"All you need to do at this place is look over someones shoulder at the sticky note stuck to the monitor."
That's not a social engineering attack, that's taking advantage of bad network administration. You don't want a password policy that requires users to create passwords so complicated and so often that they need such hard-copy reminders to begin with. Or should we instead require users to come up with a new 256-character alphanumeric password every day so everything can be extra-super secure?
"was the one black mark on an otherwise stellar presidency."
So expanding federal, and particularly executive, power by leaps and bounds, using his four terms in office to stack the Supreme Court in his favor, and the like were all signs of a "stellar presidency?" Many of the things we decry Bush for were first accomplished by Franklin Roosevelt, and often to greater effect.
If his presidency was so stellar, why the rush to propose and ratify the Twenty-Second Amendment so soon after his death?
What happens if, instead of playing video games, they read that fine piece of Shakespearian family literature Titus Andronicus?
I have yet to see a video game approach anywhere near that level of gore or otherwise objectionable material, but I don't see any scientific studies on the effects of the Bard on the minds of the young.
"I mean, my grandfather tells me about the horrible things the president authorized against Japanese-Americans during World War II"
And is Franklin Roosevelt reviled today because of it? No, we put him on the dime.
The only president I can think of that approached this level of contemporary controversy in office over executive powers and the like is Lincoln, and we put him on money too. I believe I've said it before, but as much as we dislike Bush, until 2009 January 20, he's just an assasin's bullet away from being memorialized and being referred to in the same tone as FDR and Lincoln.
"Not at all - he's simply saying that because one can get by pretty easily these days without using cash at all, then changing our entire system of money seems a bit extreme."
Then use your plastic to buy a new deflector beanie, because yours isn't working if you don't mind using a payment system that allows others to track any and every purchase you make.
Personally, I've been getting a lot of cash from work in the form of tips, and I like the idea of using it and being off the grid.
"Ok, Microsoft have doing it, but nobody take it anyway."
The difference is that you can get a Core from Microsoft, buy the HDD, the wireless controller and the headset separately, and the only difference you'll have between your 360 and somebody that paid for the deluxe set will be the color of the drive tray. With Sony, if you want to go from the low-end model to the high-end model, you have to buy the high-end model and end up with two PS3s. With that, buying the low-end model instead of the high-end model only makes sense at the end of the console's life, when you know what games require what and are pretty sure you won't be using the extra features on the high-end model, and it's nothing but a gamble now at the beginning of the console's life.
Of course, with Sony, your best bet will probably be to get neither and instead wait for version revisions to add new features (built-in IR receiver, progressive-scan DVD playback, etc.) if not a whole new re-release of the console (PSthree?) rather than get one of the early models. If nothing else, I'd wager Sony will include a new pack-in controller with rumble before the end of 2008.
"The DS has better sales in many places than the PSP, but the PSP has sold a heck of a lot of units. It's not that far behind the DS in anyplace but Japan. Despite this, people on Slashdot like to treat it as an "also ran" instead of giving it credit for it's large user base. Is the PSP a loser?"
Replace "PSP" with "N64" and "DS" with "PS1."
The PSP "sells a lot" and "has a large installed base" compared to the DS, but how many of those PSP owners are buying games? How does the average PSP game sell compared to the average DS game?
Better yet, how is the PSP doing compared to the GBA?
"I'm sure some brave Indian solders contributed to the winning of WWII but it's hardly equivalent."
Why not? India spent most of that war under threat of occupation, while half of the attention of that war was turned elsewhere, much like Canada in 1812.
"That's why the Americans thought the time was right to exercise their "manifest destiny" and expand northward"
We thought "the time was right" when we were still dabbling with our "We don't need no standing army" philosophy? If the US was always hell-bent on annexing Canada, the time would have been more right after 1848, when we had an army flush with success in Mexico City, or after 1865, when we had both a larger force as well as genuine grievances with London over their behavior during our civil war ("We don't like slavery, but we'll build warships for the Confederacy because we hate the US more"). In fact, it was your fears that the largest army in history would turn north after marching south that prompted your desire for confederation to begin with.
Seriously, Canada, it's time for you to learn that we just don't care about you. If we cared about you as much as we did about, say, Mexico, you'd have gotten the same treatment: a dispute over contested land (Aroostok? Oregon?) being blown out of all proportion and turning into a war where we occupy your capital and annex half your territory. Instead, we decided that having to wait at two border crossings to drive to Alaska was better than actually having to put up with British Columbia.
"don't buy into the American history book cause for the war, that the British navy was shanghaiing American sailors"
It wasn't "Shanghaiing," that's something different (essentially conscription). What the British were doing on US ships was refusing to recognize that some formerly British (particularly Irish) subjects were now naturallized US citizens and trying to enforce domestic British law on them in internaional waters. Additionally, the Royal Navy was harassing US merchant ships trading with France in spite of our declared neutrality.
"Detroit... was surrendered to a smaller force without firing a shot."
There were more Welsh there than Canadians there, though the natives outnumbered either by about 2:1.
Besides, something similar had happened to Montreal not 40 years prior, as I recall. Pre-industrial warfare, fog of war, such things happened and were not unheard of.
"Watch out, if you make fun of the Canadians they might come burn down Washington, DC again."/sigh
First off, even ignoring the question of Canadian sovereignty, there's the little matter of the fact that the troops that participated in the burning of Washington were European. The commanding officer (County Down) and the troops under his command (Shrewsbury, Essex, Lancaster, Glasgow) were all from the British Isles and had come across the Atlantic after the latest bout of fun and games with Napoleon had calmed down. Those living in Canada participated in the war along the US/Canadian border, but no units from Canada participated in the UK campaign on the US Atlantic seaboard.
And beyond that, what happened shouldn't be so much a testament of the skill and cunning of UK troops on the field (be they British or Canadian) but more a demonstration that the US federal government has had its head up its ass for at least 200 years; the US Secretary of War refused to believe that DC would be attacked until it was too late to do anything. When defense of a US city is left in the hands of non-idiots, things didn't turn out so well for those under the Union Flag; the British officer who had taken Washington was killed days later trying to take Baltimore.
"Both of which are most likely fixable through firmware upgrades. Especially the compatibility which is supposed to be fixed in short order."
Look, I agree that these aren't really worth complaining about compared to the similar problems we saw with the PS2, but I simply won't abide by this "Ship now, patch later" mentality. If Sony is going to wait until later to fix these problems, then they will also wait until later until they see my six hundred freakin' dollars. I'm not looking to make a "deposit" or an "investment," I want to buy a console.
Granted, I never saw myself buying a PS3 before 2008, but even if Final Fantasy XIII was a launch title, after seeing what happened with the first releases of the PS and then the PS2 I wouldn't be interested in getting one of these first-generation PS3s.
"These games are not representative of the system."
Again, I'm not looking to make a deposit or an investment. If the games for the system suck now then I won't be buying the system now.
"It has real work out programs designed by nike motion works"
Yeah, those child laborers Nike employs don't look like they ever have problems with obesity...
On a more serious note, though, they're taking the wrong approach. Nike here made a fitness program and attempted to add fun as something of an after-thought; Nintendo made fun games that happen to burn a few calories.
Seriously, can you imagine someone in the NES days saying "If you liked Legend of Zelda, you'll simply love World Class Track Meet?"
Yes, Christopher Columbus "created" North America in a supercollider (in his parents' basement, I'm sure). It wasn't until decades later that trace elements of North America were found naturally occurring in extremely small amounts, thanks to North America's extremely long half-life combined with one-in-a-million occurrences of natural plate tectonics.
"So it's a god you made up in your own mind? You are his/her prophet?"
Why not? Can you demonstrate that the universe itself isn't just something you've made up in your own mind?
"The question "Why does existence exist?" (which is what the whole business with gods boils down to eventually) does not ask anything meaningful. "Why not?" is as good a question, and the only answer to the first you are going to get that doesn't depend on "make believe stuff that people just imagined in their heads"."
So you are denying the validity of the first question because you assume you know the most likely answer? The reason we ask "Why does existence exist?" is because we, as human beings, apparently care about such things and perpetually look for meaning, and writing off the question about Life, the Universe and Everything simply because you don't care for where the discussion might go seems to, among other things, deny an observable aspect of human nature.
"This physical world is all there is."
Got proof? Please present this proof alongside the proof you have that the physical world actually exists to begin with.
"but it's thanks to a the physical process of evolution having created the physical processes in our brains."
First off, evolution did not "create" your brain. It "allowed your brain to exist," it "favored your brain over other alternatives (so far)," but evolution is not a process with a particular end-goal in mind; your brain is not a goal of evolution (there are no goals), unless you wish to suggest that evolution exists so that your brain might be created.
Secondly, what is so great about all these physical processes you sing the praises of? What's so great about having a friend die? What's so great about being able to feel pain and, better yet, being able to inflict that pain in others? What's so great about evolution, a process that not only allows (requires!) the malformed to come into existence but also damns them to a life of suffering and torment until they are finally "naturally selected" against? If this is the end-all, be-all to reality, being distracted by a pretty flower while a hungry leopard prepares to pounce on me, I gotta say I just don't have the "appreciation" for these physical processes that you seem to hold above all else. If anything, our greater (though never perfect) understanding of these processes makes them all the more horrific.
If you value the quesiton "why not?" so much, here's one to start: Why not immortality? Be sure not to confuse "why" with "how."
"Physical processes just encompass more than we give them credit for (i.e. everything)."
Parent simply has a different definition of "everything" from you. And speaking for the many, many of us who look at reality and say "What, that's it?" I must say my evolution-granted brain leans heavily in favor of there being something more (if not better) than this.
"We can observe persistent phenomena that suggest that the world was formed in a particular manner, but we cannot observe the world being created"
Then you concede that there is, in fact, something there to be observed? It seems your entire argument hinges on a particularly narrow definition of "observable," fashioned to suit your argument.
"But it makes more sense that it's the fox, so let's just assume it is."
You fail. All a scientist can say is that present evidence suggests Possibility A more that Possibility B. Relying on your criteria of "makes more sense" is all but useless in several fields of scientific endeavor, including cosmology; it "makes more sense" that the universe always existed and did not have a definitive "beginning" (conservation of mass and all), just ask Einstein and his cosmological constant.
The only assumption science is allowed to make is the assumption that observable reality is objective, that it's not all just in the observer's head. And because science is based on that assumption, it can't be used to deny (e. g.) Last Tuesdayism.
"And by analogy, let's assume the world wasn't made in 6 days."
How about not relying on analogy and assumptions and instead looking for evidence, for something more observable than a gut feeling and truthiness?
""To the extent that the term 'electronic mail' is not sufficiently defined by the statute, we interpret it as including both email and instant message communications sent to a specific individual." But what was her basis for saying that "electronic mail" was not sufficiently defined in the first place? "
You ask what her basis was? The fact that only the words "electronic" and "mail" were used. There was no mention of RFCs, no mention of SMTP or POP3 or anything of the kind. All that was received from the legislature was that there is something that somehow resembles "mail," differing from regular mail in that it is "electronic." The phrase may heavily imply to you that the law must only apply to SMTP, etc, however the courts are constitutionally bound to go with what the legislature tells them to work with.
Since they're only given the noun "mail" and the adjective "electronic," it is proper to include forms of written correspondance, resembling "mail," that is sent from one point to the other "electronically," regardless of the protocols that are used.
We have a hard enough time keeping track of acronyms around here (ISA? DDR?), the best you and I have to go with is context. But the only context the courts are allowed to go by, constitutionally, is the context the state legislature has provided them in writing the laws. This is the "rule of law" you claim to be arguing in favor of.
"However, she could have taken a stand in favor of the rule of law, by saying that Simmons clearly didn't violate the law against transmitting harmful to minors material by e-mail, "
You're not arguing in favor of the rule of law, though. You're arguing in favor of the rule of law as amended by tech geek lingo, demanding that "electronic mail" be defined as you understand it rather than as the legislature understood it. Further, you are attempting to change the definition of "electronic" in "electronic mail" to mean something more limiting than what is commonly accepted, on the basis of what can only be described as slang.
"Even when you've made a mistake about a point of law, you're right, massah"
You're (deliberately?) missing the parent's point. When a police officer is called out to deal with a particular situation, it isn't his job to have esoteric discussions about law, but rather to diffuse the situation that required his presence to begin with. If you have a disagreement, comply first and argue later, otherwise you'd simply be reinforcing the third party's complaint that you were being unruly, which prompted their call to the police to begin with.
Diagreement with a police officer, in and of itself, does not justify violence or disorderly conduct on your part.
"Sure I'll stop photographing you, massah. Sure I won't write down your badge number, massah."
Straw men. Parent would obviously agree with the by-stander in those situations. However, if you want to be taken seriously, if you yourself don't want the situation to continue escalating, you disagree or resist in an orderly, civil manner (e. g. say "No" instead of "Get bent"), or you continue to justify the call to the cops to begin with. Being public servants does not make them your personal servants.
"We have to take it from you for now, and wait months for a court date if we disagree."
Again, disagreement with a police officer, in and of itself, does not justify unruly or violent actions on your part.
Now, before you put words in my mouth, I do not in any way agree with the actions of the cops in the video. However, they were called out there by a third party to deal with an unruly library patron, to act as advocates for the rest of the people in the library. The cops failed miserably, but the victim's lashing out prior to the assult, continuing the unruly and disorderly conduct that prompted others to call the police on him to begin with, was neither the correct way to respond nor very helpful to any assertions he might have made about his rights. The victim's behavior does not justify the assult by the police officers, but neither does the later assult by the police justify or excuse the prior actions of the victim.
"Sony has stated 400k units were in the initial US launch shipment."
Sony statements have a long history of being out-of-touch with reality.
Whatever the case, whether you're right or Reggie Fils-Amie is right, hard-and-fast numbers won't be available from either company before the end of the year.
Slashdot Mirror
"All you need to do at this place is look over someones shoulder at the sticky note stuck to the monitor."
That's not a social engineering attack, that's taking advantage of bad network administration. You don't want a password policy that requires users to create passwords so complicated and so often that they need such hard-copy reminders to begin with. Or should we instead require users to come up with a new 256-character alphanumeric password every day so everything can be extra-super secure?
"was the one black mark on an otherwise stellar presidency."
So expanding federal, and particularly executive, power by leaps and bounds, using his four terms in office to stack the Supreme Court in his favor, and the like were all signs of a "stellar presidency?" Many of the things we decry Bush for were first accomplished by Franklin Roosevelt, and often to greater effect.
If his presidency was so stellar, why the rush to propose and ratify the Twenty-Second Amendment so soon after his death?
What happens if, instead of playing video games, they read that fine piece of Shakespearian family literature Titus Andronicus?
I have yet to see a video game approach anywhere near that level of gore or otherwise objectionable material, but I don't see any scientific studies on the effects of the Bard on the minds of the young.
Yes, it's taxable, and yes, I do report it. That doesn't change the fact that nobody but me really knows where, when and how I spend it.
"I mean, my grandfather tells me about the horrible things the president authorized against Japanese-Americans during World War II"
And is Franklin Roosevelt reviled today because of it? No, we put him on the dime.
The only president I can think of that approached this level of contemporary controversy in office over executive powers and the like is Lincoln, and we put him on money too. I believe I've said it before, but as much as we dislike Bush, until 2009 January 20, he's just an assasin's bullet away from being memorialized and being referred to in the same tone as FDR and Lincoln.
"Not at all - he's simply saying that because one can get by pretty easily these days without using cash at all, then changing our entire system of money seems a bit extreme."
Then use your plastic to buy a new deflector beanie, because yours isn't working if you don't mind using a payment system that allows others to track any and every purchase you make.
Personally, I've been getting a lot of cash from work in the form of tips, and I like the idea of using it and being off the grid.
"Ok, Microsoft have doing it, but nobody take it anyway."
The difference is that you can get a Core from Microsoft, buy the HDD, the wireless controller and the headset separately, and the only difference you'll have between your 360 and somebody that paid for the deluxe set will be the color of the drive tray. With Sony, if you want to go from the low-end model to the high-end model, you have to buy the high-end model and end up with two PS3s. With that, buying the low-end model instead of the high-end model only makes sense at the end of the console's life, when you know what games require what and are pretty sure you won't be using the extra features on the high-end model, and it's nothing but a gamble now at the beginning of the console's life.
Of course, with Sony, your best bet will probably be to get neither and instead wait for version revisions to add new features (built-in IR receiver, progressive-scan DVD playback, etc.) if not a whole new re-release of the console (PSthree?) rather than get one of the early models. If nothing else, I'd wager Sony will include a new pack-in controller with rumble before the end of 2008.
"The DS has better sales in many places than the PSP, but the PSP has sold a heck of a lot of units. It's not that far behind the DS in anyplace but Japan. Despite this, people on Slashdot like to treat it as an "also ran" instead of giving it credit for it's large user base. Is the PSP a loser?"
Replace "PSP" with "N64" and "DS" with "PS1."
The PSP "sells a lot" and "has a large installed base" compared to the DS, but how many of those PSP owners are buying games? How does the average PSP game sell compared to the average DS game?
Better yet, how is the PSP doing compared to the GBA?
"I'm sure some brave Indian solders contributed to the winning of WWII but it's hardly equivalent."
Why not? India spent most of that war under threat of occupation, while half of the attention of that war was turned elsewhere, much like Canada in 1812.
"That's why the Americans thought the time was right to exercise their "manifest destiny" and expand northward"
We thought "the time was right" when we were still dabbling with our "We don't need no standing army" philosophy? If the US was always hell-bent on annexing Canada, the time would have been more right after 1848, when we had an army flush with success in Mexico City, or after 1865, when we had both a larger force as well as genuine grievances with London over their behavior during our civil war ("We don't like slavery, but we'll build warships for the Confederacy because we hate the US more"). In fact, it was your fears that the largest army in history would turn north after marching south that prompted your desire for confederation to begin with.
Seriously, Canada, it's time for you to learn that we just don't care about you. If we cared about you as much as we did about, say, Mexico, you'd have gotten the same treatment: a dispute over contested land (Aroostok? Oregon?) being blown out of all proportion and turning into a war where we occupy your capital and annex half your territory. Instead, we decided that having to wait at two border crossings to drive to Alaska was better than actually having to put up with British Columbia.
"don't buy into the American history book cause for the war, that the British navy was shanghaiing American sailors"
It wasn't "Shanghaiing," that's something different (essentially conscription). What the British were doing on US ships was refusing to recognize that some formerly British (particularly Irish) subjects were now naturallized US citizens and trying to enforce domestic British law on them in internaional waters. Additionally, the Royal Navy was harassing US merchant ships trading with France in spite of our declared neutrality.
"Detroit... was surrendered to a smaller force without firing a shot."
There were more Welsh there than Canadians there, though the natives outnumbered either by about 2:1.
Besides, something similar had happened to Montreal not 40 years prior, as I recall. Pre-industrial warfare, fog of war, such things happened and were not unheard of.
"Watch out, if you make fun of the Canadians they might come burn down Washington, DC again." /sigh
First off, even ignoring the question of Canadian sovereignty, there's the little matter of the fact that the troops that participated in the burning of Washington were European. The commanding officer (County Down) and the troops under his command (Shrewsbury, Essex, Lancaster, Glasgow) were all from the British Isles and had come across the Atlantic after the latest bout of fun and games with Napoleon had calmed down. Those living in Canada participated in the war along the US/Canadian border, but no units from Canada participated in the UK campaign on the US Atlantic seaboard.
And beyond that, what happened shouldn't be so much a testament of the skill and cunning of UK troops on the field (be they British or Canadian) but more a demonstration that the US federal government has had its head up its ass for at least 200 years; the US Secretary of War refused to believe that DC would be attacked until it was too late to do anything. When defense of a US city is left in the hands of non-idiots, things didn't turn out so well for those under the Union Flag; the British officer who had taken Washington was killed days later trying to take Baltimore.
From TFblurb:
"The $128M telescope is a joint project between Mexico and the US."
This is less "ZOMG! Decline and fall!" and more "Mauna Kea/Arecibo/etc. are getting crowded and we ran out of sovereign US territory."
"Both of which are most likely fixable through firmware upgrades. Especially the compatibility which is supposed to be fixed in short order."
Look, I agree that these aren't really worth complaining about compared to the similar problems we saw with the PS2, but I simply won't abide by this "Ship now, patch later" mentality. If Sony is going to wait until later to fix these problems, then they will also wait until later until they see my six hundred freakin' dollars. I'm not looking to make a "deposit" or an "investment," I want to buy a console.
Granted, I never saw myself buying a PS3 before 2008, but even if Final Fantasy XIII was a launch title, after seeing what happened with the first releases of the PS and then the PS2 I wouldn't be interested in getting one of these first-generation PS3s.
"These games are not representative of the system."
Again, I'm not looking to make a deposit or an investment. If the games for the system suck now then I won't be buying the system now.
"So, why did they launch prematurely?"
Stockholders don't like delays.
"It has real work out programs designed by nike motion works"
Yeah, those child laborers Nike employs don't look like they ever have problems with obesity...
On a more serious note, though, they're taking the wrong approach. Nike here made a fitness program and attempted to add fun as something of an after-thought; Nintendo made fun games that happen to burn a few calories.
Seriously, can you imagine someone in the NES days saying "If you liked Legend of Zelda, you'll simply love World Class Track Meet?"
"North America was created in 1492."
Yes, Christopher Columbus "created" North America in a supercollider (in his parents' basement, I'm sure). It wasn't until decades later that trace elements of North America were found naturally occurring in extremely small amounts, thanks to North America's extremely long half-life combined with one-in-a-million occurrences of natural plate tectonics.
"Geek is the new COOL"
With Paris Hilton on the list, obviously!
"So it's a god you made up in your own mind? You are his/her prophet?"
Why not? Can you demonstrate that the universe itself isn't just something you've made up in your own mind?
"The question "Why does existence exist?" (which is what the whole business with gods boils down to eventually) does not ask anything meaningful. "Why not?" is as good a question, and the only answer to the first you are going to get that doesn't depend on "make believe stuff that people just imagined in their heads"."
So you are denying the validity of the first question because you assume you know the most likely answer? The reason we ask "Why does existence exist?" is because we, as human beings, apparently care about such things and perpetually look for meaning, and writing off the question about Life, the Universe and Everything simply because you don't care for where the discussion might go seems to, among other things, deny an observable aspect of human nature.
"This physical world is all there is."
Got proof? Please present this proof alongside the proof you have that the physical world actually exists to begin with.
"but it's thanks to a the physical process of evolution having created the physical processes in our brains."
First off, evolution did not "create" your brain. It "allowed your brain to exist," it "favored your brain over other alternatives (so far)," but evolution is not a process with a particular end-goal in mind; your brain is not a goal of evolution (there are no goals), unless you wish to suggest that evolution exists so that your brain might be created.
Secondly, what is so great about all these physical processes you sing the praises of? What's so great about having a friend die? What's so great about being able to feel pain and, better yet, being able to inflict that pain in others? What's so great about evolution, a process that not only allows (requires!) the malformed to come into existence but also damns them to a life of suffering and torment until they are finally "naturally selected" against? If this is the end-all, be-all to reality, being distracted by a pretty flower while a hungry leopard prepares to pounce on me, I gotta say I just don't have the "appreciation" for these physical processes that you seem to hold above all else. If anything, our greater (though never perfect) understanding of these processes makes them all the more horrific.
If you value the quesiton "why not?" so much, here's one to start: Why not immortality? Be sure not to confuse "why" with "how."
"Physical processes just encompass more than we give them credit for (i.e. everything)."
Parent simply has a different definition of "everything" from you. And speaking for the many, many of us who look at reality and say "What, that's it?" I must say my evolution-granted brain leans heavily in favor of there being something more (if not better) than this.
"We can observe persistent phenomena that suggest that the world was formed in a particular manner, but we cannot observe the world being created"
Then you concede that there is, in fact, something there to be observed? It seems your entire argument hinges on a particularly narrow definition of "observable," fashioned to suit your argument.
"But it makes more sense that it's the fox, so let's just assume it is."
You fail. All a scientist can say is that present evidence suggests Possibility A more that Possibility B. Relying on your criteria of "makes more sense" is all but useless in several fields of scientific endeavor, including cosmology; it "makes more sense" that the universe always existed and did not have a definitive "beginning" (conservation of mass and all), just ask Einstein and his cosmological constant.
The only assumption science is allowed to make is the assumption that observable reality is objective, that it's not all just in the observer's head. And because science is based on that assumption, it can't be used to deny (e. g.) Last Tuesdayism.
"And by analogy, let's assume the world wasn't made in 6 days."
How about not relying on analogy and assumptions and instead looking for evidence, for something more observable than a gut feeling and truthiness?
"By the end of next week, ebayers probably won't be able to get retail for one."
Of course. Remember, this is eBay, would you place a bid on "Only $599.99 ($120 shipping and handling)?"
"Drives American girls wild,"
Inches, centimeters... US dollars have always been decimal.
"but, aside from original Xbox games, I don't think any game requires a harddrive. at least, to my knowledge, none do."
Final Fantasy XI
""To the extent that the term 'electronic mail' is not sufficiently defined by the statute, we interpret it as including both email and instant message communications sent to a specific individual." But what was her basis for saying that "electronic mail" was not sufficiently defined in the first place? "
You ask what her basis was? The fact that only the words "electronic" and "mail" were used. There was no mention of RFCs, no mention of SMTP or POP3 or anything of the kind. All that was received from the legislature was that there is something that somehow resembles "mail," differing from regular mail in that it is "electronic." The phrase may heavily imply to you that the law must only apply to SMTP, etc, however the courts are constitutionally bound to go with what the legislature tells them to work with.
Since they're only given the noun "mail" and the adjective "electronic," it is proper to include forms of written correspondance, resembling "mail," that is sent from one point to the other "electronically," regardless of the protocols that are used.
We have a hard enough time keeping track of acronyms around here (ISA? DDR?), the best you and I have to go with is context. But the only context the courts are allowed to go by, constitutionally, is the context the state legislature has provided them in writing the laws. This is the "rule of law" you claim to be arguing in favor of.
"However, she could have taken a stand in favor of the rule of law, by saying that Simmons clearly didn't violate the law against transmitting harmful to minors material by e-mail, "
You're not arguing in favor of the rule of law, though. You're arguing in favor of the rule of law as amended by tech geek lingo, demanding that "electronic mail" be defined as you understand it rather than as the legislature understood it. Further, you are attempting to change the definition of "electronic" in "electronic mail" to mean something more limiting than what is commonly accepted, on the basis of what can only be described as slang.
"Even when you've made a mistake about a point of law, you're right, massah"
You're (deliberately?) missing the parent's point. When a police officer is called out to deal with a particular situation, it isn't his job to have esoteric discussions about law, but rather to diffuse the situation that required his presence to begin with. If you have a disagreement, comply first and argue later, otherwise you'd simply be reinforcing the third party's complaint that you were being unruly, which prompted their call to the police to begin with.
Diagreement with a police officer, in and of itself, does not justify violence or disorderly conduct on your part.
"Sure I'll stop photographing you, massah. Sure I won't write down your badge number, massah."
Straw men. Parent would obviously agree with the by-stander in those situations. However, if you want to be taken seriously, if you yourself don't want the situation to continue escalating, you disagree or resist in an orderly, civil manner (e. g. say "No" instead of "Get bent"), or you continue to justify the call to the cops to begin with. Being public servants does not make them your personal servants.
"We have to take it from you for now, and wait months for a court date if we disagree."
Again, disagreement with a police officer, in and of itself, does not justify unruly or violent actions on your part.
Now, before you put words in my mouth, I do not in any way agree with the actions of the cops in the video. However, they were called out there by a third party to deal with an unruly library patron, to act as advocates for the rest of the people in the library. The cops failed miserably, but the victim's lashing out prior to the assult, continuing the unruly and disorderly conduct that prompted others to call the police on him to begin with, was neither the correct way to respond nor very helpful to any assertions he might have made about his rights. The victim's behavior does not justify the assult by the police officers, but neither does the later assult by the police justify or excuse the prior actions of the victim.
"Sony has stated 400k units were in the initial US launch shipment."
Sony statements have a long history of being out-of-touch with reality.
Whatever the case, whether you're right or Reggie Fils-Amie is right, hard-and-fast numbers won't be available from either company before the end of the year.
"But if you are a broke college student, you shoulnd't be shelling out $700 for a get rich quick scheme."
You don't know many college students, do you? You'd be surprised how many college students would sign up for, say, Amway.