...so long as invasive and immoral ads exist.

That is a sub-set of all ads, by the way, not all ads by any stretch.

Nice amp setup, but don't you have a CD player yet?

I'm not convinced.

A lot of people I know who grew up in the 80s and 90s prefer music from the early 70s. I suspect that social pressure may be coming into play there.

Wait, TPS reports are a thing? I thought they were made up for the cubicle farm classic Office Space.

Security, in electronic voting, seems too hard a problem to solve right now.

That is why, until it is no longer too hard to solve, you DON"T DO ELECTRONIC VOTING.

Simple.

Interesting to note also that the tests were conducted by Michael Martin, president of âZPresident of the Global Polygraph Network, an advocacy group so far as I can tell.

*shakes head sadly* how I wish that were so. It's exactly people like you who deny there is even a problem, that allow this sort of thing to happen.

Troll level: Awesome

I think you'll find the prevailing attitude is "avoid useless technology".

Granted there is a certain level of geek cred for connecting something to the net that has never been connected before, but at a practical level I have absolutely no need for my television, kettle or frickin light bulbs to be Internet connected.

Now that it is well established that 1) Governments want to spy on you and 2) Companies want to spy on you, I would expect that you, a reasonably seasoned Slashdotter, would see the folly in a novelty convenience against massive security implications.

Really? I have yet to see a display, HDR or otherwise, that can come anywhere close to the dynamic range of the outdoors. If you have ever seen the sun rise or set from a plane you will know what I mean.

Sounds like a question for Randall's "What If" series.

Fascinating question though. I should imagine one of the voyager probes perhaps, or a solar powered beacon on a hill somewhere. A lot of stuff on Earth is very dependent on regular maintenance so I wouldn't imagine much stuff still working fifty years from the hypothetical extinction event.

Seriously, there are plenty of ways a band can publish their music now with no need for a distribution contract. Here's a few off the top of my head:

Bandcamp
ReverbNation
cdbaby
Magnatune (Haven't checked if they still exist - they made a big deal about not being "evil")
Google Play
iTunes
Hell there's YouTube if you're desperate :)

They often hook artists with a lucrative recording contract first, because recording with good quality is still expensive, though mixing and mastering less so now with digital workflows.

How is this any different from what has previously been going on with the evil NetFlix DRM being implemented in more general-purpose plugins such as Flash and Silverlight?

The Mozilla Foundation's choice was to either enable it or be "that browser that doesn't work properly with NetFlix".

Don't blame Firefox for this course of action. Blame NetFlix or, ultimatey, the content studios.

Don't like it? You'd be better off boycotting NetFlix than Firefox.

Perhaps it is you who has a problem.

Let's try putting those two assertions that you evidently take exception to another way.

Can you see that the statement "Let's not assume that all cops are bad" is not in any way contradicting the statement "bad cops exist and should be dealt with".