Thanks, +1 informative.

It was probably the customers who demanded the weak default password too. Anyone who has ever developed a system like this knows that the users are basically morons and won't be able to look up the default password in the manual (which they lost years ago) and will call your tech support line instead.

I used to write software for fire alarms and the customers demanded the default password on everything (which was the first four digits of the manufacturer's phone number, back in the late 80s before the great re-numbering). Often they wanted a sticker on the damn alarm panel with the password printed on it, preferring instead to rely on locking the cabinet with a key. The fire alarm panel could control various vents and fans that were designed to extract smoke from a burning building, but people liked to use them for day-to-day climate control as well.

Most people don't care about security. If they get hacked it's someone else's fault, they are the victim. They just want an easy life and cool breeze in the summer.

I've only just turned 35 so am on the border of being a "millennial", but I thought that phrase referred to people around the 15-25 range who were teenagers around the 2000-2009 time frame. 34 seems a bit old... More like gen X or gen Y.

Except that genetic profiling is used extensively to prevent unmodified people from getting good jobs, regardless of their actual talents and abilities.

I can't remember from the film if everyone gets genetic modification for free, or if it is only available to the rich. If the latter, it will only further decrease social mobility. In any case, it would pretty much force parents to do it, or condemn their children to a life of low paid work.

What about the rights of the children? Is it okay for patents to force their views on their children and stop them being vaccinated? Parents can't deny their children an education, so why should they be able to deny them this protection?

TFA is beyond dumb. It's not people switching back, it's people buying a second car for their household. Many people have one EV and one ICE car.

EV sales are rising fast. Few people switch back after getting one and realizing how great they are, mostly because they did their homework and made sure it suited them before spending tens of thousands of dollars.

It's £80: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon...

Where can I get one for £35?

The IRC logs are verifiable. They are plain text and were captured and published by two independent sources on opposite sides of the argument. Quinn published the logs she captured, and then GamerGate published their own (slightly more complete) copy of the same time period. They match perfectly, neither side is disputing their authenticity.

With such a poor understanding of mental illness and stress I don't think I can explain this one to you in a way that you will understand, at least not within the confines of a /. comment. Perhaps someone else more proficient than I would like to try.

The smart functions are great when they work. For a long time I didn't bother using XMBC any more because the TV's built in network media player was more than adequate. The YouTube, iPlayer and Netflix apps are very useful to have too, and getting a third party device wouldn't guarantee that they keep working either. iPlayer and Netflix use DRM so open source players periodically break.

Basically you are screwed no matter what, but at least we can punish companies that screw us financially. Money is the only language that they understand.

That wasn't their argument. Their argument was that a commercial company, the one that makes ABP, was altering their content and providing it to their users for profit, thus violating their copyright. Their argument was that it was akin to them taking a (free) magazine, cutting out all the adverts and then giving it to users, while accepting fees from advertisers to avoid being cut.

The court didn't buy it, which is good, but don't mis-characterise their position just to make the look foolish. Their case has a strong basis in law, which is why it took so long to resolve.

Media companies don't give a shit about "reaching a broader audience" if they can't show that audience ads. They don't care if you leave, in fact they welcome it. Why would they want to provide you with content for free that they normally "charge" for by including ads?

Funny you should call ads "parasites", because that's basically what you are. You want the content, you don't want to pay. That's a fair position to take, but don't get all upset when they decline to agree to your terms.

That completely overlooks the fact that threatening a young man with 35 years in prison is going to put unbearable stress on him. We see it all the time, for example in the UK where many innocent people committed suicide over accusations of paedophilia that came about because the police were both lazy in their investigation and heavy handed in their prosecution.

Honouring him isn't so much about what he did or who he was, it's about saying that prosecutors throwing the book at people and causing them to become suicidal is not justice. He didn't deserve to die for what he did, or to go to jail for 35 years. In reality he might have got six months tops, for what basically amounts to civil copyright infringement, but the prosecutor went nuts and his death is the entirely unacceptable result.

Just look at how we treat pregnancy and motherhood to see how we will treat people who don't use drugs if use becomes commonplace. People will make the same arguments, e.g. it's up to me if I want to, and I shouldn't be held back because you don't. You earn less because you choose not to take drugs, it's a lifestyle choice like being a vegetarian.

It's like dosing up on flu meds and coming in to work. You might earn a few extra bucks but now everyone else has the flu too. If the right to freedom ends where it starts to harm other people, you have to conclude that such behaviour is at best immoral.

When YouTube started there was no standard for streaming video. The only working options were things like Flash and RealPlayer, so they went with Flash. Now they are moving to HTML5 and that's the problem - older devices don't support it.

The real issue is that tech companies are not used to providing software for consumer products. In the UK smart television are covered by the Sale of Goods Act. The Act says that they must last a "reasonable length of time". For a moderately priced television you would expect at least 5 years out of it, more for an expensive one. If it fails before that time you can take the vendor (not the manufacturer, the shop where you bought it) to court and argue your case, and will be entitled to compensation for lost functionality. Say the TV dies after three years, you might get 50% of the purchase price back because it only lasted half as long as you would reasonably expect it to.

Loss of functionality due to discontinuation of service is new but seems to be covered by existing conventions. If part of a product breaks and the vendor can't fix it you can get compensation. That was the basis for the £85 refund on a Playstation 3 some guy got from Amazon when Sony removed the Other OS feature.

I own a high end Panasonic plasma TV. It is the year after the ones that are being cut off, but I was worried for a while. I use YouTube every day on it. If it were to break down and stop showing YouTube, a feature I specifically wanted when I bought it, I'd go back to the shop and ask for compensation, say 30% of the purchase price. Alternatively they could offer me an alternative, like a new TV or perhaps a smart BluRay player, assuming I could add it to my system without breaking my existing set-up. I'd also settle for say £80 to cover the cost of an Amazon FireTV stick.