If taxes are punishment, what are the rest of us being punished for?

We're talking about people who make more than a quarter million a year (half million for couples). Even in California, that'll buy you a nice house, 2 cars, steak for dinner every night, with enough left over to satisfy all your hobbies and vacation needs. Paying an additional few percent on the money earned after the first quarter/half million will not only save the economy, but most of the people making that much money won't even notice.

It's not punishment, it's being a good citizen.

Marginal Tax Rates... Please stop pretending that the top earners pay the top tax rate on every dollar they earn. They get the same tax breaks as the lower/middle class on the first couple hundred thousand dollars they earn. And the reason that so many people pay zero income tax is because they work 3 jobs and yet still don't have enough money to pay rent, feed their families, and put enough gas in the car to get to their 3 jobs.

Is that you, Mr Boehner? We've been living under the Bush Tax Cuts (TM) for 10 years, where are all these jobs I keep hearing about? Why are American corporations pulling in embarrassingly high profits, then laying off/outsourcing their workforce? Why are companies giving 8-figure bonuses to their CEOs and then pleading poverty at tax time?

This isn't anything like the Ubisoft situation, which consists mainly of a bunch of PHBs making bad decisions about piracy. From TFA:

Honestly I think this is a good thing. It was always too tempting to load up a character editor and give myself lots of cool toys. Now, when someone sees you in D3, they know you've put effort (or money, lol) into what you've accomplished with that character. Also, it's The Cloud (TM), so all your characters are there-- even the single player ones-- no matter which machine you use.

As for the real-money auction thing, that does seem a bit off, but I think it's worth waiting to see how it pans out.

I'm pretty sure different groups of researchers can work on all of those problems simultaneously.

I am in absolute awe after watching the video about the new rover. As people bicker over whether NASA's miniscule budget is worth it, because "space isn't important", it's nice that NASA can still bring out that child-like wonder in me. How can you not be amazed that we can send a robot like this to another planet, land it safely with precision, and study the composition of the planet from millions of miles away? Isn't that awe worth a few billion dollars a year, even if "it doesn't benefit me"?

(Also, it has a laser tricorder. I mean, come on.)

That's a nice self-fulfilling prophecy there: "Why should I bother trying to climb out of this well when I'm just going to spend the rest of my life in this well anyway?"

"We're in agreement that this should be done, but not that we should actually do it."

Google has decided to eliminate this "lunch" you speak of, as it was detracting from their core products.

Isn't the whole point of the "20% time" over at Google that people can just work on whatever they want, useful or not? Labs seemed like a great place for this sort of work to live, whether it became a "real" product eventually or not. I'm not really sure I understand the logic behind closing it down to "focus" on their main products. If that's their goal, they should eliminate the 20% time completely.

On another note, does this mean all the labs in Gmail, etc are going away as well?

I'm not quite sure you understand what's going on here. The highest game rating in Australia is 15, which is analogous to the highest movie rating in the US being PG-13. Anything unsuitable for a 15 year old simply cannot be sold there. The rating they're trying to introduce in Australia is similar to our M rating for games (i.e. R rated movies). With this rating, games containing violence/language/sex suitable for an adult, but not a 15 year old, can be sold on the market. X-rated games are a whole other issue.

Unfortunately, he will be ridiculed for this, just like Jimmy Carter was for putting solar panels on the White House.

Right, magic, got it.

BRB, filling out a patent application: Method for propelling a platform along a flat surface using rounded supports attached by a shaft.

There seems to be a growing movement that believes Rx drugs are an unnecessary vice foisted on the unwitting public by greedy pharmaceutical corporations. And while this isn't necessarily 100% false, there are many people who need these drugs to survive. Unfortunately, without insurance, even one Rx drug can often cost more than a monthly mortgage payment. Hopefully in the future a balance can be struck between, "I need this medicine because the television says I'm unhappy" and, "I'm going to die because I can't afford this medicine."

Green Jello is people!!!!.... *dragged off*