Is that to the left? When it comes to totalitarians I have trouble telling the difference between the far left and far right.

Define rational. Is money your primary or only measure? Only in the short term? The next quarter, maybe the next year?

A project like this, if it took off, could be quite good for expanding the usage of the Java language. It might not be a success or a big success, but calling it a blue-sky project seems a bit unfair. Unless of course value is only defined by the next quarter.

I wish it was that simple.

Lets go for an extreme example, I'm sure it will be taken out of context but I might as well try getting the point across.

Lets pretend Apple managed to make an exclusive agreement with another large organization, like say the government. This exclusive agreement means that all voting goes through Apple's proprietary software on their fancy new iPad.

Now of course, it is your choice to disagree with how things are done and not buy the iPad...

Yes, it is an extreme example. But you don't seem to be understanding the GP's point here:

It is in their best interest to trap and control you. Stop telling people to just take it!

Probably not, if you look at other incidents: http://cmeerw.org/blog/594.html it appears they just like to push the limits.

It's hard to hide vacation time. People tend to notice when you aren't there. The culture may be such that no one asks or comments but that doesn't mean there is no damage done.

Not if you pay off the regulators as well, that makes it legal.

It seems to me this would be much less of a problem if ISPs didn't massively oversell their networks and cheap out on upgrades. I hear complaints about cost and questions of who will pay for the upgrades, then I go look at profit reports...

Don't worry, I didn't read the article either.
I did however do a text search and came across this line: "First simulated in software before using actual bots"

I can attest to that. I regularly have to work around websense at work to get my job done. Most of the web use I do for work is through a backdoor. I only end up using the company network for things like reading slashdot. Seems kind of backwards. It's a big enough company that getting it turned off or getting proper access is difficult.

Websense and similar products are organizations trying to use technical measures instead of dealing with the actual problem. Employees misbehave, you have to deal with it instead of putting up random roadblocks and pretending it doesn't happen.

It isn't just fear of the future, of the inevitable unknowns in almost any change. It is also letting go of the past, people often end up grieving for what they lose, even if what they gain is greater.

Maybe I didn't make it clear enough. Most of the flying car lanes you see on TV are just the layout from the ground raised up a few hundred feet. Why have the lanes limited in such a way? Why not fly over the building rather than around it? Why pack the lanes so closely together?

We can pick the analogy apart in so many ways, the point was more that by default we don't even consider the alternatives, we try to make the new just like the old.

I feel you missed my point. My point was that your lanes don't have to exist on a 2 dimensional plane, you can develop more efficient and safer pathways rather than just raising the current layout up a few hundred feet.

People don't like dealing with change. Rather than trying to come up with a new system that works well considering the current realities, people try to make the current realities conform to what was previously in place.

Look at movies with flying cars, where so often the flying cars are restricted to 2d multiple lane 'roads' in the air. Seems like a ridiculous restriction to put on flying cars which would lead to almost the exact same set of problems we have with non-flying cars and traffic. It's just how people think (or is that how we don't think?)

It is easy for us on Slashdot to see how stupid this is. But you are talking about a country where a large portion of the population prides themselves in being ignorant and rejecting good science for 'alternative theories'.

Nope, a typo.

Although, since English came from England, not America wouldn't the American be the derivation?