My concerns are not the original designs, or the engineers. It's the cheap profit seeking idiots who attempt to cut corners while running them. Fundamentally, Nuclear is a great idea! Unfortunately, Nuclear Power in the hands of a capitalist society which values immediate profit over the chance of blowing themselves up is actually really freaking dangerous.

This is what we saw with Fukushima. That reactor was well designed - and the others in the region held up decently. If the plant had been kept up even close to spec - there wouldn't have been a disaster. Hell, even if after the initial issue, if they had just dumped the core, it would of been a passing mention in the newspaper. Instead, somebody who valued money over other peoples lives, decided to make a profitable decision instead of a safe one.

It only takes one stupid idiot to ruin a good thing.

It's called a right to bear arms. It's a right because it was considered necessary for the defense of our basic rights.

In addition, most gun related homicides stem from drug or gang violence - and a large percentage of those cases are using illegally obtained firearms.

Some of those "homicides" (depending on the statistic set you're using) may be self defense cases.

So, I'm going to argue that we shouldn't be banning magnets just because some kid is stupid enough to swallow one. I'm also going to argue that banning guns, opposed to banning Bucky balls, does more harm then good, if only because gun ownership does not correlate with homicide.. (Some recent numbers for you)

No, I think he's suggesting that the writer is a self serving idiot who is clearly biased.

Actually, per US law, they have stolen money. They intentionally lead their client who was acting in good faith into a business deal which Goldman-Sachs could reasonably believe would go very badly, and without warning them - and they accepted money for this.

That *does* count as theft in the US.

Return policy in this case falls under as an extension of Uniform Commercial Code, and while it may be listed in the contract, the primary body of the contract has most likely already been executed.

Wrong. Retailers are almost always independent parties who are simply reselling a product. The transaction with the OEM is already completed and any business has been tidied up. Once I have the product, I am free to sell it independently unless I have an injunction placed against me directly.

There is no magical developmental panacea. That being said, Agile is pretty good - for some things. It's great when you aren't sure where you are heading, when you're doing a prototype run, or when you are just building data on how interested in something people are. It's also useful for when you just need to build a small product.

Agile isn't some amazing process which should replace everything. There is no one-size-fits-all development process. Everything has it's place, and Agile's place is in prototypes, rapid development, and exploratory designs.

Knowing how code is structured doesn't automatically mean you know where bugs are. In addition, non-deterministic code occurs on a regular basis in several fields (bioinformatics, MLAs, NLP, so on).

Having a personal project doesn't mean you don't have contributors - It means that you are the only main contributor. You may still receive translations or patches from users or enthusiasts occasionally. In addition, having a public bug tracker helps your users know what to expect when they use your product.

That works great - when you only have a few hundred lines of simple code. However, when you have 200k lines, a couple hundred different files, and some very complex functionality, you need a more complex system.

In addition, how do you manage multiple contributors? How do you deal with letting your users know when bugs are fixed? How do you deal with issues that only occur in a very small amount of edge cases?

It's one thing to fix some code you fat fingered or to clean up some API calls. It's an entirely different thing to fix bugs in 200k lines of non-deterministic code that runs on 3+ platforms.

Value is (traditionally) based on scarcity. Digital goods (even with absolutely no piracy) have absolutely no scarcity unless it's entirely artificial. So, now, value is based on convenience and service. I don't go to a nice restaurant because I think the food is good (I can cook just as well at home and get a much nicer meal), but rather, I eat at a nice restaurant because I want to be waited on and I want someone to cook for me and bring me fancy drinks.

Digital goods must be approached the same way. When they are approached this way, then piracy has absolutely NO effect on their value. Digital goods have no scarcity, and therefore, wider distribution can not affect the value.

What if I enjoy the content, decides it's good, and then pay for it?

Alternative, what if I pay for the content and find out I hate it?

From my standpoint, I'm not going to pay for anything if I'm going to be treated like a criminal when I do. I'm also not going to drop 10$ for an ebook that cost all of 2$ to produce, nor am I going to drop 50 or 60$ for a videogame I don't get to try out first.

My other issue is this: The RIAA/MPAA (and their counterparts in other countries) have REPEATEDLY gone after Indies, legally free programs, and the like. They attempt to hunt down and destroy anyone who provides a better deal then them.

How I wish I had mod points...

You hit the nail on the head. Treating your customers like criminals will never, ever, get the results you want.

Funny enough you mention that they are bound by Contract.

You see, in all of these contracts (and usually verbatim in government contracts), the duty of the secret keeper is forfeit if the information contained is either illegal, or (in America) goes against "the will" of the people.

In another words, if you bind me via contract to not disclose that you're going to nuke New York, and I tell someone, then I have *not* violated my contract (either the contract is invalid in the first place as it violates established law, or my duty to the law/my fellow citizens surpasses my contracted duty).

In these cases, most of these people ARE whistleblowers. The information they release has been released because the whistleblower feels it either violates established law or that it goes against the will of the people.

Yet several of those machines continue running, and have been for months.

You severely overestimate the average consumer.

With javascript injection and a local web server, forcing a popup to appear on every page of "the whole internet" is trivial. There are, in fact, SEVERAL pieces of malware which already use this tactic.