I understand where you're coming from, but there are some practical and philosophical distinctions between the two:

• With an actual subsidy they're directly redistributing money from one group to another.
• With a tax break it's a lot less clear cut. For all we know it's a net tax gain from the extra payroll taxes, etc.
• A subsidy can actually prop up a failing business, whereas tax breaks (while helpful) can't help if your expenses are still greater than your income.
• It's cheaper to give a tax break of $100 than a subsidy of $100, since money tends to evaporate as it passes through a bureaucracy.
• Ideologically, you don't want to encourage the idea that all income is the government's until they let you keep it.
• Politicians aren't being honest when they spin tax credits as subsidies or reductions in budget growth as budget cuts (for another example).

So the article writer assumes that not taking money is the same as giving money. That is some screwed up logic right there. It makes me wonder why we're subsidizing this writer (by not taxing his income at a higher rate).

Sure, you can complain about the tax system and about all the tax breaks so-and-so qualifies for, but it's dishonest to say that the government is subsidizing EA. I'd even say it's pandering, since by the second paragraph they mention (and have a screenshot of) Dead Space 2. The implication being that "YOUR TAX DOLLARS" are funding "EVIL VIOLENT MURDER GAMES".

At least it's marked as an editorial, right? Wait, no it's not.

According to Wikipedia methane is non-toxic, colorless, and odorless.

So clearly Wikipedia is in the pocket of Big Methane. Someone should make a documentary about how Wikipedia has sold out. For citations they can cite this post, and I'm sure you can find enough anecdotes to fill a movie.

Or this might be better, depending on the quality of the query optimizer:
select table1.foo from table1 inner join table2 on table1.id=table2.id AND table2.criteria='something''

When your personal information is stripped out of it per existing federal law. RTFA, this is about doctors not patients.

1) Not patented.
2) Are marked.
3) Cannot contaminate the biosphere with naturally growing varieties with some of the interesting side effect proteins they produce as part of the GMO process.

So you're okay with GM crops as long as:
1) There's no inventive to research them.
2) They're singled out for no health-related reason.
3) They can't cross breed, but I'm also guessing you'd complain if they're sterile. (i.e. seeds need to be bought each year.)

But for some reason, the large GMO companies don't want you to know what corn you eat is GMO.
Why?
????

GMO companies don't want their products singled out by ignorant fearmongers? You're right, that is a mystery.

If it were up to some people the official GMO symbol would incorporate a skull and crossbones.

In that quote, Schmidt was referencing the government's ability to demand your information. Google had recently lost a court case about it, which is why he brought the subject up.

A lot of privacy crusaders seem to mix up private and public information, though. Whatever you do in Wal Mart is public, and you can't demand that they erase all footage of you from their security cameras and make every employee that saw you forget that you were there.

Similarly, if you freely give information to Google, like search terms and your IP address, should you be able to force them to forget it?

Sensitive personal data -- SSN, bank account numbers, etc. -- I can understand special provisions for. But your unhealthy Febreeze obsession? The only thing protecting you there is your obscurity and Wal Mart's desire not to drive you away .

Nobody remembers because that's not relevant to anyone's day to day life. I mean, who says "880 yards" instead of "half a mile"? And if you ever do need to calculate it, you most likely have the ability to look up the answer at your fingertips.

You know what else is needlessly complex? The Japanese language. Why do they use such an over-elaborate system that nobody else in the world even uses? It's rather incomprehensible. /sarcasm

I think they could hire more people and do both. I mean, I'm pretty sure the Half Life franchise is profitable in and of itself.

All this kinda reminds me of when the government does some trivial bullshit while some bigger problem is happening. People breathlessly complain about it, but I'm pretty sure the government can do more than one thing at a time.

It makes me feel uneasy when I see people cheering "taxes" as a concept. I'm pretty sure taxes have existed independently of nice things like democracy, education, infrastructure, justice, etc. People have been paying taxes for thousands of years without it somehow causing Western democracy to spontaneously break out.

Taxes don't automatically create a nice society. Correlation != Causation.

A healthier view would be to see them as a necessary evil. Inherently dangerous due to their confiscatory and mandatory nature. One minute you have a nice functioning democracy, and the next you have all the political parties taxing people they don't like and funding people they do.

That's actually the best argument for a "flat" tax, come to think of it. Not man-hours saved or loopholes closed, but the reduced possibility of taxes being used as a weapon.

Or rather, other people buy it for you. And they're rather impulsive shoppers. (Not very thrifty either.)

At least they kinda sorta vaguely listen to you, though. People in totalitarian regimes pay taxes too, and I'm not sure it buys them very good civilization at all.

I think he's defensive because people are attacking his career, and making veiled threats about him being "first against the wall".

No chance. People will always complain about grinding. If there's a leveling system, they'll say they have to "grind" to the level cap. If there's better equipment then they'll "grind" for that. This isn't the days of Everquest when grinding meant killing the same enemies over and over, or other simple and repetitive tasks.

Anything in between now and "endgame" (however it's defined) has been classified as grind by modern MMO players. Doesn't matter if you have fun and fast-paced combat, awesome quests, or a tightly integrated story where it feels like you made a difference. Some people will make an obstacle out of anything.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to grind through some coffee.

I'd say there's significant value in professional-level editing. One of the last "books" I read was self-published directly to the web, and while it was good fun and had an interesting premise, it was in dire need of editing/revision. Community input can only do so much.

Of course, just needing editing and maybe a little promotion cuts out a huge chunk of the existing book publishing business. Not to mention retailers.

(If anyone's curious, the novel I mentioned above is The Salvation War. The writer is a military geek, which can be interesting or a bit cheesy sometimes.)

Are we sure those complaints are accurate? This person(s) could have been connected to some guy's personal wifi hotspot. Or just be tech illiterate.

I guess I'm asking for proof that people used the capitol's wifi to connect to that site before Friday.

It'd be also nice to know what whitelist package they use. Heck, for all we know it's not a whitelist at all. It could just auto-blacklist anything above X hits an hour, until said site is explicitly exempted.