Projects that can be pirated (software, movies, etc) have low maintenance costs and high creation costs. If the funds didn't exist to create the product, then it wouldn't be created and there's nothing to pirate. Once there is something to pirate, you can't kill the project, but you can make the venture unprofitable enough to discourage someone from doing it again. So the question isn't if a project has been killed due to piracy, but if someone has ever decided that a project isn't worth starting because the market isn't profitable enough. There can be a significant number of these but you'd never know, since the project was never started and therefore nothing exists to know about.

Unfortunately not all of us can put food on the table by giving everything away for free. There's a time and place for free/open software, but there's also an advantage to have people create something where the costs of that creation are spread across many customers rather than a single firm or with advertising.

As other's have mentioned, the first question is it fair use to download an mp3 of a cd/song that you have already purchased?

But, there's yet a further step, where time-shifting is allowed in the TV/video world for recording on a VCR. I presume that same shifting is permitted for recording off of the radio. Therefore, are you allowed to download/posses an mp3 of a song that you heard on the radio?

There's a slippery slope that I don't think we should say anyone can download content that's been played on some radio station at some point, but a lawyer would have a difficult time claiming that you hadn't already heard a collection of top-40 songs. And this also wouldn't excuse someone that turns around and shares the content with others.

Assuming that this is not VoIP to the home, but rather everything between the last miles, there's still some transitioning to be done. Mainly anything that is data over the phone, e.g. fax machines, alarm systems, and dial up networking. This requires some physical and procedural upgrades.

There are far too many legal and medical industries that won't accept a scan/pdf over email and insist on a fax for some simple forms. Heck, even Ameritrade asked me to fax in a form or to mail it in, you'd think they could setup a web page for updating personal data.

All of the major alarm companies that offer support over an IP line have a VoIP box to continue working with the older hardware. Switching to IP would allow 2 way communication, greater scalability, lower hardware costs, etc, but I've yet to see one do this.

Dial up networking is still used by not just the rural areas, but also things like credit card transactions that are performed over the stand alone readers.

All of these will need to be transitioned off of voice technology or updated to work reliably over a VoIP based connection. Personally I'll be happy to see the death of the fax machine and an upgrade of alarm systems, but I think we are stuck with some devices for rural locations.

We are constantly fighting cell phones, texting (what about emailing), and other one offs without taking on the core issue, distracted driving. And as long as there are mothers on the road, with screaming children in the back seat, while they try to fix their makeup as they race to a play date, we'll never face this issue head on. No one wants to discuss how distracting a baby can be, least we suffer the wrath of the angry mother. So we're constantly doing one off bills that catch some people that are distracted and others that are completely safe.

Why build out the electric infrastructure at the bus stops when one already exists for the subway system? I don't believe there's anything in the current system to do regenerative braking or store power in the cars. So this would reduce the power requirements, eliminating the need to expand the electric capacity when adding more cars to the system.

Once the subway works, then consider building the bus based system, unless a flywheel and/or hydrogen are doing the job cheaper.

The head hunter won't have your best interest in mind, they are looking for money to act as the middle man. If they are altering your resume, I'd avoid working with them in the future. No need to tell someone to get lost, but you may want to resend your corrected resume, and only in pdf format (not fool proof, but I doubt many head hunters would change that). I tend to avoid working with people that demand my resume in Word format. And I'd only follow up on leads from them when you have nothing better to do.

And as others have suggested, have a copy of your original resume for any clients to see if you discover they received an altered version. If the client goes ballistic on you because of something the head hunter did, you didn't want to work for them anyway, so there's nothing lost.

In addition to the poor job cloning the windowsill, and the black hand, there's the complete difference in light sources on the faces. Everyone has a light source to the right of the photo, playing off the idea that there's a screen they're looking at. But the photoshop job used someone with a strong light coming out of the left. I'd also point out there was a bad job cloning the vertical column of the building outside the window.

This isn't some "cell phone tax" that companies are charged for owning cell phones. When you buy any equipment to run a business, and that equipment is expected to last more than a year, you have to depreciate it. There's a particular part of the depreciation schedule that you have to fill in for various pieces of technology, like cell phones, where you have to provide a percentage of usage that is personal rather than business. And you're only able to depreciate business use of the phone over a 5 year period.

What the IRS is saying is that the effort to calculate this percentage with itemized statements, and identifying every person called, is usually greater than the extra few dollars of tax they may collect. Contrary to popular belief, the IRS doesn't want your money, Congress does. The IRS is just making sure you've paid the right amount. If you want to be upset at someone for taking your money, be upset at your representatives in the Capital.

Food for thought, if the phone is destroyed or trashed before 5 years are up, I've yet to find a place in the tax code where you can write off the remaining value, and you're no longer allowed to depreciate a destroyed item. Another thought, if you start a company that earns $500k in its first year, but requires $400k in equipment, if depreciation lets you write off $100k, you'll be taxed on $300k of income that first year, or about $100k, the entire amount of profit for that year. The depreciation portion of the tax code is pretty messed up. And what the IRS gives back in business write offs, local governments take away in business taxes based on how much equipment your business has. For everyone that's against business people and their write offs, try running a business yourself before knocking it next time.

Like the Mac vs. PC guy ads said, the PC guy is against saying the word Vista (*buzz*) and with all the bugs, it made more sense to spend their money on marketing than on fixing the bugs. Windows 7 is Vista with a better marketing department, at least according to the Mac vs. PC ads.