I can't wait till in about 20 years when the generation that is currently using social networking sites the most starts running for major offices like senator seats and judges. Facebook/Myspace/Google/etc are going to come back and bite the shit out of them.

The silver lining on that cloud may be that once everyone has their skeletons fully on display rather than in closets, our society might finally become more rational about what should or should not be a skeleton in the first place. Maybe we'll start taking a harder look at whether youthful, um, exuberances, actually have any bearing on later job performance, rather than just assumptions and moral judgments.

Although we'll probably just end up with the same system, and disqualify 98% of potentially qualified office- or job-holders, instead of the 90% that we do now....

cybercohondira a rare form of inflamation

I think you have malamanteauitis...

Dear god, these two need to shut the hell up about each other already. Neither is as open as it claims itself to be, and neither is as bad as the other claims it to be. They both make a few good things, but they've becoming the annoying couple that ruins parties by constantly sniping at each other.

And what I am saying, with all due respect, is that the notion that "virtually all security devices can be circumvented" is misleading.

If you take it into a broad and global sense, that's of course true - but becomes very impractical after a bit. If you can't break the Wifi, you break the house. If you can't break the house, you break the ISP's premise. If you can't do that, you start a revolution and take over the country, then nuke the country, start an intergalactic war, etc..

However, you can only talk about the validity of a security device by the scope of the resource it is protecting. And in that respect, a Secured Wifi setup can only secure *ONE* thing : your wifi connection (but not any underlying resource - your house, your DSL modem - or your kitchen stove).

The whole point of a security device is to make it so that it is not economically viable to go *through*.

And in the respect of the OP context, the proper setup of the WiFi as a security device would seem to have been enough to secure both his WiFi and his internet connection and thus is liability with regard to German law. IANAL, but if someone broke in (thus - in your term - circumvented the security device(s) - the WiFi protection, the door lock, the window glass, whatever) and downloaded whatnot from the DSL line - he would have not have been liable since he would have put reasonable effort to prevent the misdeed from happening - and thus, the security device would have performed its function.

Get the unmanned stuff right, get the cost down, innovation up, and then human flight might make more sense... Or, let the moon be the Wild West, and let commercial interests drive that.

75 is fairly old... maybe it will die soon.

It might be easier to launch something from the shuttle to push the satellite out into deep space than it would be to launch something from the ground. Having said that, I think you're right, they won't waste money on this unless a) there's some new weapons tech they want to trial, or b) we reach crisis point with debris smashing up functioning satellites on a regular basis.

Few if any industries could withstand the theft of $51 billion worth of their products.

It's a good thing your products aren't being stolen, then...just copied unlawfully.

The industry could do a better job of being sympathetic, if it wasn't so obviously dishonest about its victimization....

Another problem with "lie detectors," and a good reason that juries rarely ever hear about them, is that juries tend to give them undue deference. You can get a competent defense counsel to present evidence to a jury that they're not reliable, have a lot of false positives, etc etc....and at the end of the day, many jurors will look at it and still think "that's a lot of high-tech sciencey doohickamajigs right there, and this defendant is just trying to talk himself out of scientific proof! I mean, look at those knobs and needles."

It's kind of a good thing that juries are disposed to trust "sciencey" stuff, but not so good when they can't grasp what it really is they're being told about, or what the shortcomings are.

"Well, gambling at its base is a tax on people that can't do math"

This is probably more applicable to lottery tickets in particular, than all gambling....there are, after all, plenty of casual gamblers who understand that over time, the house always wins. And yet, they still go to casinos occasionally, for a few hours, for the entertainment value.

I live near a few tribal casinos, and know plenty of people who will go out gambling, armed with the knowledge that they're likely going to lose (and once or twice a year, I may go with them). The "return" on the investment is the (limited) entertainment value of the Skinner-box variable-interval reinforcement schedule. But that "return" isn't any worse than going out to a movie, or watching a local band....

You'd think that after a few decades of the internets, IRL trolling wouldn't still be so easy.

basically, anything designed to affect ones' emotions is art.

How much does the creator's intent matter? If, for example, you're looking at a striking photograph, does it matter whether it was created through an accident, when a camera fell off of a ledge?

If the proverbial million monkeys at a million typewriters banged out The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, would it no longer be art? And if the intent of the creator matters, does it matter if it turns out that the creator intended something completely different than what most members of the audience experience?

IMO, the intent of the creator is irrelevant - it's about what the audience/consumer experiences. But then, that sort of renders the word "art" almost meaningless as well - any random or naturally occurring phenomenon could be "art." So that may not be a very useful or workable rule.

If nothing else, it makes for an interesting discussion that doesn't get Godwinned as quickly as most :)

Reviewers in the NYT, LA Times, New Yorker, Chicago Sun-Times, etc, routinely and often pan movies, including movies from major studios as well as independent productions.

Movie reviews "can't be trusted" not because they are per se corrupt (I'm sure some are, while others are only unconsciously influenced), but because the whole experience is subjective. The best reviewers will be able to give you a good idea how much -you- might like or dislike a movie, regardless of whether the reviewer did.

I dunno that we need to go categorically labeling everyone who considers what Anthony Lane or Roger Ebert has to say, a "fool" or a shill...

(There was also a spoof skit on this some time back, in which the "correct" answers in a TV contest were determined by a survey. Anyone remember what that skit was? Is it on youtube?)

This probably isn't what you meant, but it's close:

"Now, here are some results from our phone-in poll: 95% of the people believe Homer Simpson is guilty. Of course, this is just a television poll which is not legally binding, unless proposition 304 passes. And we all pray it will."
-Kent Brockman

No matter what happens on Earth, there is an apropos Simpsons quote about it.