution, I'm happy to tell you you're wrong. I mean, hell, if you're going to give the waste enough energy to escape earth, why put it on the moon, where there are (in this thought experiment) people? Didn't we spend an exorbitant amount of money to get rid of it for good? Do some math and shoot it into deep space, out of the SS.
Except for indulging our romantacism, which is not neccassarily bad, I mean really what else are we alive for, there are few good reasons to have a base on the moon, and that's the sad fact. Humanity could survive a catacylsmic event, that's one. Maybe the low g's and cheap cooling, or very small atmosphere has some chemistry benefits (that exceed a space station?). Other than that, I've never heard a convincing argument about what is valuable up there (and hopefully nuclear will take over so don't bring up solar power).
Maybe the moon is half made out of gold though one you get down a few feet. Here's to hoping.
Actually there is a more important feature of youtube that makes it attractive piracy-wise. It's completely anonymous, so you don't have to worry about getting a DMCA letter from your ISP. Having gotten said letter from a BT download (I also noticed Jerry from PA got one:D) let me tell you this is a fairly significant benefit. Youtube is pretty useless in many regards, but in terms of Comedy Central content (which is so widely available on it), it is piracy done right.
None of this of course has anything to do with whether Youtube is hurting Viacom's bottom line, which I suspect it is not. Catching the best of Colbert and Jon is good advertisement.
Well you may not be able to monitor them all the time, but they have brains of their own so you can hopefully teach them so that you don't need to. I'm young enough to have been a minor on "the internets" and as long as you aren't ultimately meeting someone in person, its about as safe as you can get. I mean you're in your damn house for chrissake. All of that internet related paranoia comes from watching to much scaremongering news. Teach your kids not to meet strangers out doors (the don't get into any vans for candy lesson), and it'll be fine. If your real fear is that they might lose some of their innocense become you can't control what they see, then that's a different issue entirely. But there are hardly any real safety issues.
And careful what rights you take away. Few would argue with limiting access to (say) firearms or tobacco, but sheltering your kids so they don't grow up faster than you want them to can be unhealthy. Unless they're really too stupid to make the right decision even after you explain it to them, don't just invoke authority and tell them too damn bad on what they want to do or see. Makes them bad citizens when they grow up and the govment does the same thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah that was basically my point. But although it's been a while since I read the bible, I know it says we are all sinners, but I don't remember that applying to pre-birth (particularly because nearly nothing does... the times). Do you know where it says that? If not, it's fine, but I'd still have to agree with you on that God is just thing (otherwise this whole discussion is pointless), so what's the big deal? What makes me so suspicous of the the anti-abortion crowd (among others) is that is seems that (perhaps excepting yourself), they haven't thought through any of these issues. It's a bit of "you mean to tell me you get that upset over abortion, but you can't be bothered to think about it at more than a first grade level?" Which suggests to me other motives.
And also, fwiw, I'm pretty sure that the metaphorical interpretation of the creation story is more prevalent then you think. There are many Christian scientists obviously, and you can't be a scientist if you think dinosaur bones were planted to fool with us, and that carbon dating is baloney.
I think you're right that they do know, but you're wrong about your conclusion. I mean come on, I think dell can handle mailing a bunch of disks. I'm pretty sure they don't move _that_ many computers without having some logistic skill. Anyhow, I think this is a carefully worded lie. They just don't want to come out and say they know the drivers aren't up to par, because that would embarrass people they use and depend on. So they can't mail the disks, because they are fully aware that users will have a substandard experience that will reflect badly on them, but its easier to say they "don't know" then to say yeah, there are problems, some of these are bad.
Well, on that abortion thing, to be fair to you I probably did over generalize. I guess it's really the anti-stem cell people that I'd be able to nail best. Anyhow, I'm still not sure that your abortion stance makes sense. I mean, fewer than 25% of zygotes become people due to entirely natural causes. I'm pretty sure that doesn't keep you awake at night. But if abortion is wrong, then we have a terrible tragedy on our hands, and more people are dying (children even) all the time than the nazis ever killed, or whoever's killing all those people in Darfur, etc. So at the very least, it's not a well thought out stance. And even ignoring my previous point, don't the zygotes die sinless, and therefore go to heaven? I'm not trying to be rude, particularly because I appreciate intelligent debate on this type of stuff. So what's your answer?
No, they didn't miss a golden opportunity, and in fact it would have been a major blunder had they done anything other than what they did, which was politely say that they support Russia's ability to make its own decision. Can you imagine what a disaster it would be if they set a precedent for letting people off the hook, if it seemed like the right thing to do? Now MS would be inundated with similar requests, from single moms, other teachers, etc, and what then? Either they let those people off too, and now get even _more_ requests, or they (publicly) say no to them. So their choice was say no once, and don't start anything, or choose to say no many many times later on (or constantly have to examine these individual cases, and waste a lot of time and money, which is no option at all). So sorry, it was kind of cold of them, but any other choice would be so stupid as to border on the insane. Welcome to the world of the corporate.
At the end there you said that they hate evolution because it justifies immorality. Is that really it? I always had that stance on abortion, that the reason they hate abortion has nothing to do with fetuses and everything to do with hating young, promiscuous girls and not wanting them to be able to escape from (what they consider) their deserved consequences.
But where is the connection with evolution? It would have to be a sort of statement of immorality being a survival trait, or that immorality is inherent to the universe, both of which seem overly complicated for what isn't really an intellectual side to take. Evolution complaints, near as I can tell, are about it undermining the authority of God and the Bible, plain and simple. So imho, the best way to convince people to allow themselves to be educated is to convince them to to treat the creation story as metaphorical, i.e. that yes oceans were first... and then there were some animals... and finally came people. It's not entirely honest from a purely atheistic standpoint, but it's a pretty good compromise. So give that a shot too.
Interestingly enough, in nearly all states the penalties for kidnapping equal or exceed the penalties for murder (particularly if it's not first degree). So the same goes for if someone is trying to kidnap you... there's no compelling for them to leave you alive, and in fact there are a lot of compelling reasons for them not to, so you should do your best to escape. Not that that will probably ever be useful information for any of us, but it is somewhat interesting (at least imo).
Cheers.
That's actually more insightful than funny, in my opinion. If I buy a laptop that burns my house down, you think I really want store credit? The worst thing is that I suspect it's actually profitable for the "losing" company when coupons are forced. Customers are drawn back to someone they never would have bought from again because bargains are attractive. Some punishment.
Library computers shouldn't be used for myspace, but nevertheless this is no place for the law. Have it be library policy, and give the library tools to enforce it, i.e. throwing people out, then banning them, and then trespassing carries hefty enough penalties that I'm sure it will be fine. The desire to fine people or (worse) criminalize them for things that annoy you when far less severe measures are available and effective is just plain wrong. We don't need anymore criminals in this country, and we don't need anymore people thinking that it's ok to fine them a couple hundred dollars for browsing a website when they're not supposed to. It's just a site.
And to the extent that, in good slashdot tradition, I didn't read the article, this statement should be intrepeted as broader than this specific instance. I.e. I don't know what the actual suggested "consequence" of violation would be, so MMMV here.
Hmmm but how's this for a flaw. All (nearly) the super high energy impacts between cosmic rays and our atmosphere happen out in the thermosphere, which is thousands of times less dense than the atmosphere where we are, and even less dense than all the tables, ground etc. Since the perceived safety of these black holes comes from the fact that mass/energy emitted through hawking radiation > mass/energy consumed from surroundings, wouldn't changing the amount of mass in the hole's surroundings be significant? IANAPP, but it's not entirely honest to pretend that conditions are the same where the collider is and at the edge of our atmosphere. Although I suppose the shear number of (assumed) natural interactions would imply that ones with similar conditions had occurred... but I don't actually know the answer to that. Either way, I can't help but get the impression that we're really putting our balls on the table with this one.
Isn't scientific shortsitedness a frequent complain on slashdot? I just don't feel like there's enough skepticism directed at the claims of safety. Not because I neccassarily thing they're wrong, but because big claims require big evidence, and these are big claims (Black hole, safe?).
There's that key word "represented". As a college student, I can tell you I felt much much better on average once I stopped eating cheap processed crap that pretended to be healthy and started cooking for myself. It was a good trade of for me, I guess is what I'm saying.
Although it sort of defeats the purpose if all you make is a cheese pizza.
The plans are kind of stupid on the whole, but (no offense) so is yours. After 100's if not thousands of years of countless people saying "but if we just used less" with regard to common resources and being ignored, you'd think they'd stop suggesting it.
Look at it this way: anyone that's predisposed to use less for no return to themselves is selected against evolutionarily. So it's not surprising that things have turned out this way. PEOPLE ARE NOT, AND NEVER WILL BE, THAT ALTRUISTIC. MOVE ON.
It would be nice, just like it would be nice if people weren't violent, but unfortunately they are, and we need to realize that stepping backwards as a race or nation is a last ditch solution, not the first. Even if SUV drivers are annoying.
This is true, and even includes known insurgents. While I think it's a mistake that soldiers sometimes wind up in beds next to the person that just shot them, I'm proud that this is one of the areas where America still has moral highground. We're not the city on the hill that often anyone, sadly. I wonder what the recidivism rate is of American-treated insurgents. Any frequent Time/Newsweek reader know the answer to that?
Er.. you tried to prove that long guns constitute a significant amount of crime by naming three annecdotal stories. It's great that they made the news and left an impression on you, but a naming a few incidents is entirely meaningless other than proving that the number of incidents is nonzero. For all I know the actual statistics support you, but I hate all the misinformation and illogic that talk of gun control seems to breed, and let's not encourage that.
I liked the rest of your post, fwiw.
Cheers.
For better or worse (with respect to America's view on terror) I'm glad these guys got hammered. If it takes the vindictiveness of city officials to put an end to what amounts to corporate littering, that's fine with me. I hate the idea that a wealthy corp that can easily handle fines designed for highschool and college kids takes advantage of said legal situation and puts crap like this around town. I don't have young kids, but if I did, driving past a moonite flicking us off that I knew was somonee's illegal ad campaign would annoy the hell out of me. And don't forget, they put these things on private property too. So if one good thing comes of all this, maybe it will be that these ad agencies will stop this "guerilla marketing" crap, and stop paying kids to commit crimes on their behalf. The whole thing annoys the shit out of me. This is largely tangental to the terror idiocy, however.
Cheers.
Right but my point was that at some point monetary loss _is_ physical damage (I think damage fits better here than abuse). Does it really matter how you die? Cancer is just as final as a clip of bullets, and frequently as painful. It just doesn't have the emotional pull.
They could just post complaints on slashdot. But seriously, I don't know why more attention isn't payed to managerial malice. How many companies have we seen suffer because leadership knows long term problems are irrelevant as they plan on using their golden parashute before then?
And for the IT thing again though, it's not a good idea to commit crimes when you are one of only a few with capability, oppurtunity, and motive. So the hands of your average IT worker are generally pretty tied. Hence the slashdot posting.
Depends on how you measure it. Your phrasing makes it seem obvious (hence you 5). But what if I say that spam costs the US 10's billions in lost time every year, and oh let me ad that for 50 dollars a year you can save someone starving in bangladesh (or wherever you like to be frank). Reducing the size of the global or national economic pie _does_ kill people, just not as directly. Remember, the only reason our life expectancies are so high here are because we have the money to pay for crap like antibiotics and transplants and life support machines etc etc. Money is important.
Whether jailing people that contribute to it in this way is right, well that's another debate entirely. Just wanted to point out that spam is something to be pretty upset about, even if inconvenience itself doesn't upset you.
Cheers.
Hmm... where could we find that kind of money... If people cared about public works, and actual societal improvement instead of entertainment improvement, it would get done.
It's not about the nationallity of it. It's because the whole slant is that there are "bad people" among us (illegal aliens and the terrorrists), and that the way we can fight them is by knowing who everyone is at all time. Then (so they say) something like the no fly list might actually be effective. This is a bit offensive because it's only effective if we _always_ know who everyone is. If the whole point is that individuals can never hide from past (terrorrist) activities, or from the fact that they don't live here... then the downside of that is we now live closer to a paper's please society, where people are owned by their pasts, and can't go anywhere or do anything without proving that they're "legit" with their papers.
So it's not the standardization. In fact, I think that part is good and sort of a no brainer. What's the point of me having to confuse people out here in California because I have a New Hampshire driver's license? One could argue about the danger's of a monoculture from a security standpoint, but because all states honor eachother's licenses, it's irrelevant. Anyhow, the danger lies in its attempted pervasiveness, not in its efficiency.
And don't think the states care about that (except maybe NH from what I've seen, live free or die baby). The opposition is largely from the fact that the huge burden of funding the change falls entirely on state shoulders, and it's money they don't have, and aren't interested in spending.
Eh its a bad joke then :D. And I wag my finger at your moderators.
Cheers.
I don't actually think this is true. The DMCA (IIRC) has provisions for "derivative works," and I suspect his argument (and he'd be right) is that these attempts fall under that category. Unfortunate, but that's the way the law was written.
I hate to be mean, but this is in no way insightful. You really think "terrorists" are stupid and uninformed enough to need someone's map censorship to tell them what is important infrastructure? Anyone with the resources to blow up a bridge or an embassy probably already knows what a bridge and embassy are, and where they are. Or do you think someone is going to get on google earth looking for blurs, then load up his truck with explosives and start driving? Rediculous.
I'm amazed that apparently enough people to mod you to a 4 think that the locations of important infrastrucure is somehow particularly "secret," and omg this is a huge exploit!
How stupid do you think terrorrists are?
Space exploration is cool in all, and I too find a moon base exciting. But you realize you couldn't come up with any real benefits to humanity? Iron mining? Come on. And if you think shipping waste at 10k/kilo up to the moon so we don't put it in the ground is a solution, I'm happy to tell you you're wrong. I mean, hell, if you're going to give the waste enough energy to escape earth, why put it on the moon, where there are (in this thought experiment) people? Didn't we spend an exorbitant amount of money to get rid of it for good? Do some math and shoot it into deep space, out of the SS.
Except for indulging our romantacism, which is not neccassarily bad, I mean really what else are we alive for, there are few good reasons to have a base on the moon, and that's the sad fact. Humanity could survive a catacylsmic event, that's one. Maybe the low g's and cheap cooling, or very small atmosphere has some chemistry benefits (that exceed a space station?). Other than that, I've never heard a convincing argument about what is valuable up there (and hopefully nuclear will take over so don't bring up solar power).
Maybe the moon is half made out of gold though one you get down a few feet. Here's to hoping.
Actually there is a more important feature of youtube that makes it attractive piracy-wise. It's completely anonymous, so you don't have to worry about getting a DMCA letter from your ISP. Having gotten said letter from a BT download (I also noticed Jerry from PA got one :D) let me tell you this is a fairly significant benefit. Youtube is pretty useless in many regards, but in terms of Comedy Central content (which is so widely available on it), it is piracy done right.
None of this of course has anything to do with whether Youtube is hurting Viacom's bottom line, which I suspect it is not. Catching the best of Colbert and Jon is good advertisement.
Well you may not be able to monitor them all the time, but they have brains of their own so you can hopefully teach them so that you don't need to. I'm young enough to have been a minor on "the internets" and as long as you aren't ultimately meeting someone in person, its about as safe as you can get. I mean you're in your damn house for chrissake. All of that internet related paranoia comes from watching to much scaremongering news. Teach your kids not to meet strangers out doors (the don't get into any vans for candy lesson), and it'll be fine. If your real fear is that they might lose some of their innocense become you can't control what they see, then that's a different issue entirely. But there are hardly any real safety issues.
And careful what rights you take away. Few would argue with limiting access to (say) firearms or tobacco, but sheltering your kids so they don't grow up faster than you want them to can be unhealthy. Unless they're really too stupid to make the right decision even after you explain it to them, don't just invoke authority and tell them too damn bad on what they want to do or see. Makes them bad citizens when they grow up and the govment does the same thing.