It could've been an insightful comment if you would have left your 'Big Government/Tea Party' agenda out of it.
The New Deal (what you call a failure of Big Gubermnt) was a reaction to the catastrophic failing of decades of 'Small Government'. Lax regulations, complete lack of worker protections and extremely libertarian approach to markets led to the great depression. The New Deal literally saved people from starvation.
What led to the current depression is the almost complete reversal of policies that created the 'American Golden Age' of the 50s through 70s. Surprisingly when you drastically reduce taxes you incur a massive deficit. Even more surprisingly, when you remove all stop gaps that were put in place to remove market volatility, the markets, fueled by unsustainable greed, fail catastrophically.
All your Tea Party rhetoric neglects to take into consideration what amounts to be a century of contrary empiric evidence and will eventually lead to a full circle. You'll eliminate all government intervention and let the 'Free Market' take care of you, see millions of people in astounding poverty and millions starving on the streets and whoops, suddenly there will be popular cry for socially conscious policy.
Your post wouldn't bother me if you hadn't so assuredly made so many factually incorrect statements, while appealing to 'common sense'
But this is only against such a random selection of other poker players and only when they're human. Pitted against a computer, their results suddenly fall well within a bell curve of chance.
This is patently false. To this date there isn't a single poker bot that beats a skilled human player over any statistically significant sample, and not for lack of trying to develop one. Mostly because there isn't an optimal decision tree that isn't directly influenced by the dynamics of a particular game. I'd be more then excited if you'd provide a single example to the contrary.
I'd say it's a little of both, with chance being predominant in the game's actual elements, and skill being predominant in its (human) players.
This right here makes it apparent that you have no understanding of poker. The 'chance' element of poker, which any person with some background in math/statistics would call 'variance', is evenly distributed among the players. What creates a difference in results, i.e profits, over a significant sample, is the 'skill' element. This is to say, that two players of different skill levels and unlimited funds will not have an even result over say 25k of poker hands.
In the end, though, a highly skilled poker player can still lose against somebody who never played before and sat down just for kicks. A well-trained marathon runner, however, is not going to lose against a couch potato short of an external influence.
As I've repeatedly stressed above, poker 'results' are measured over a significant sample size. It is extremely unlikely that a professional would lose to a novice over 350 hands. Not to mention 5k hands.
The thing that bothers me most about your comment is not how wildly inaccurate it is (which is true) but the modding it got which reflects the amount of people that share your ignorance.
First, every single developed country I can think of has some sort of "guaranteed basic income". I can't think of any country in which rampant slouching ensued and society collapsed upon itself. The reason why this didn't happen is in your own comment:
If my housing and food were guaranteed to be paid for, for the rest of my life, I'd never bother doing a damned thing past that. I'd have endless hobbies and diversions and time-wasters, but I'd not get a job.
Sure, some will work hard for really no reason, but many will just choose to exist...And fill the time with drugs, and with sex, and other "vices".
What you seem to fail to understand is that the basic income you are guaranteed by the state is just that - basic. It covers housing, heating and most of your basic groceries. It doesn't cover computer equipment, video games, cell phone, books, drugs, clothes, condoms, beers at the pub, toys, sports equipment or coffee.
If you're telling me that you will be content with just the bare basics you will get from the state, you can achieve something fairly similar all by yourself. Work part-time, two shifts a week, in Walmart. Rent an one room apartment. Drink only bulk bought, store-brand soda and eat boiled potatoes and bread. Here it is, your slouchy heaven.
The reason the US invaded Afghanistan was for their refusal to extradite Bin Laden
The US invaded Afghanistan because there was money in it, for someone other then the American people that is. I think that the idea that invading a country and occupying it for 9 years just to secure the extradition of a single man is preposterous. I mean seriously, why the fuck do you have Delta/Seals/Rangers/SAD if you need to deploy a whole army to catch a singly person?
Not to mention the fact that the Taliban publicly agreed to extradite Bin Laden if the US supplied some sort of evidence. Later they relinquished that request and offered to extradite Bin Laden to Pakistan, but Pakistan refused to take him due to Musharf feeling that "He can not guarantee his safety". Yep. Pakistan, your "Ally in the War on Terror".
Anyone perpetuating the myth that Afghanistan is the just, necessary war (in contrast to the Iraq war) is either disingenuous or tragically ignorant of the facts.
Doubtful with the amount of corruption present in Russia that they wouldn't have dirt on them. I think they're just on a high horse against the US, UK, and other countries because they'll avoid Po-210 poisoning better that way. Doesn't make Assange sound like the white knight he attempts to portray
This is a straw man and an ill conceived ad hominem attack (i.e - "Assange is a coward because he's afraid of assassination!"). You could just as well say "Amnesty International does nothing to stop famine" or "Oxfam does nothing to stop the genocide in Sudan" and blame them for trying to portray themselves as charitable organizations. You do not criticize a person or an organization for the good work they didn't do. There will always be the next worthwhile cause.
I personally don't mind if he does focus his efforts on the US/UK. They do enough highly questionable things to keep a small organization such as WL busy for decades to come. It is not his job nor prerogative to publish information in a manner which would be equally embarrassing to all countries . He runs a site on the internet, not a UN/governmental organization. If he so wishes he can focus exclusively on uncovering 4chan users identities.
Also, given your own stated opinion on the way that Russia/China/EvilCountryX deal with leaks, it is entirely conceivable that there are far less potential sources who are willing to risk their lives in order to expose such information.
The ISP's border router/firewall can filter the traffic according to certain protocols. Then, it can forward protocols that warrant a deeper inspection to the deep packet inspection gateway. For instance, HTTP or SMTP go only through the basic FW/IPS inspection, but RTSP/XMMP goes on to the next stage of inspection (this is just an example and those are completely arbitrary protocols). Remember that a large ISP has routers that can handle 80GBS and more for a long time now...
i don't knoe about the release date in TFA, but my mom got an Eee with pre installed XP last week (Moscow airport tax free shop). It came with the license sticker and the whole authentic box and goodies. So you know, I'm just saying.
Using IE is neither wrong nor stupid. It's a matter of personal preference. If some user (definitely not me) finds IE7 more comfortable then FF, well, it's his decision.
There will always be a more secure method of browsing. FF/Opera are definitely not as secure as wget from a linux terminal, and even that is not as secure as telnet to port 80 from an OpenBSD machine. Are you telling me that you're doing everything for security?
If you want to blame users for something blame them for clicking on the "You've Just Won Our Bazillion Dollars Jackpot" pop ups...
As an avid Super Mario Bros fan I was surprised there were no mushrooms or plumbers in this article.
Seriously though, in an article that discusses licensing plans there is no sense in interpreting SMB in the CIFS/Samba context. It does make perfect sense to interpret it as Small Medium Business.
Do you really think it'll make sense to define every acronym used in a/. summary? Try to imagine an article that talks about BSD/GPL/ESR/RMS. Not only will it be boring as death, but it'll also be a 300+ word summary.
First of all, I'm pretty confident that someone on Slahdot criticized Islam at one point or another. A fatwa for cmdrTako's death hasn't been issued yet, as far as I know.
There's about 1.2 BILLION Muslims in the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Isla m). Judging one fifth of the world's population by the actions of one extremist religious leader is, well, small minded. You might as well condemn Christianity (with all its different sects) for the actions of the abortion clinics bombers. On the other hand, the "church" of Scientology has somewhere around 300,000 followers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology#The_Chur ch_of_Scientology) and it's much more compatible with the formal definition of a cult.
Islam, unlike Scientology, is an actual religion with their own set of believes and morals, however incompatible with your view on life they might be. Scientology is a well-established hoax. It only exists to milk money out of weak and confused (or stupid and gullible, depends on how cynical you are) people. Islamic fundamentalists might have done their share of wrongdoings but so did all other fundamentalists, almost by definition.
With all that in mind, as an agnostic liberal I don't think that Islam is a "good" religion. It has the same problems that the two other major religions have.
PS - I'm am an Israeli and am living in the state of Israel. I'm Jewish by birth. I've been exposed to most of the dark and light sides of Islam. I've also heard every possible bit of anti-Islamic propaganda.
PPS - As for your claim that Christianity has somehow improved on the Old Testament - There's a quote I find very appropriate from Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse 5:
"... But the Gospels actually taught this:
Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes.
The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again:
Oh boy - they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!
And that thought had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected. So it goes."
You are aware of the fact that there are more then a few slashdot readers whose first language is not English. For some it's not even the second (me, for instance).
Although I think that aspiring to use language correctly is important, don't you think that sometimes being an anal-retentive geek is not as important as trying to see through the language barriers and understanding the content of the post?
Grammar and spelling are important for standardization and optimization of communication, but it serves as an aid and are not the essence of human interaction (including written and spoken). Understanding what the other person tried to tell you and processing should your prime focus. I agree that sometimes bad spelling/grammar may result at misunderstanding, but I'm fairly confident that it happens less then you're bitching about spelling.
Also, function declaration in computer programming is really not something you want to model human language after. More the other way around.
My 0.2 cents (well, actually not cents as I'm not an American or from the EU. Imagine that).
I would never turn him loose in a city by himself, and letting him loose online is no different.
One question - How is it not different? Do you think your child will be hit by a virtual car, while crossing a virtual road? Or do you think that he will be molested on the internet itself?
I agree that your beliefs are yours to hold and adhere. Non the less, after reading the above, I can confidently say that you are a FUCKING INSANE MANIAC, who causes much more harm to his child then any TV show or website could ever dream of.
You'd get on my case if I complained someone stole my cell phone out of my car when I didn't lock it. You'd get on my case if someone stole my TV when I didn't bother closing the doors on my house. You'd get on my case if someone stole my bike when I didn't bother chaining it.
Those are some of the saddest analogies I've ever seen.
Have you ever tried talking to your TV and explaining it that it shouldn't allow itself to get stolen? Have you ever tried to teach your cell phone not to stay in unlocked cars? Probably not, because that would make very little sense or good.
But guess what? You can talk to your children! They are not inert items like your cell or TV. You can reason with them (I know they're children, but still, give them some credit), you can have a conversation with them and maybe, with luck, even establish some sort of trust with them. A trust that will not require from you to monitor them as closely as you feel you must now.
Your children are your family, and hopefully, your friends. They are not the enemy. When you are trying to restrict their freedom, without consulting with them and without trying to understand them, you treat them like such.
While I'm legally responsible, they DO NOT have the same rights as adults.
I don't want to be too harsh but after reading your post I'm really not sure if it's your children that you worry about, or you legal liability for their actions.
You obviously missed the entire "There are other ways to incite drug/tech/whatever development, than the current patent system" discussion going on around here for the last, oh kazzilion years. You don't have to RTFA, but at least read some of the previous comments.
Saying that the *ONLY* way a company can be motivated to create a new needed drug is to give it absolute, monopolistic power over a life saving/enhancing product, is kind of, well, dumb.
First, I agree that a QA tester that plays a specific a game as a full time job is probably an excellent player in that specific game. Probably. However, I resent the assertion that "It really doesn't take that much talent to play video games, you just got to spend time figuring out what the developers where thinking.".
You have no idea how many games are played in ways that the developers never thought off. Two examples from the top of my head are the translocator/air-gun combo in Unreal Tournament and rocket jumps in Quake. There are probably also hundreds of similar creative work-a-rounds in RPG's and strategy games that the developers of the game never thought of.
Most modern games are very, very complex environments. Functioning in them and being successful at it is much more than understanding some technical aspects of it, the same way understanding thermodynamics or quantum mechanics won't help you be a better human being.
If you have any account online for which you have ever disclosed your true identity (like in order to make a purchase) then that account information can and will be cross-referenced with all of the tracking data that the tracking companies have been able to put together on you.
Ok. There's a fare chance this will shock you but I'm going to say it anyway - so what?
So some datamining, marketing, evil corporation will know that I frequent Slashdot, PennyArcade and a donkey-sex porn site. And they can link all to my name, address and phone number. So what? Don't get me wrong, this is not a "If you done nothing wrong wht do you have to hide" approach. This is a "I don't give a fuck what they know about me approach". What will a marketing company do with this data? Does it really worth all the time I'll spend trying to protect it?
Because you get a return that you're happy with. Although Google does not have an independent auditor to go over their click data, advertisers still pay. Some feel they are not getting enough conversions for the money they invested in their ppc (pay-per-click) campaign, some feel they do. Some cancel their accounts and move on to a different kind of web marketing, some stay and use the Google system.
In the end, it's a service, not an obligation, and even though most countries already formalized auditing measures for other types of advertising mediums, it doesn't mean it makes sense. Personal responsibility and decision making are applicable in this case just like always. If all of Google's clients demanded auditing, there would be auditing. There's definitely no need for governmental regulation.
End of the day, I don't understand why people pay for a service, with defined rules of use and known risks only to start crying murder later (well, I do understand why they do that, it's just that I don't understand why we are taking them seriously).
If you don't like AdSense or AdWords, close your account. You can. They have a button or something.
Ok. I know this is probably not the best way to start a reply but - you are f#&%ing crazy.
Ok. No cheating or lying (how this is achieved in your sick little had will remain a mystery to me) but what do you say about, eh, picking your nose? Going to the bathroom? Masturbating? Crying? Doing something you want to remain private, while harming no one?
People like you scare me more than the NSA, CIA, FBI or the local police altogether. You're not the quite by-stander. You are the one rushing to get the brown uniforms.
What kind of backward logic is that? Since when does the net revenue of AOL is being pumped back into the economy (I know how wide scope economy works, but you have balancing factors here that completely negate this proposition)?
Furthermore, did you forget that those 5000 employees whose salaries have been 'freed' are also consumers? If they don't have any income they won't be able to spend money, hence pump money into the general economy. And this will definitely happen before the money saved on their employment will have any positive global effect.
Geez.
Because Linux is such an obvious market leader and trend setter among software users around the world?
Are you trying to imply that you regularly hear something like "Oh my god! You saw that new app they released on Linux? I can't wait for it to be ported to Windows!"?
Linux has a long way to go before it will be a key factor in the decision making process of any leading app manufacturer*.
Slashdot Mirror
It could've been an insightful comment if you would have left your 'Big Government/Tea Party' agenda out of it.
The New Deal (what you call a failure of Big Gubermnt) was a reaction to the catastrophic failing of decades of 'Small Government'. Lax regulations, complete lack of worker protections and extremely libertarian approach to markets led to the great depression. The New Deal literally saved people from starvation.
What led to the current depression is the almost complete reversal of policies that created the 'American Golden Age' of the 50s through 70s.
Surprisingly when you drastically reduce taxes you incur a massive deficit. Even more surprisingly, when you remove all stop gaps that were put in place to remove market volatility, the markets, fueled by unsustainable greed, fail catastrophically.
All your Tea Party rhetoric neglects to take into consideration what amounts to be a century of contrary empiric evidence and will eventually lead to a full circle. You'll eliminate all government intervention and let the 'Free Market' take care of you, see millions of people in astounding poverty and millions starving on the streets and whoops, suddenly there will be popular cry for socially conscious policy.
Your post wouldn't bother me if you hadn't so assuredly made so many factually incorrect statements, while appealing to 'common sense'
But this is only against such a random selection of other poker players and only when they're human. Pitted against a computer, their results suddenly fall well within a bell curve of chance.
This is patently false. To this date there isn't a single poker bot that beats a skilled human player over any statistically significant sample, and not for lack of trying to develop one. Mostly because there isn't an optimal decision tree that isn't directly influenced by the dynamics of a particular game. I'd be more then excited if you'd provide a single example to the contrary.
I'd say it's a little of both, with chance being predominant in the game's actual elements, and skill being predominant in its (human) players.
This right here makes it apparent that you have no understanding of poker. The 'chance' element of poker, which any person with some background in math/statistics would call 'variance', is evenly distributed among the players. What creates a difference in results, i.e profits, over a significant sample, is the 'skill' element. This is to say, that two players of different skill levels and unlimited funds will not have an even result over say 25k of poker hands.
In the end, though, a highly skilled poker player can still lose against somebody who never played before and sat down just for kicks. A well-trained marathon runner, however, is not going to lose against a couch potato short of an external influence.
As I've repeatedly stressed above, poker 'results' are measured over a significant sample size. It is extremely unlikely that a professional would lose to a novice over 350 hands. Not to mention 5k hands.
The thing that bothers me most about your comment is not how wildly inaccurate it is (which is true) but the modding it got which reflects the amount of people that share your ignorance.
First, every single developed country I can think of has some sort of "guaranteed basic income". I can't think of any country in which rampant slouching ensued and society collapsed upon itself. The reason why this didn't happen is in your own comment:
If my housing and food were guaranteed to be paid for, for the rest of my life, I'd never bother doing a damned thing past that. I'd have endless hobbies and diversions and time-wasters, but I'd not get a job. Sure, some will work hard for really no reason, but many will just choose to exist ...And fill the time with drugs, and with sex, and other "vices".
What you seem to fail to understand is that the basic income you are guaranteed by the state is just that - basic. It covers housing, heating and most of your basic groceries. It doesn't cover computer equipment, video games, cell phone, books, drugs, clothes, condoms, beers at the pub, toys, sports equipment or coffee.
If you're telling me that you will be content with just the bare basics you will get from the state, you can achieve something fairly similar all by yourself. Work part-time, two shifts a week, in Walmart. Rent an one room apartment. Drink only bulk bought, store-brand soda and eat boiled potatoes and bread. Here it is, your slouchy heaven.
The reason the US invaded Afghanistan was for their refusal to extradite Bin Laden
The US invaded Afghanistan because there was money in it, for someone other then the American people that is. I think that the idea that invading a country and occupying it for 9 years just to secure the extradition of a single man is preposterous. I mean seriously, why the fuck do you have Delta/Seals/Rangers/SAD if you need to deploy a whole army to catch a singly person?
Not to mention the fact that the Taliban publicly agreed to extradite Bin Laden if the US supplied some sort of evidence. Later they relinquished that request and offered to extradite Bin Laden to Pakistan, but Pakistan refused to take him due to Musharf feeling that "He can not guarantee his safety". Yep. Pakistan, your "Ally in the War on Terror".
Anyone perpetuating the myth that Afghanistan is the just, necessary war (in contrast to the Iraq war) is either disingenuous or tragically ignorant of the facts.
Doubtful with the amount of corruption present in Russia that they wouldn't have dirt on them. I think they're just on a high horse against the US, UK, and other countries because they'll avoid Po-210 poisoning better that way. Doesn't make Assange sound like the white knight he attempts to portray
This is a straw man and an ill conceived ad hominem attack (i.e - "Assange is a coward because he's afraid of assassination!"). You could just as well say "Amnesty International does nothing to stop famine" or "Oxfam does nothing to stop the genocide in Sudan" and blame them for trying to portray themselves as charitable organizations. You do not criticize a person or an organization for the good work they didn't do. There will always be the next worthwhile cause.
I personally don't mind if he does focus his efforts on the US/UK. They do enough highly questionable things to keep a small organization such as WL busy for decades to come. It is not his job nor prerogative to publish information in a manner which would be equally embarrassing to all countries . He runs a site on the internet, not a UN/governmental organization. If he so wishes he can focus exclusively on uncovering 4chan users identities.
Also, given your own stated opinion on the way that Russia/China/EvilCountryX deal with leaks, it is entirely conceivable that there are far less potential sources who are willing to risk their lives in order to expose such information.
It has been generally accepted that Michigan was nicknamed "The Wolverine State" for the abundance of wolverines that once roamed the peninsula."
The ISP's border router/firewall can filter the traffic according to certain protocols. Then, it can forward protocols that warrant a deeper inspection to the deep packet inspection gateway. For instance, HTTP or SMTP go only through the basic FW/IPS inspection, but RTSP/XMMP goes on to the next stage of inspection (this is just an example and those are completely arbitrary protocols).
Remember that a large ISP has routers that can handle 80GBS and more for a long time now...
i don't knoe about the release date in TFA, but my mom got an Eee with pre installed XP last week (Moscow airport tax free shop).
It came with the license sticker and the whole authentic box and goodies. So you know, I'm just saying.
Using IE is neither wrong nor stupid. It's a matter of personal preference. If some user (definitely not me) finds IE7 more comfortable then FF, well, it's his decision.
There will always be a more secure method of browsing. FF/Opera are definitely not as secure as wget from a linux terminal, and even that is not as secure as telnet to port 80 from an OpenBSD machine. Are you telling me that you're doing everything for security?
If you want to blame users for something blame them for clicking on the "You've Just Won Our Bazillion Dollars Jackpot" pop ups...
You are absolutely right!
/. summary?
As an avid Super Mario Bros fan I was surprised there were no mushrooms or plumbers in this article.
Seriously though, in an article that discusses licensing plans there is no sense in interpreting SMB in the CIFS/Samba context. It does make perfect sense to interpret it as Small Medium Business.
Do you really think it'll make sense to define every acronym used in a
Try to imagine an article that talks about BSD/GPL/ESR/RMS. Not only will it be boring as death, but it'll also be a 300+ word summary.
First of all, I'm pretty confident that someone on Slahdot criticized Islam at one point or another. A fatwa for cmdrTako's death hasn't been issued yet, as far as I know.
a m). Judging one fifth of the world's population by the actions of one extremist religious leader is, well, small minded. You might as well condemn Christianity (with all its different sects) for the actions of the abortion clinics bombers. On the other hand, the "church" of Scientology has somewhere around 300,000 followers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology#The_Chur ch_of_Scientology) and it's much more compatible with the formal definition of a cult.
There's about 1.2 BILLION Muslims in the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Isl
Islam, unlike Scientology, is an actual religion with their own set of believes and morals, however incompatible with your view on life they might be. Scientology is a well-established hoax. It only exists to milk money out of weak and confused (or stupid and gullible, depends on how cynical you are) people. Islamic fundamentalists might have done their share of wrongdoings but so did all other fundamentalists, almost by definition.
With all that in mind, as an agnostic liberal I don't think that Islam is a "good" religion. It has the same problems that the two other major religions have.
PS - I'm am an Israeli and am living in the state of Israel. I'm Jewish by birth. I've been exposed to most of the dark and light sides of Islam. I've also heard every possible bit of anti-Islamic propaganda.
PPS - As for your claim that Christianity has somehow improved on the Old Testament - There's a quote I find very appropriate from Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse 5:
"... But the Gospels actually taught this:
Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn't well connected. So it goes.
The flaw in the Christ stories, said the visitor from outer space, was that Christ, who didn't look like much, was actually the Son of the Most Powerful Being in the Universe. Readers understood that, so, when they came to the crucifixion, they naturally thought, and Rosewater read out loud again:
Oh boy - they sure picked the wrong guy to lynch that time!
And that thought had a brother: "There are right people to lynch." Who? People not well connected. So it goes."
You are aware of the fact that there are more then a few slashdot readers whose first language is not English. For some it's not even the second (me, for instance).
Although I think that aspiring to use language correctly is important, don't you think that sometimes being an anal-retentive geek is not as important as trying to see through the language barriers and understanding the content of the post?
Grammar and spelling are important for standardization and optimization of communication, but it serves as an aid and are not the essence of human interaction (including written and spoken). Understanding what the other person tried to tell you and processing should your prime focus. I agree that sometimes bad spelling/grammar may result at misunderstanding, but I'm fairly confident that it happens less then you're bitching about spelling.
Also, function declaration in computer programming is really not something you want to model human language after. More the other way around.
My 0.2 cents (well, actually not cents as I'm not an American or from the EU. Imagine that).GUI is beautiful. OSX pales in comparison
OSX has bash, and Vista still has the crappy ass DOS CLI. Game over.
Explain me how this has ANYTHING to do with GUI?
Or maybe you are being a linux fanboy without even reading what you are responding to?
I would never turn him loose in a city by himself, and letting him loose online is no different.
One question - How is it not different? Do you think your child will be hit by a virtual car, while crossing a virtual road? Or do you think that he will be molested on the internet itself?
I agree that your beliefs are yours to hold and adhere. Non the less, after reading the above, I can confidently say that you are a FUCKING INSANE MANIAC, who causes much more harm to his child then any TV show or website could ever dream of.
Those are some of the saddest analogies I've ever seen.
Have you ever tried talking to your TV and explaining it that it shouldn't allow itself to get stolen? Have you ever tried to teach your cell phone not to stay in unlocked cars? Probably not, because that would make very little sense or good.
But guess what? You can talk to your children! They are not inert items like your cell or TV. You can reason with them (I know they're children, but still, give them some credit), you can have a conversation with them and maybe, with luck, even establish some sort of trust with them. A trust that will not require from you to monitor them as closely as you feel you must now.
Your children are your family, and hopefully, your friends. They are not the enemy. When you are trying to restrict their freedom, without consulting with them and without trying to understand them, you treat them like such.
While I'm legally responsible, they DO NOT have the same rights as adults.
I don't want to be too harsh but after reading your post I'm really not sure if it's your children that you worry about, or you legal liability for their actions.
You obviously missed the entire "There are other ways to incite drug/tech/whatever development, than the current patent system" discussion going on around here for the last, oh kazzilion years. You don't have to RTFA, but at least read some of the previous comments.
Saying that the *ONLY* way a company can be motivated to create a new needed drug is to give it absolute, monopolistic power over a life saving/enhancing product, is kind of, well, dumb.
I for one welcome our andro... This is getting old. *shrugs and walks away*
First, I agree that a QA tester that plays a specific a game as a full time job is probably an excellent player in that specific game. Probably. However, I resent the assertion that "It really doesn't take that much talent to play video games, you just got to spend time figuring out what the developers where thinking.".
You have no idea how many games are played in ways that the developers never thought off. Two examples from the top of my head are the translocator/air-gun combo in Unreal Tournament and rocket jumps in Quake. There are probably also hundreds of similar creative work-a-rounds in RPG's and strategy games that the developers of the game never thought of.
Most modern games are very, very complex environments. Functioning in them and being successful at it is much more than understanding some technical aspects of it, the same way understanding thermodynamics or quantum mechanics won't help you be a better human being.
If you have any account online for which you have ever disclosed your true identity (like in order to make a purchase) then that account information can and will be cross-referenced with all of the tracking data that the tracking companies have been able to put together on you.
Ok. There's a fare chance this will shock you but I'm going to say it anyway - so what?
So some datamining, marketing, evil corporation will know that I frequent Slashdot, PennyArcade and a donkey-sex porn site. And they can link all to my name, address and phone number. So what? Don't get me wrong, this is not a "If you done nothing wrong wht do you have to hide" approach. This is a "I don't give a fuck what they know about me approach". What will a marketing company do with this data? Does it really worth all the time I'll spend trying to protect it?
Seriously. This is getting out of proportion.
Because you get a return that you're happy with. Although Google does not have an independent auditor to go over their click data, advertisers still pay. Some feel they are not getting enough conversions for the money they invested in their ppc (pay-per-click) campaign, some feel they do. Some cancel their accounts and move on to a different kind of web marketing, some stay and use the Google system.
In the end, it's a service, not an obligation, and even though most countries already formalized auditing measures for other types of advertising mediums, it doesn't mean it makes sense. Personal responsibility and decision making are applicable in this case just like always. If all of Google's clients demanded auditing, there would be auditing. There's definitely no need for governmental regulation.
End of the day, I don't understand why people pay for a service, with defined rules of use and known risks only to start crying murder later (well, I do understand why they do that, it's just that I don't understand why we are taking them seriously).
If you don't like AdSense or AdWords, close your account. You can. They have a button or something.
Paying costumers pay for context ads not for search results. Their ads will not be affected by this in any way.
Ok. I know this is probably not the best way to start a reply but - you are f#&%ing crazy. Ok. No cheating or lying (how this is achieved in your sick little had will remain a mystery to me) but what do you say about, eh, picking your nose? Going to the bathroom? Masturbating? Crying? Doing something you want to remain private, while harming no one? People like you scare me more than the NSA, CIA, FBI or the local police altogether. You're not the quite by-stander. You are the one rushing to get the brown uniforms.
It's heart warming to see a comment like this modded Insightful.
What kind of backward logic is that? Since when does the net revenue of AOL is being pumped back into the economy (I know how wide scope economy works, but you have balancing factors here that completely negate this proposition)? Furthermore, did you forget that those 5000 employees whose salaries have been 'freed' are also consumers? If they don't have any income they won't be able to spend money, hence pump money into the general economy. And this will definitely happen before the money saved on their employment will have any positive global effect. Geez.
Because Linux is such an obvious market leader and trend setter among software users around the world?
Are you trying to imply that you regularly hear something like "Oh my god! You saw that new app they released on Linux? I can't wait for it to be ported to Windows!"?
Linux has a long way to go before it will be a key factor in the decision making process of any leading app manufacturer*.
* All of the above concerns mostly desktop apps.