That was brilliant. I LOL'd.

What are you talking about? MacDonald's is Irish. Last time I checked, Irishland was in Europe. Idiot.

"There are many reasons to upgrade to Snow Leopard, for example a major one for some people will be Exchange support,"

pfft. Windows has had decent Exchange support since at least Vista SP1.

"Big content can't expect to get anywhere unless they offer the
consumer something better than what is already being offered.
In many cases, this is something that is FREE to the consumer
or is part of some larger bundle that yields Big Content slim
revenues per viewed unit already."

That's not entirely true. Bottled water sellers make money selling something that falls out of the sky in most places for free. There can be a model that outcompetes "free" in a given market, but this isn't it.

What is the point of the pirate bay existing in a fractured legitimate market? illegitimately, it was one among many clearing houses, its selling points being reputation, reliability, community-based quality assurance, large catalog, and (i believe) to a lesser extent price (price includes barrier to entry). Legitimately, it will have none of those qualities, except *maybe* quality assurance. So why would anyone go there when they can go to whatever the next thepiratebay is.

But at least skateboarders have someone to look down on: inline skaters.

"Uhh, that's what she said."

Who? Your Mom?

D'OH, Misplaced quote. The book we read was "To Build a Fire" in 2nd grade.

"That would equate to them blowing up your kindle."

Just wait until they recall "Hiroshima: The History of the Atomic Bomb"

"Granted, this is a good arguement why copyrights need revamping, especially for the digital age - does purchasing an electronic product give you the same rights as purchasing a physical one, what protections should be in place to allow digital consumers to safeguard their purchases and what needs to be in place to allow rights holders safeguard their rights. And it does highlight the flaws of Amazon's implementation with the Kindle, but it isn't worth the breast pounding drama people are attempting to turn it into."

Exactly. It would be nice though if this question would be answered. If I am purchasing a license, then fine, just let me know that before I buy. If I'm buying a book, then its a book. BUt don't market it to me as one thing and then treat it like another.

I own a Kindle, and although I didn't have an illicit copy of 1984 deleted from it, I bear Amazon no ill will. The Kindle is still an amazing device. I think Amazon made a serious mistake, and totally flubbed this, but the level of outrage that this is being taken to is breathtaking to behold. I would be willing to bet as well that most of the people getting worked up over this don't even own a Kindle anyway.

Not only that, but get this: people actually pay huge sums of money, I'm talking like $10/gallon for bottled water, a substance that literally falls out of the sky for free! Imagine if you could get ahold of THAT customer list.

We read Jack London's "To Build a Fire in 2nd Grade". 2nd grade for crying out loud! The story is about a guy who freezes to death because he can't cut open his dog and stick his hands inside the corpse to warm them up enough to be able to strike a match to build a fire to save his life. 2ND GRADE!

I think in essence it is up to the parents and teachers acting through governing bodies like the school board, PTA, parental complaints and so forth. The role of the bureaucratic agency at the federal level is 1. to make sure that education is relatively uniform throughout the country, so that we aren't getting beaten by the Russkies and also 2. to make sure that nobody takes it too far, ie having a small but vocal group hijack the curriculum to serve political ends, like mandating the treatment of creationism as if its a scientific theory or whatever the populist hot button political issue of the day is.

At least in theory.

What it boils down to is that the government isn't there to indoctrinate our children, its there to protect them from somebody out to ruin their education to make a political point, or because God told them to, or whatever reason crazy people have for these things.

Actually, the robot is a practicing Bhuddist.

"But hey, when someone asks you to make a robot to do X, how many engineers will step back and ask "Are you SURE X is what you want to do?""

Only the really good ones.

Easy, instead of using airships, make them the size of basketballs. All they really need to do is contain some sort of 360 degree camera system and a wireless uplink. Instead of fixing them in one places, just develop some sort of AI to let them freely roam around with a rotor or something. Think Roomba in the sky.