Oh, so I'm a freeloader because I both directly pay the content producers I watch, and apparent DON'T block ads either?

Good to know

1) I just made $1500 in donations this month to my favorite four video streamers, with a fifth scheduled in a couple weeks (the one without paypal in another country, so takes a bit longer than normal)

I'm quite interested in your personal definition of "freeloader" if that is what you call me for blocking ads yet ensuring money lands in the pockets of the content creators I wish to continue creating content.

2) I have the same prerogative to be a "freeloader" as you have the prerogative to be a "script-kiddie hacker."

Stop trying to repeatedly infect my computers via flash exploits delivered over your ads and we'll talk about me not blocking them.

Until then, just remember that the unauthorized access to a computer act you perform is a very serious criminal act compared to the non-crime of blocking your ads that I do.

Way back when I was in my teens, I would always add 10 to my real age and so subtract 10 from my real birth year.
Makes it real easy to remember the lie and be able to make match even years later.

Of course when I was 15 the web wasn't yet a year old and we still got our 8-bit gif porn from FTP that didn't/couldn't age check, but for BBS profiles it worked great.

Never came up against such a validation myself however, at least not that I ever noticed. But I'm just a bit surprised this is my first time hearing of such validation in practice.

At least the site/service you use doesn't require a credit card to "prove" age.

According to the film studios, adding subtitles creates a derivative work and the distribution of it a copyright violation, and the person doing it a horrible human being that should be burnt alive after being fined a hundred trillion dollars for damages.

He should have just sued the MPAA instead, then everyone wins! :P

I hate to be the friend that has to break this to you, but your smug sense of superiority isn't all that impressive :P

*clicks your dislike button*

First just to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with your analysis, I agree it is completely spot-on.
If anything my counter is directed at Nintendo and this choice of policy (not that anyone there would be reading this nor care if they did)

The thing with this line of reasoning is that there are many people like myself who aren't willing to purchase something we can't see or know anything about before buying it.

If I can't see screenshots of the amazing graphics, videos demonstrating the game play mechanics, see the first impressions from reviewers I respect the opinion of, or otherwise get some idea the game may be something I would enjoy playing and get value out of - I simply will not be purchasing it at all.

I have no problems paying a high price for something I believe will be of high value to me.
I also have no problem paying a low price if the value is expected to be low but still there.

What I do have a problem with is paying any price for something of unknown value. I simply refuse to do so.

Not to mention if it was a smaller less recognizable gaming company, going out of your way to hide all details about your game before getting my money strongly implies they know they are peddling garbage, and I can only assume such a purchase was designed to be a scam to take my money while providing no value.
It's worth noting that even the large companies like Nintendo are not immune from this gut reaction feeling. Only their past track record keeps me from assuming the worst.
But I still have to question what they are trying to hide, and why they can't be honest about their product so I can make an informed purchase.

Despite the fact their behavior is intended to prevent lack of sales, the reality is their behavior directly results in a lack of sales.

How? Please be detailed.

He upheld the laws of the USA, upheld his oath to the US government and the NSA.
He violated no conditions of his oath what so ever.

The NSA can not require someone to swear an oath to break the law and betray the US constitution in any legal sense - yet that's exactly what they tried to do.

Breaking a promise to be a criminal does not make you a criminal.

The oaths required from the DOE, DOD, and DOJ all explicitly demand you do not follow illegal orders, do not break laws without explicit exception, and to report to the higher authorities any illegal orders given - all of which Snowden did to the letter of the law and his oath.

In short, if you demand I follow an order of yours, do not bitch and claim I'm a traitor to you when I do exactly as you demanded from me, because then everyone will see your demand and accusation as the bullshit it is.

That must be why Nintendo partnered with Playboy to promote the Nintendo exclusive release of Bayonetta 2.

http://wiiudaily.com/2014/10/nintendo-partners-with-playboy-to-promote-bayonetta-2/
http://bayonetta2.nintendo.com/
http://www.playboy.com/galleries/pamela-horton-nintendo-bayonetta/slide-1

But if you haven't locked out the persons accounts BEFORE they state their intention to quit, you have already 100% failed at stopping Bad Things(tm).

Part of doing Bad Things(tm) is not to pull the action movie cliche of laying out your evil plans to the good guy before leaving him bound yet quite alive to escape and use that very knowledge against you.
You plan and execute your Bad Things(tm) while you still have the ability to do so, not after the time where there is an equal-to or greater than zero percent chance someone could prevent it.

Hypothetical - If you intended to murder someone, would you:
A) sneak up on them unexpectedly to assure the best chances of success? or
B) inform the target of your intentions so they can take steps to protect themselves and/or steps to prevent you from doing so?

True you may get lucky that the one doing Bad Things(tm) is stupid and does just that, but that isn't 100% either, and isn't something one should put themselves in a position to have to bet on either way.

The only sure fire way I am aware of to predict the future regarding when employment will be terminated is if it was initiated by the company.
You'll note in the case of terminations the above policy is almost always followed as a matter of course already.

But unless you can read minds, it's probably safe to say you won't accurately predict an employee leaving before they themselves decide that is an option and choose to act on it.

About the only exception is if the company is making that employees life so miserable already that quitting is the only logical choice - but even then I would argue that is the company initiating it, even if it is an indirect, round-about, and dickish way to do so.

Since you are way too late by this point to do anything to stop Bad Things(tm), why harm the professional relationship further? Treating them as a criminal can't possibly help you or the company in any way, so why cause a non-zero percent chance of harming you or the company by such actions?

Not only are most "secret question" answers easily guessable for anyone you know well, it's also a security risk not unlike reusing the same password on multiple sites.

If I sign up at banks A and B and provide truthful answers to security questions, then any employee of bank A can authenticate /as me/ to bank B, and the reverse as well, on top of anyone that knows me well who could likely pull it off with both banks.

I store secret questions picked and that sites answers along with the rest in my password manager.

If I ever expect to possibly one day maybe need it for say phone verification, I'll put 3-5 seconds of thought into what in-context would be the most off-topic, shocking, and hilarious answers possible that can be spoken over the phone.
Otherwise nonsensical random words are used just like you did.

aka, when signing up for a bank loan, perhaps:
Q: What is the name of the first street you lived on?
A: The corner of blackjack rd and slot-machine ave, next to "i don't have a problem" park.

Not coincidentally my sorrow at seeing the shack gone actually started about 20 years ago :P

Wait a sec, you mean to say there isn't really a bunch of hot godaddy girls waiting on the edge of their seats just to talk to me??

*dejected face*

Replacing the Microsoft SecureBoot key with my own PKI key is perhaps #3 on the list of things I do when configuring a new computer before ever installing a hard drive or OS - following enabling vPro AMT and then the BMC manager if present.

If I am unable to replace the master SecureBoot key with my own, that machine is getting packed up and sent right back to the OEM as defective.

I only buy OEM systems for work and build systems for home use. But the HP account for work sees a couple hundred computers a year, which isn't all that many when speaking "volume purchasing", but will instantly become zero if they choose to lock me out at the BIOS level.

It's already annoying enough that they ship hard drives completely unsuitable for use and requiring formatting (we aren't large enough for custom disk images or custom SLIC BIOS entries yet) - but at least this is only an annoyance and not out right sending defective equipment, which is the only possible definition for locking you out of the system at the firmware level and not allowing any OS to boot.
(By "any" I don't mean less than one, I mean literally any OS)

So what you're saying is you haven't installed Firefox or Chrome but instead are using solely the built in Internet Explorer browser? With no antivirus?

Hate to break it to you, but you very likely already have a ton of third party viruses, trojans, keyloggers, and network scanners installed too :P

Ambiguous?

If it was released tomorrow (Mar 19th 2015) then the deadline would be a year after (Mar 19th 2016)

If you install/upgrade-to 10 before the deadline, it is free.
Upon and after the deadline, you will have to buy it in order to install/upgrade-to.

The only thing ambiguous about it is our lack of knowing when Win10 will be released, which we need first before we can "add one to it" and give you a more direct answer.