I don't see any proof that "Bing" was the search engine it tried to change it to. Just his "conclusion" it was Bing.
Since I assume he didn't allow it to change it, he probably never did a search with the default changed. His SS's certainly don't show that it was Bing.
Well, I can't prove it based solely on the Event Viewer logs, but it's safe to say the search service is the prime suspect.
His proof is the event view showing the MS Search service "starting". You know, the one that's actually for searching your own computer. And the timing of it was right after start-up.
I'm not saying it was, or it wasn't. But his proof is flimsy at best. His conclusion something I expect from the typical college age/. reader that runs around wearing a T-shirt with a hidden message in binary on it, and refuses to play WoW on anything but a Mac so he can "stick it to the man".
How about some actual proof of what happened. For all we know this tool downloaded something that asked him to change search engines and in his haste to get to porn (which btw Bing is king at), just clicked through without looking, and when he rebooted next time the change tried to happen.
Or it could be that the MS Search service tried to hide a change. But I don't buy it based on his SS of a service starting (wow) and his own "jump" to a conclusion. Especially since if it were true there should be reports of it all over.
For you maybe. For others, it's the flavor of the world. No one (at least almost no one) plays to "travel". But then again, one of the complaints of WAR, which has instant travel between locations, is that it's not a world but a series of zones.
So I totally agree traveling is time wasted. But then without it, for many, the game loses a "feeling" that it's like a world. It's a give and take between tedious traveling and stripping the world of a connection between the areas.
To give a feeling going back to EQ that I haven't touched in almost 10 years at this point. If someone asked me how to get to Qeynos from Freeport I can say, "go west trough East Commons and West Commons, up to kitchcor, run through misty thicket and zone into riverdale, run straight past the wall and into runnyeye, follows beholders maze and take your first left and follow that to the end, in the karanas just go west through all 3 and you'll end up in Qeynos."
Annoying and tedious? Of course, but compared to WAR where it's "find the guy in the warcamp and he takes you to the zone, only way to get there from here", it adds feeling.
Your thoughts are jaded as an ex-player and your reasoning is par with a conspiracy theory about the moon landing. You act like the travel timesink is good for business, yet mention you quit because of it. As if they got paid by the mile you traveled? Guild wars is a different type of MMO. It's not a virtual world per say.
Although MMO's are full of timesinks and carrots, they really are a labor of love designed by big-time geeks like things like MUD's and D&D.
Worlds do appear small, and less of a consistent world, if transportation is instant. They're been lots of comparisons and feedback on this. Go back to EQ's day. You spent 45 minutes real time running from one major city to another. You spent 20 minutes standing on the docks waiting for a boat to take you to another island, and the boat ride itself was 10 minutes long. But it felt like a huge world. Now about 10 years after release they do have instant travel, it was added as a gimmick to try and keep older players around in lieu of other games like WoW.
In WAR on the other hand, transportation is nearly instant. Yet, one of the biggest complaints about it was it didn't feel like a continuous world. It played like levels in an old school FPS. To go from one level to the next you take the epic "10 second cutscene of your journey".
WoW takes the approach of speed increased flights that are controlled by the game.
To be honest, I'm not really sure what RPS's complaint is. Most MMO's have travel options that go well beyond "I've run this one, I don't want to run it again". Several times in the article it mentions running over and over. In the 800 lb gorilla in the room, there are personal mounts, flight paths that allow you to revisit almost every area you've already been too at least once, instant transportation to all the main cities in both expansion hubs, a class that can transport people instantly, and transportation to bind locations. Etc... To do what Guild War does they wouldn't make a continuous world. And "gasp" GW didn't. It's clear the true MMO's try to make travel painless, but at the same time preserve the essence of a virtual world.
Funny how you left the British out of it since they created the plan, and talked to the US into it to go "along" with them. And the US only went along due to the growing ties to the Soviets in Iran and a fear that the new government would be a new domino. And sorry for all your cute bullshit, but there was a legit meanie in Russia still then.
The revisionist history in the middle-east is so absurd. It's like everyone wants to be ignorant. The British, French, Russians and Germans all screwed up the middle-east and tried to control it far more then America has in the last 50-60 years (German influence was run out of there towards the start for sure, but while there, they basically tried to own the place).
Why is America forced to carry the cross for the problems Europe created in the middle-east? Exactly, because people like you are as clueless as the people the masses in the middle-east. But at least in their defense a dictator is likely keeping them ignorant.
Most of the US hate is just because the US is the big power and the old evil empire is a shell of it's former self.
Nothing more. Read up on the creation of Israel. The 1953 coup in Iran. And the borders in the middle-east that continue to create tribal conflicts to this day. And then tell me why it's an American flag that's burnt. America is about 6th on the list of countries that have meddled and and screwed up the middle-east in "modern" (post WWII) times. And before then, we weren't even on the radar.
I had an "FDA approved" drug once that right on the label said (paraphrasing) "WARNING: Can eat a hole through your stomach and kill you". That's not an exaggeration. And this was a pain medication. I never took one because despite it being "approved", I'd rather just deal with the pain then potentially kill myself.
The FDA blocks shipments of e-cig nicotine inhalers that are basically 100% effective to stop people from smoking since people are still inhaling nicotine vapor as a replacement (note: it's not the puffer, it's much closer to a cigarette). Just instead it's safe (except the FDA won't say it's safe).
I've long given up on thinking the FDA really has consumer protection at heart. It needs to be revamped. It's like because the FDA regulates it, it's OK to have serious side effects. Because the FDA doesn't, it's not OK for a 1 in a million chance. Because the FDA doesn't regulate it, but doesn't understand it, it can't allow it even though it could stop 100's of 1000's of deaths.
OK, I don't buy it completely, but for a hypothetical, let's go with it.
US is complacent over European interests. OK, so why shake the stick at the US because of it?
It's like the 1953 coup. Clearly a British venture for oil because they didn't want to lose control over the oil of Iran that they had. The US says, "nah", then admin change, cold war heats up, US goes for it. Sure, blame the US too. No problem. But the main flag burnt should be England's.
It's a theme a few times in this story. But the greatest trick the British ever pulled is to convince the world they didn't fuck up the entire middle east and now the US is paying for it.
* and to be fair, in modern times the French, Germans and Russians fucked it up a lot too. But in all cases, far more then the US did.
Attention poor moderator: A troll is someone that says something just for a reaction. To incite people.
Whereas my post was on the basis that the 1953 coup was actually one of British planning that the US had to be talked into. The US played it's part solely because of the cold war while the British were the ones more concerned about the oil.
Mossadeq meanwhile was a complete dictator. Was the Shah any better? Hard to say.
But it still amazes me to this day why so many of the issues we have the middle-east were caused by the British and the French, and yet all I hear is "the US". The US wasn't the ones that drew the borders, actually physically took over the middle east via the military, and then walked out as if everything was OK. Heck, the US wasn't even the driving force behind Israel. But for some reason we seem to leave that out of our revisionist history. Why doesn't Iran scream "death to Britain" over and over? It was their coup first and foremost. It was Britain that was the driving force behind Israel. It was Britain (and to a lesser degree France) that drew up every horrible border in the middle east leaving us with modern day Iraq instead of three countries (or two, with the south-east part of Iran).
It's very easy to sit here and throw stones about what was done 60 years ago and why. But here's one word from the times that should sink in when trying to put these actions in perspective. Stalin. This wasn't a joke. This isn't Goodwin's law.
Did the red scare in America go overboard? At times. But only at times. And watching the Soviet Union take over country after country at the end of WW2 and through the 50's, when the coup happened, was certainly in the times and not something that can just be dismissed as "overboard", though it certainly can be argued.
That's absurd. Do you know anything about the government the US helped remove? What it was replaced with? You're talking about difference degrees of complete shit. The US went with one that was US friendly. You should take your "relativist" term and apply it to yourself.
Here's a good clue for you. Iraq was a 100% damaged mess before the US.
No, the US is quite good. "Less bad" would be someone only cherry picking the negatives and ignoring the vast number of positives the US provides. It's not Utopia and no one should pretend it is, yet it's pretty damn good.
We promote? That's a silly statement. The US doesn't promote those places. It tolerates them. It uses them as they can for their own interests. The US is like every other nation in the world in that the primary goal of the US is itself. Every other nation takes care of itself first. Should the US just nuke Syria off the planet? Egypt?
The US plays the same game every other country plays. The US just has more power and influence then any other country right now. You don't think the US would love to have a truly free and democratic Egypt? That the US plays "enemy of our enemy" is no secret, isn't shocking, and should be easily understandable. The alternative is for the US to use military force.
No one that realizes we don't live in Utopia gives a crap about that over idealistic crap you just spewed.
Oh noes! The US has, and continues, to try and use it's influence to benefit the US. Even in situations that are less then ideal. The overwhelming majority of times the US does not actually "Dresden" other countires to do it even though it can. It doesn't even threaten to. The US has tons of issues with the Saudi's, Pakistan and Syria. The US has had major conflicts with Egypt and continues to have major differences. And that's "promoting" them? Maybe only in your bias viewpoint where honesty means nothing to you.
At the end of the day all the US wants is security for itself and allies, while wanting its companies to be able to exploit local workers for profit. But while the US does it honestly also would prefer freedom over dictatorship and does promote those values. Where as many other world powers, or even those that are not very powerful, clearly couldn't give a damn about freedom.
"We really hope the Iranian constitutional democratic process works this out. As a fellow-democracy we understand that elections can be contentious, but we also understand that the Iranian people and the Iranian people alone need to decide the outcome here, without interference by any other sovereign power."
Why would the US pretend that Iran is a democracy? The US has, and accurately so, been on the record as noting that the President has no real authority in Iran and is a hand picked figured head. Iran is anything but a democracy.
I remember before the US election the US military saying it would put down any attempt at "change". Oh, wait, no that was Iran and that was last week. The only reason the clerics even allow anything resembling freedom in Iran is because they have to to empower the scientific community in hopes of gaining military and economic power. Hey, look, it's not like power is bad. It's just all these good intentions in posts like yours disappear when asked the question of whether you would be OK if the US and Iran switch places in regards to military power? I'm sure the world would be just swell in that case. I know I'd love to be forced to turn to Mecca a few times a day.
For all the hate the US gets I still can't recall a single nation having as much power (and let's be fair, compare nations to peers of the time) and wielding it so fairly. Sure, you can bitch about the current Iraq war, and some support and aid for some overthrows you might now agree with. Boo hoo! It's all-n-all pretty damn good. And still trying to get better.
They've dominated "at times". They've also had years (a decade really) where they were behind.
And it's hard to say they've really dominated. They're certainly ahead in consoles shipped. But in terms of games, the 360 has doubled Nintendo in sales.
Why? It's easy. Nintendo has made a novelty device, one that is collecting dust in many more households then the 360 which is used as an active gaming device. As someone mentioned earlier, Nintendo has failed to make games that take advantage of the device as one might have expected. Wii sports is still the killer app that sells the system. And that gets boring in few weeks for most. After that it's not up to par with either of the two other systems.
Yeah, what grandma really wants for Xmas is an pre-loaded Linux thumb drive. I'm a dork and I don't even want that. It's Christmas. Give a gift that means something, not your ideology about FOSS.
The "common" ancestor could be in Africa and Germany. 47 million years ago the two were a good amount closer then now. And species don't just stay in one spot. They usually have a range. In this case I would guess that range included parts of Africa and modern Germany. But as species move around, the only range I'm sure of at this point is Germany since they found one there.
Yes, because right now Jabber = Twitter?
You're confusing "like twitter" with "is twitter". I doubt it's hard to make a cola that tastes a lot better then Coke. At least it wouldn't cost as much as they spend on advertising. But trying to beat them wouldn't work out well because the brand is established.
Most nations on Earth can't destroy a military like America's right now. But there are still conflicts involving America. They aren't all slaughter's because a military like American doesn't "Dresden" every conflict even though they could. The drones just go to further reduce losses of their own troops.
They aren't useless. And they aren't exactly weapons of slaughter. They are there to try and save military personnel from having to do the same job, and in rare cases do jobs manned vehicles can't do. The US military does constantly put it's troops in harms way. Often times in order to protect enemy lives (I know, there's tons of examples where they haven't, but it's more the exception then the norm these days).
Anyways, the US does value the lives of their own troops and having a "disposable" soldier is a great advantage as you're more then willing to send the "drone" behind enemy lines to gather intelligence and occasional shoot a missile at someone.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't see any proof that "Bing" was the search engine it tried to change it to. Just his "conclusion" it was Bing.
Since I assume he didn't allow it to change it, he probably never did a search with the default changed. His SS's certainly don't show that it was Bing.
Well, I can't prove it based solely on the Event Viewer logs, but it's safe to say the search service is the prime suspect.
/. reader that runs around wearing a T-shirt with a hidden message in binary on it, and refuses to play WoW on anything but a Mac so he can "stick it to the man".
His proof is the event view showing the MS Search service "starting". You know, the one that's actually for searching your own computer. And the timing of it was right after start-up.
I'm not saying it was, or it wasn't. But his proof is flimsy at best. His conclusion something I expect from the typical college age
How about some actual proof of what happened. For all we know this tool downloaded something that asked him to change search engines and in his haste to get to porn (which btw Bing is king at), just clicked through without looking, and when he rebooted next time the change tried to happen. Or it could be that the MS Search service tried to hide a change. But I don't buy it based on his SS of a service starting (wow) and his own "jump" to a conclusion. Especially since if it were true there should be reports of it all over.
For you maybe. For others, it's the flavor of the world. No one (at least almost no one) plays to "travel". But then again, one of the complaints of WAR, which has instant travel between locations, is that it's not a world but a series of zones.
So I totally agree traveling is time wasted. But then without it, for many, the game loses a "feeling" that it's like a world. It's a give and take between tedious traveling and stripping the world of a connection between the areas.
To give a feeling going back to EQ that I haven't touched in almost 10 years at this point. If someone asked me how to get to Qeynos from Freeport I can say, "go west trough East Commons and West Commons, up to kitchcor, run through misty thicket and zone into riverdale, run straight past the wall and into runnyeye, follows beholders maze and take your first left and follow that to the end, in the karanas just go west through all 3 and you'll end up in Qeynos."
Annoying and tedious? Of course, but compared to WAR where it's "find the guy in the warcamp and he takes you to the zone, only way to get there from here", it adds feeling.
Your thoughts are jaded as an ex-player and your reasoning is par with a conspiracy theory about the moon landing. You act like the travel timesink is good for business, yet mention you quit because of it. As if they got paid by the mile you traveled? Guild wars is a different type of MMO. It's not a virtual world per say.
Although MMO's are full of timesinks and carrots, they really are a labor of love designed by big-time geeks like things like MUD's and D&D.
Worlds do appear small, and less of a consistent world, if transportation is instant. They're been lots of comparisons and feedback on this. Go back to EQ's day. You spent 45 minutes real time running from one major city to another. You spent 20 minutes standing on the docks waiting for a boat to take you to another island, and the boat ride itself was 10 minutes long. But it felt like a huge world. Now about 10 years after release they do have instant travel, it was added as a gimmick to try and keep older players around in lieu of other games like WoW.
In WAR on the other hand, transportation is nearly instant. Yet, one of the biggest complaints about it was it didn't feel like a continuous world. It played like levels in an old school FPS. To go from one level to the next you take the epic "10 second cutscene of your journey".
WoW takes the approach of speed increased flights that are controlled by the game.
To be honest, I'm not really sure what RPS's complaint is. Most MMO's have travel options that go well beyond "I've run this one, I don't want to run it again". Several times in the article it mentions running over and over. In the 800 lb gorilla in the room, there are personal mounts, flight paths that allow you to revisit almost every area you've already been too at least once, instant transportation to all the main cities in both expansion hubs, a class that can transport people instantly, and transportation to bind locations. Etc... To do what Guild War does they wouldn't make a continuous world. And "gasp" GW didn't. It's clear the true MMO's try to make travel painless, but at the same time preserve the essence of a virtual world.
Funny how you left the British out of it since they created the plan, and talked to the US into it to go "along" with them. And the US only went along due to the growing ties to the Soviets in Iran and a fear that the new government would be a new domino. And sorry for all your cute bullshit, but there was a legit meanie in Russia still then.
The revisionist history in the middle-east is so absurd. It's like everyone wants to be ignorant. The British, French, Russians and Germans all screwed up the middle-east and tried to control it far more then America has in the last 50-60 years (German influence was run out of there towards the start for sure, but while there, they basically tried to own the place).
Why is America forced to carry the cross for the problems Europe created in the middle-east? Exactly, because people like you are as clueless as the people the masses in the middle-east. But at least in their defense a dictator is likely keeping them ignorant.
Most of the US hate is just because the US is the big power and the old evil empire is a shell of it's former self.
Nothing more. Read up on the creation of Israel. The 1953 coup in Iran. And the borders in the middle-east that continue to create tribal conflicts to this day. And then tell me why it's an American flag that's burnt. America is about 6th on the list of countries that have meddled and and screwed up the middle-east in "modern" (post WWII) times. And before then, we weren't even on the radar.
I had an "FDA approved" drug once that right on the label said (paraphrasing) "WARNING: Can eat a hole through your stomach and kill you". That's not an exaggeration. And this was a pain medication. I never took one because despite it being "approved", I'd rather just deal with the pain then potentially kill myself.
The FDA blocks shipments of e-cig nicotine inhalers that are basically 100% effective to stop people from smoking since people are still inhaling nicotine vapor as a replacement (note: it's not the puffer, it's much closer to a cigarette). Just instead it's safe (except the FDA won't say it's safe).
I've long given up on thinking the FDA really has consumer protection at heart. It needs to be revamped. It's like because the FDA regulates it, it's OK to have serious side effects. Because the FDA doesn't, it's not OK for a 1 in a million chance. Because the FDA doesn't regulate it, but doesn't understand it, it can't allow it even though it could stop 100's of 1000's of deaths.
OK, I don't buy it completely, but for a hypothetical, let's go with it.
US is complacent over European interests. OK, so why shake the stick at the US because of it?
It's like the 1953 coup. Clearly a British venture for oil because they didn't want to lose control over the oil of Iran that they had. The US says, "nah", then admin change, cold war heats up, US goes for it. Sure, blame the US too. No problem. But the main flag burnt should be England's.
It's a theme a few times in this story. But the greatest trick the British ever pulled is to convince the world they didn't fuck up the entire middle east and now the US is paying for it.
* and to be fair, in modern times the French, Germans and Russians fucked it up a lot too. But in all cases, far more then the US did.
Attention poor moderator: A troll is someone that says something just for a reaction. To incite people.
Whereas my post was on the basis that the 1953 coup was actually one of British planning that the US had to be talked into. The US played it's part solely because of the cold war while the British were the ones more concerned about the oil.
Mossadeq meanwhile was a complete dictator. Was the Shah any better? Hard to say.
But it still amazes me to this day why so many of the issues we have the middle-east were caused by the British and the French, and yet all I hear is "the US". The US wasn't the ones that drew the borders, actually physically took over the middle east via the military, and then walked out as if everything was OK. Heck, the US wasn't even the driving force behind Israel. But for some reason we seem to leave that out of our revisionist history. Why doesn't Iran scream "death to Britain" over and over? It was their coup first and foremost. It was Britain that was the driving force behind Israel. It was Britain (and to a lesser degree France) that drew up every horrible border in the middle east leaving us with modern day Iraq instead of three countries (or two, with the south-east part of Iran).
It's very easy to sit here and throw stones about what was done 60 years ago and why. But here's one word from the times that should sink in when trying to put these actions in perspective. Stalin. This wasn't a joke. This isn't Goodwin's law.
Did the red scare in America go overboard? At times. But only at times. And watching the Soviet Union take over country after country at the end of WW2 and through the 50's, when the coup happened, was certainly in the times and not something that can just be dismissed as "overboard", though it certainly can be argued.
That's absurd. Do you know anything about the government the US helped remove? What it was replaced with? You're talking about difference degrees of complete shit. The US went with one that was US friendly. You should take your "relativist" term and apply it to yourself.
Here's a good clue for you. Iraq was a 100% damaged mess before the US.
The US could currently kill every single person in Iran and not lose a single troop.
Why is the US thinking of invading Iran again?
No, the US is quite good. "Less bad" would be someone only cherry picking the negatives and ignoring the vast number of positives the US provides. It's not Utopia and no one should pretend it is, yet it's pretty damn good.
We promote? That's a silly statement. The US doesn't promote those places. It tolerates them. It uses them as they can for their own interests. The US is like every other nation in the world in that the primary goal of the US is itself. Every other nation takes care of itself first. Should the US just nuke Syria off the planet? Egypt?
The US plays the same game every other country plays. The US just has more power and influence then any other country right now. You don't think the US would love to have a truly free and democratic Egypt? That the US plays "enemy of our enemy" is no secret, isn't shocking, and should be easily understandable. The alternative is for the US to use military force.
No one that realizes we don't live in Utopia gives a crap about that over idealistic crap you just spewed.
Oh noes! The US has, and continues, to try and use it's influence to benefit the US. Even in situations that are less then ideal. The overwhelming majority of times the US does not actually "Dresden" other countires to do it even though it can. It doesn't even threaten to. The US has tons of issues with the Saudi's, Pakistan and Syria. The US has had major conflicts with Egypt and continues to have major differences. And that's "promoting" them? Maybe only in your bias viewpoint where honesty means nothing to you.
At the end of the day all the US wants is security for itself and allies, while wanting its companies to be able to exploit local workers for profit. But while the US does it honestly also would prefer freedom over dictatorship and does promote those values. Where as many other world powers, or even those that are not very powerful, clearly couldn't give a damn about freedom.
"We really hope the Iranian constitutional democratic process works this out. As a fellow-democracy we understand that elections can be contentious, but we also understand that the Iranian people and the Iranian people alone need to decide the outcome here, without interference by any other sovereign power."
Why would the US pretend that Iran is a democracy? The US has, and accurately so, been on the record as noting that the President has no real authority in Iran and is a hand picked figured head. Iran is anything but a democracy.
I remember before the US election the US military saying it would put down any attempt at "change". Oh, wait, no that was Iran and that was last week. The only reason the clerics even allow anything resembling freedom in Iran is because they have to to empower the scientific community in hopes of gaining military and economic power. Hey, look, it's not like power is bad. It's just all these good intentions in posts like yours disappear when asked the question of whether you would be OK if the US and Iran switch places in regards to military power? I'm sure the world would be just swell in that case. I know I'd love to be forced to turn to Mecca a few times a day.
For all the hate the US gets I still can't recall a single nation having as much power (and let's be fair, compare nations to peers of the time) and wielding it so fairly. Sure, you can bitch about the current Iraq war, and some support and aid for some overthrows you might now agree with. Boo hoo! It's all-n-all pretty damn good. And still trying to get better.
They've dominated "at times". They've also had years (a decade really) where they were behind. And it's hard to say they've really dominated. They're certainly ahead in consoles shipped. But in terms of games, the 360 has doubled Nintendo in sales.
Why? It's easy. Nintendo has made a novelty device, one that is collecting dust in many more households then the 360 which is used as an active gaming device. As someone mentioned earlier, Nintendo has failed to make games that take advantage of the device as one might have expected. Wii sports is still the killer app that sells the system. And that gets boring in few weeks for most. After that it's not up to par with either of the two other systems.
Yeah, what grandma really wants for Xmas is an pre-loaded Linux thumb drive. I'm a dork and I don't even want that. It's Christmas. Give a gift that means something, not your ideology about FOSS.
And yet we have some major taboos against eating, say, worms.
Going by this link
http://www.mapsharing.org/MS-maps/map-pages-worldmap/images-continental/1-continental-pangea-drift.gif
They were a good bit closer with less water. This isn't my area of expertise by any means, but everything I can find shows Germany and Africa closer, and with less water between them.
The "common" ancestor could be in Africa and Germany. 47 million years ago the two were a good amount closer then now. And species don't just stay in one spot. They usually have a range. In this case I would guess that range included parts of Africa and modern Germany. But as species move around, the only range I'm sure of at this point is Germany since they found one there.
Huh? No. Their brand recognition is though. Duh. WTF? How can you be smart enough to use a keyboard and not realize that? Now get off my web.
Yes, because right now Jabber = Twitter?
You're confusing "like twitter" with "is twitter". I doubt it's hard to make a cola that tastes a lot better then Coke. At least it wouldn't cost as much as they spend on advertising. But trying to beat them wouldn't work out well because the brand is established.
But once they ship it off to Taiwan for mass production that two miles will become two centimeters. And we'll all have our own X-Ray laser pointer.
I'd hate to agree. But while it's "cool" to an extent, this is hardly worthy of a stub let along real front page news.
Most nations on Earth can't destroy a military like America's right now. But there are still conflicts involving America. They aren't all slaughter's because a military like American doesn't "Dresden" every conflict even though they could. The drones just go to further reduce losses of their own troops.
They aren't useless. And they aren't exactly weapons of slaughter. They are there to try and save military personnel from having to do the same job, and in rare cases do jobs manned vehicles can't do. The US military does constantly put it's troops in harms way. Often times in order to protect enemy lives (I know, there's tons of examples where they haven't, but it's more the exception then the norm these days).
Anyways, the US does value the lives of their own troops and having a "disposable" soldier is a great advantage as you're more then willing to send the "drone" behind enemy lines to gather intelligence and occasional shoot a missile at someone.