In the most free (as in freedom) country (i.e. US) consumers are made to buy stuff large US corporations decide they should buy. That's the freedom! That's the democracy! That's the thing US should be spreading into all 'non democratic' countries. Yeah, right.

With this logic every man has to be castrated. Because men have the device that can be used to rape women.

This surveillance will be mostly used to catch people downloading movies from torrent. No, it won't be used to catch people looking for child porn - media industry (which is owned by same people as telcos) is not interested in catching them, they are after 'pirates'. So, all 'pirates' go to jails (like half of the country), nobody subscribes to the internet anymore, telcos die, PROFIT. Also, this would probably kill movie industry as well because most of their clients that go to the cinema and pay real cash (i.e. youth) will be in jails. Piracy would be eliminated because there is nothing to pirate anymore. Isn't this great? The next reasonable move would be to make all those jailed 'pirates' work on uranium mines. This will solve Canadian carbon emission problems as well. Great future is coming, cannot wait!

Each time I watch a DVD I paid for they show be this black screen with words 'prison', 'illegal', 'fine'. I'll probably read though this text once or twice. After this - this screen will just affect my subconsciousness making very strong association from DVD I bought in Walmart with words 'prison', 'illegal', 'fine'. Result - I'll subconsciously feel guilty every time I watch a legally bought DVD and every time I even think about buying a DVD. Movie industry is putting great amount of effort to make their product subconsciously uncomfortable for people. The purpose of this move is a mystery.

I can install antenna on my roof and receive a signal. I can hire someone to install antenna on my roof. My neighbour can offer me to install my antenna on his roof (for money!) and pull wire to my house - because he has better reception. I can hire company X to install antenna on their roof and send signal to my house over wire. All this is not content producer's business! I can receive over-the-air signal in any way which is convenient to me. And I'm just hiring anyone I want to provide me with antenna.

Today it is easy and cheap to get interesting shows from streaming providers/dvd. It is easy and cheap (for most people) to get news from Air (free) or from Internet (almost free). It is easy, cheap and fast(!) to get any information you want from Internet without spending hours in front of TV. So it sounds like that only people that really would subscribe to cable are people that like to watch crap and advertisements. Why should anybody deprive them from this? Let them do it. Let them have their own club. Everybody else can just pull the plug, save money and live better. I do understand that this is a habit that might be difficult to drop. But it's worth it! I've dropped my TV subscription when I realised that I do not watch it and my kid watches treehouse to much. And I've never had a second thought.

Why would anyone want to use Windows (Mac OS X) as their everyday desktop (or laptop) operating system? Really, why? :) Windows/Mac OS X do not have less problems, they just have different problems, lots of them. And 'they' (MS, Apple) make you pay time after time for a chance to get those problems solved, and new problems created. Why anybody on earth would want this? The only reason - people are forced to used WIndows/Mac OS by hardware manufacturers vast majority of which doesn't offer OSless options. Imagine what would happen if Windows/Mac OS X would not be included into each PC/laptop price, but sold separately? Right, their market share would go down very-very quickly. So, it's not an average consumer choice it use Windows/Mac, it's that an average consumer doesn't really have other options.

“To have a passport is privilege, it’s not entitled to you by citizenship,” Priest said. He said the issue may be with a microchip embedded in the back of all new passports. “They have no reason in the world to let you travel if it’s been damaged,” Priest said. “It’s like cutting your photo out or something if that chip doesn’t work.” Come on, does US hates its citizens that much? I mean they make a document with a chip which can be broken by just sitting on it and then they deny flight? This must be diminishing experience to be a US citizen these days...

Isn't SOCA just a law enforcement agency, i.e. 'police'? They are not court, are they? Then how can they say "The majority of music files that were available via this site were stolen from the artists." - this have not been proven in court, have it? Isn't it illegal to call people criminals before they are actually convicted? Or at least unprofessional? I bet they do not talk like this if son of some politician gets caught trafficking drugs? They just refuse to comment... And here they just shout all over Internet about this. What happened to simple police professionalism, huh?

I tried to disable this 'feature' with bank and they say that Visa is basically forcing them to have wireless thing on the card. So I was thinking - would it be possible to disable this thing yourself? I'd assume that antenna is run on the perimeter of the card, so a hole in the right place would make the trick. Have anybody tried this? Does this work? Will merchants accept card with a hole in it?

I was thinking about spending vacation in US, like sunny beach in California or Florida... Or visiting Kennedy Space Center. Or God knows what else - US is an interesting country for tourism. I even was offered a job in the US, but that just was wrong timing... And now I'm regularly readying these scary stories about TSA on /. Would I spend my vacation in US? No! Vacation is not the right time to be harassed at the airport. Would I move to US because of work? Well... nothing is certain here but I'll think more than twice for sure! What I do not understand is where is that tourism industry lobby when US needs them so desperately?