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Comment Re:Why (Score 1) 411

I agree with everything you say EXCEPT that a GUI interface would make it harder to use your smartphone with 1 bar. Nothing inherent in a GUI requires more information to be sent down the wire than a CLI would, unless you were trying to construct the GUI dynamically from data returned by the server.

Comment Only use a credit card (Score 4, Insightful) 511

Debit cards are functionally useless, since they give you nothing that using credit card which you pay off every month wouldn't while costing you quite a bit.

If you have a credit card you pay off every month, you get an interest free loan for a month. You earn points for rewards. You get protection against fraud. You often get warranties on things you wouldn't normally get.

You get NONE of this with a debit card. The only reason a debit card is preferable is if you don't have the self control to spend an amount you can pay off every month, or you have such a bad credit rating you can't get a credit card with a grace period.

Comment Re:Targetting (Score 5, Informative) 260

How else would you define targeting in this context other than to mean only binding to cancerous cells? It seems you are implying that targeting can only refer to conscious 'aiming', but that is only a subset of things that can be considered targeted.

Targeted can mean 'select as an object of attention or attack'. That is what they are doing when the design a drug.. selecting cancer cells for attack, and then designing the drug so it will only effect those cells. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_design

Targeted drugs DO mean something specific in pharmacology.

Comment Re:It's Not Going To Make A Difference (Score 1) 126

Now to counter my own argument (because I like to do that sort of thing):

You are totally stacking the deck by choosing this type of argument, and abusing the particulars of the crime of copyright infringement.

By choosing to compare a world where the download takes place and a world where the downloader was never born, you state that, to the copyright holder, the world is exactly the same. However, it isn't; there exists one less potential customer in the world. Now, you might say that this one customer is such a tiny fraction the world, and anyway the likelihood that he or she would become an actual customer are pretty low. While the chance of this person being a customer, while certainly less than 1, is most likely higher than that of a random person in the world (they show some interest in content by illegally downloading it). Now apply this little thought experiment to ALL downloaders; now the world either has all these people downloading music or all those downloaders were never born. That is a LOT less customers in this new downloaders-never-born world. To act as if the worlds are the same is a bit disingenuous. Whether these damages are greater or less than what is assessed can be argued, but it is not as simple as saying the worlds would be the same.

Comment Re:It's Not Going To Make A Difference (Score 2, Insightful) 126

I don't know if increasing punitive damages to fit our dislike is illogical, or even necessarily a bad idea. Punitive damages DO in some sense measure the strength of the public's dislike for an action; the purpose of establishing punitive damages is to reduce the occurrences of a behavior that society deems undesirable. It makes sense that we would want to more strongly punish actions that we dislike more than actions that we actually like. There is no 'objective', 'purely logical' reason to assign any specific value to punitive damages (otherwise they would be compensatory damages, ie equal to the monetary value of the harm done). Therefore, any argument as to how much punitive damages should be assessed for various infractions would logically be based on how badly society wants to prevent the action from happening.

In the case of illegal filesharing of copyrighted work, it is hard to make an argument that any member of society is suffering a great harm that is higher than the compensatory damages equal to the purchase cost of the downloaded work. In fact, until the illegal downloader is caught, the offended party is unaware that a crime has even taken place! From the "victim's" perspective, the world where the illegal download took place and a world where the downloader had never even been born are absolutely identical. It is hard to make an argument that there should be large punitive damages to prevent something that has such an unnoticeable effect.

Spam, on the other hand, causes people anguish long before the criminal is caught. A world where spam is sent and a world where all the spammers were never born would be a completely different world. Society would certainly notice the difference, and would be much happier in a world where spammers had never been born. It makes perfect logical sense to want to increase the punitive parts of the damages.

Education

Study Finds That Video Games Hinder Learning In Young Boys 278

dcollins writes "Researchers at Denison University in Ohio have shown that giving PlayStations to young boys leads to slower progress in reading and writing skills. Quoting: 'The study is the first controlled trial to look at the effects of playing video games on learning in young boys. That is to say, the findings aren't based on survey data of kids' game habits, but instead on a specific group of children that were randomly assigned to receive a PlayStation or not ... Those with PlayStations also spent less time engaged in educational activities after school and showed less advancement in their reading and writing skills over time than the control group, according to tests taken by the kids. While the game-system owners didn't show significant behavioral problems, their teachers did report delays in learning academic skills, including writing and spelling.'"

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