Well whether he's harming anybody else or not, we aren't sure yet. It hasn't happened. But he is certainly gambling and I'm pretty certain that gambling with people's lives isn't protected anywhere. Hell Gambling itself is illegal in plenty of places.

Also, Voltaire didn't say anything about giving the guy he's defending a a Megaphone.

Well go ahead and burn the Quran, see how long it is until Muslims go strait for Christian people. You aren't just going to get people that just keep burning books at each other. You're going to burn the books KNOWING that it's going to piss off a bunch of very violent people. And you think that they aren't going to start attacking churches with Zeal? Tell me you can't see this starting a religious war. Because really, making a statement by burning books to fuel your ego is really more important than any lives it may cost.

The reason the Dutch Press got in trouble is because all of that stuff went by editors and it STILL got printed. This information is unedited. This is closer the company owning the land these people are own, those same people putting up a sign that says "Join us for a Quran burning on Saturday!" and the company kicking them off saying "Hell no, not on my property."

I really don't see the cowardice in that. You think Rackspace went "OMG, people don't even know we're hosting this site (because next to the psycho priest, who cares who's HOSTING it) but we need to pull it down before someone attacks us!" Get real. Odds of that versus odds of respecting our troops and trying to do what you can for THEM for a change - what do you think is more likely?

They are two different entities though I wouldn't really blame the ISP in this instance either. Would you want to be associated with this guy? I can't blame a company for doing what makes good business sense. That said, Rackspace basically evicted people from their property because they turned it into a crack den. If an ISP disconnected them, it would be more like disconnecting electricity on the same crack den.

It's great that these middle-aged geeks are experienced and all but (and maybe I'm wrong) isn't creativity kind of important? It strikes me that the exact kind of person you are looking for is a young engineer. Sure 40-somethings can be creative and they probably have a better percentage of quality ideas than younger people. But they are also far less likely to bend the rules of computing and I imagine that's exactly what a company like Google wants.

You want 40-somethings to critique the ideas, not to make them. Management, not engineering.

ha, I see what you did there!

Sci-fi has always been good for this type of things. That's why I enjoy it so much. Honestly, have you read Star Wars? Jedi Philosophy is where it's at.

Can anyone say Banhammer? ... Where did he learn to use a 9mm. The pistol in Halo is an unusual 12.7mm.

Madness? this - is - SLASHDOT!

I agree too. The point wasn't to take it off to share it... At the same time I do find it atleast moderately interesting.

While you might not like to hear it, conventional psychology says that any behavior you take is likely to be repeated and that any behavior observed is very close to identical as doing it yourself (You remember it differently of course but brain activity is very similar).

So basically this should have been assumed but of course it's always nice to have the research to back it up... especially in the case where in games the characters are clearly not real people, of course once again psychology says we think in symbols so...

Anyway, all this means is that the research supports what has been the basic assumption and while the small change might not seem like a big difference when you think of it in a feeling, if you think of it as a group of action then it can be. If there's roughly a 2% increase in aggression, that might seem like the person is just "slightly more aggressive"... or probably should be right that that's an extra moment out of every 50 where the person becomes aggressive. Instead of the person laughing off that joke, they might get pissed off at you.

Just food for thought. Personally I don't think it needs the kind of stigma associated with such a warning. The government has no right to tell people who they may react to a given stimulus. Warning somebody that something might kill them is a whole lot different than warning people that they may kill someone.

Everybody would love to curb greenhouse gas emissions and save the planet except they don't want to foot the bill for it... and some can't. Hybrid cars have only been popular because the price of gas went up. Electric and Hybrids have been around for a while and haven't caught on. Few people are willing or able to make the investment.

For the record, I do my tea in a microwave and I ride the bus (except for grocery shopping). I also turn off the lights when I'm the only one home (unless I'm reading). However, this won't keep me from using my computer. And if you're saying "well yeah, I wouldn't expect that"... that's what your whole post says. Everybody is going to try not to be wasteful. I'm sure if people knew that microwaving their tea was better for the environment and probably for their wallet, they'd do it... but not even you have cut your tea out completely.

Trust me, you aren't the only one who cares, it just makes you feel better to think you do.

Yeah, makes perfect sense. When people like me who have been around for that long die then nobody will remember the Beatles... Ohhh wait, I wasn't, nor were any of my friends, my siblings, their friends... wierd huh? The difference is that we're saying that the Beatles will be Timeless 30-40 years after the fact.

Get off your "I know classic" high horse. You find even college students (non-musical) who can differentiate which compositions belonged to which composer and I'll find you 5 that could SING half a dozen beatles songs... let alone capable of differentiating them from ANY other band.

So basically what they are saying is that the incumbent is evil. You realize that even 3rd world countries, tribes in Africa, hell even just monkeys are trying to "improve their lot" and trying to find new ideas. I'm sorry but I'm not impressed in anyway. I feel like this book is an appeal to everything American (We're ingenious! Incumbency sucks!)

When you find evidence that we're moving towards being a culture based PURELY on ideas and learning, I'll be impressed but saying that we innovate is like saying that people learn... wow, really?

Windows 7 = Vista? haha now that piece of crap makes a little more sense! I always thought it seemed a little... unfinished.

That aside, people always bust window's for issues and I can't imagine that a pre-pre-release of their operating system can be in too good of shape. Really a good idea to put it out there?