Better yet, you also create safe environments for the consumers (compare the risks of accidental OD from a "bad batch" and AIDS from a prostitute in legalized vs non-legalized countries). Furthermore, the "sin tax" generated could, at least in part, be used to educate against the dangers of drug use (as in real education, not government-induced FUD) and/or rehab for the addicted. Let alone take God knows how many people will not be incarcerated anymore from having even a small sample of pot which not only saves billions$, but also does not destroy people's lives for something silly (BTW, any law changes should be made retroactive - anybody arrested *solely* for possession of drugs should be immediately released). i.e. the money that used to go to organized crime can now be put into far more constructive uses. Everybody wins

Oh, and let me not even get started with the fact that mere possession of drugs (pot included) could bar you for life from obtaining an education loan. That's fucked up. Sorry, pisses me off and had to let steam

No worries, Mr Smith. We all knew it was you all along.

it's not that subscription districts suck, they are providing a service like any other and expect to get paid just as well. the problem lies in the deadbeats who don't pay the bills.

yeah, but where's the fun in that? :)

Simple, the office could just limit the upload bandwidth to a small, but manageable level - or shut it off all together (little reason for a company to host files of other companies/competitors). An exception, of course, is if you're trying to sell the product in question, in which case rev it up. Either way, allowing others to seed the torrent helps distribute the costs associated with massive bandwidth.

Not quite - in order to transfer the $1,000 to B, the have to take it from A who is, in general terms, the more productive of the two. So, while there is a net balance of $0 gain/loss in simple money transfer, there is a net loss to society in terms of more money gone into worse goods and services.

Are you saying Slashdot is a terrorist breeding ground? ;-)

I think you underestimate the improvements Linux is making. Ubuntu is getting consistently positive reviews for the past several distros and its corresponding increased exposure to the masses. Factor in how people are starting to get fed up with MS security issues and apple's arm-and-a-leg prices, I would not rule out the proverbial "year of the linux" to happen quite soon. In fact, on a personal note (not that it means much in the grand scheme of things, i suppose, but to get an idea) I know several people who have been expressing interest in converting to Linux, one of which is my father who has been using MS since DOS (and the other a computer illiterate). Oh, and MS already considers Linux a threat

Joke all you want, i'd give it no more than 5-10 years

...that religion is on its last legs. First you had religion - it ruled all. Then science came (post christianity), but was silenced by the church. Eventually science took over the role of religion in explaining natural occurences, while the church continuously protested. What now? they try to "merge" with science to "prove" they are right either through intelligent design or, in this case, geocentrism (thats right, they condemn science, yet try to use it to prove they are right). Of course, it doesn't help that hawking just released The Grand Design either (great book, BTW)

Oh, and a quick preliminary research on those speaking indicate a highly religious group. Biased, anyone?

Agreed, but not everybody is "maximize my profit" driven - I'm sure many people will gladly do it for free given their love of music and the ability to contribute to the cause. Granted, I'll admit that I'm ignorant regarding the costs involved, somehow i wouldn't think it's completely out of the question either (I'm going by the presumption that they did their homework). Of course, if you're really that concerned, i'm sure they'll appreciate your extra donation ;-)

See, may people complain about Google being evil corporate overlords, but I say - you go Google! I mean, do you really want to see this on your TV!?

I'm certainly not a doctor and may be misunderstanding this, but the way i think of it is this: when you execute someone, you provide with them a "lethal dose" of poison. In reality, there is no such thing as a "lethal dose", but rather it's defined as something that is 99.9999% (or whatever) percent likely that you'll kill someone given his/her physical conditions. Yet naturally, some survive - but that doesn't make it any good for you. Same with vaccination: yes, some rare people may have developed some condition that counteracts the benefits of the vaccines, but that doesn't mean it's bad for you.

So, ultimately, this in itself doesnt contradict previous studies - in this case we're dealing with an isolated case (the so-called statistical "outlier"), whereas before you were (presumably) dealing with a random selection of individuals, representative of the general population

what really concerns me more, however, are the possible repercussions of this asinine decision. They get so obsessed over isolated cases that they completely neglect the larger picture. To quote another poster:

I think most will, but to be honest this sounds more like a desperate call for free press to me. I mean, c'mon a guy basically goes out of his way to say "hey, they've hired us to take down torrent sites, and guess what? we're awesome at what we do!" Sounds fishy to me. Then, of course, there are the legal issues:

So, not only does he plan on launching a DoS attack, but he also plans on destroying the data? Sorry, even governments investigating CP won't do that, let alone some small private company.

Now let's assume, however, that he's telling the truth. Would major motion studios actually be that stupid (jokes aside) to give him discretion to bring up their names? He brings them up as if it were nothing.

Sorry, but this is all too much for me - let me be the one to call bullshit on this article and to the author who fell for it bait, line and sinker