This is really not newsworthy. It happens in Buenos Aires all the time. I was there 2009 at Wikimania (where RMS also attended) and I in the few days I was there multiple of my friends had their bags/laptops stolen, while I was in the same room.

The thiefs are really skilled and they make it almost impossible for you to notice the theft. The only way to defend yourself is to have all your stuff at your body all the time, thus being a harder target than everyone else.

Your analogy does not explain why the carrier do this, because it's the other way around: You get a flatrate for a device and they assume that you're not going to use it completely. If you use it with another device, though, you actually might use all of it.

So, by modifying your analogy, you get a flatrate for at max 1 cubic meter of water per month, but you may only use it for drinking and cooking. No one uses that amount of water for drinking and cooking of course, so the carrier calculates that you actually use much less. If all the customers do, that means $$$ for the stockholders.

Now, if you break that agreement and use it also for washing dishes, watering the lawn and showering, you will use much more. This means less $$$ for the company and that's why they want to forbid it.

What they are selling you, therefore is not a real flatrate, it's something like "1000 free* phone minutes! (*expires after 24h)". It's a crippled flatrate, where they try to make sure you don't actually use it or only in a minimal way.

Maybe he just doesn't believe in math You know, everyone is entitled to their opinion!

Of course "virtual murder" is nothing like a real murder. But, the depictions in video games do shape our perception of the real world, as do other media (like movies). Most recent high-budget shooters aim to present modern warfare, but tend to show only the positive aspects (adventurous, exciting, etc.), while omitting all the pain and suffering that comes with it. Additionally they show only the very limited viewpoint of one (US) soldier, not the view of the other waring party or civilians.

In film, we'd call that a "pro-war film" or even "propaganda film", and it's right to criticize those games. (On the other hand, I have no problem with shooters like UnrealTournament or Quake3 – they don't aim to show how the war is, so they don't fail while doing so)

"Go west" doesn't work anymore. You can't just rest all your hopes on being able to continue life on another planet. It's a romantic idea, but actually doing so would require efforts that are by far much larger than ending world poverty or convincing people to care about the environment. A manned mission to mars would cost $40-$80 billion. Here are some problems, each enough to explain why we won't be anything near this in the next 50 years (just some examples, I'm sure there are more):

Space expenses don't scale well. While development costs do scale, things like transport, fuel, assembly of rockets, etc. does not scale very well.

Full Autonomy is extremely hard. If earth goes down the toilet, you can't rely on yearly shipments of equipment and technology. You'd have to build *everything* in your colony, which would require a huge colony indeed (so that you have a factory that makes the robots that manufacturers your mp3 players and *everything else you rely on nowadays*) and thus an even greater effort.

Humans just love earth. Even mild changes to our environment can have extreme consequences on our health. Thinking about going to Europa, that trendy Jupiter moon? Well, it only has 0.134 g, so you need to put *everything* in giant centrifuges. And that's just one factor. Building a huge shell that keeps the pressure of 1 bar earth atmosphere and 10^-12 bar Europa atmosphere separate is another one...

There is nothing unethical about eating meat.

I seriously doubt that. These are the two most grave concerns:

Animal pain. Animals do feel pain, and from the universal viewpoint of ethics, it doesn't matter whether it's you, me, some other human, an ape or a chicken that gets tortured. Pain is pain and our practices in factory farming causes a lot of it for only a little benefit, which is extremely unethical. (I know there are other approaches to animal's status, but there is no notable modern moral philosopher who disputes that the suffering of animals is a serious concern)

Environment. Did you know that animal production accounts for more greenhouse gases than all of the world's transportation? Yup, and that's not some veggie organization that claims that, but the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It also takes up a lot of water, energy and is responsible for much of the destruction of the jungle.

Wikipedia's image filter would just hide images per default, you're still able to see them with just one click, at any time.

This in no way helps oppressive governments. It is about a client-side cookie and that way the client can control everything at all times. (There's not even a way for a school to hide all images, since you can always override your filter settings by clicking on the image placeholder)

If an evil government tried to filter images, they'd have to prevent pictures from actually being sent over the Internet.

Wikipedia's image filter would just hide images per default, you're still able to see them with just one click, at any time.

This in no way helps oppressive governments. It is about a client-side cookie and that way the client can control everything at all times. (There's not even a way for a school to hide all images, since you can always override your filter settings by clicking on the image placeholder)

If an evil government tried to filter images, they'd have to prevent pictures from actually being sent over the internet.

He probably got around 160mS (milliSievert) in total, which even spread on several years is quite a lot (you normally get 4mS annually. Up to 50mS/year if you're a radiation worker) (calculation, data)

Revision history is kept forever. Just click on "View history" on an article and provide us with the diff link ("prev"). Thanks.

I tell you what I tell everyone with this kind of argument: Please be more specific. Tell us your username, your edits (diffs!), then we can evaluate and judge for ourselves. Otherwise, it's just FUD you're spreading.

Incidentally, I know a number of ex-users who saw Wikipedia as a platform for their own personal opinion / view of the world, a means for self-expression and so forth. They were frustrated as they did not succeed (obviously) and now they complain about Wikipedia just the way you do and use the same vocabulary you did in your posts.

Printers, as light-bulbs, are designed to fail. In fact, from a entrepreneurial standpoint, they SHOULD fail. Their failure is the only guarantee that printer companies will make a buttload of money. In order for them to get rich, people need to buy printers more often then every 5 years. So the solution is simple: Make printers fail after a certain amount of printed pages. Some printers have been proven to do exactly that.

Read more about Planned obsolescence on Wikipedia.

I'm sorry, but how is this Insightful? It is a troll post.

Please, moderators, remember: there is no +1 Agree. If a post brings up a new point or sheds a new light onto the discussion, mod it up. Don't mod it up simply because you are support a certain opinion.

It seems an article is at least 10 times more relevant in the news, if the word "Smartphone" is in the headline. In reality, this is just a normal device which has nothing to do with calling people or surfing on the web.
If you read the abstract, you'll notice Smartphones aren't even mentioned.