That leads to a whole other problem: targeted advertising.

The USPTO generates the most income for the government, outside of the IRS. There is absolutely no incentive to Congress to get rid of a patent that requires absolutely no materiel, don't exist, but worth a lot of money. For congress, software patents and the like are cash cows.

The only way this will change is we have a revolution and write a new constitution. Technically, we need to get the right people into office; but in this case, we need to get 51% of people into office. And once they are in office, there is no guarantee that they will write the bill.

While I will hope that this changes without the watering the tree of liberty with blood, I'm not going to hold my breath.

Having a single master copy might be difficult do in part of the "redistribute" part of copyright. It's one thing if John Q. Public records a show in his private home for later watching. It's another for John Q. Public then makes copies of that recording to distribute to friends/family/etc.

Also, local affiliates get ad money for local businesses so I'm sure that there would be a lot of push back on this.

What the Boxee probably does is store the recording on a small drive (40GB maybe) and then uploads it as bandwidth allows.

When I try to explain this thought experiment to non-techies (or laymen in general), I use the following:

Imagine a box where you throw in a coin. Close the box and rattle it around. Schrodinger's theory is that the coin is both face up and face down (as seen from the top of the box).

Is this an accurate analogy? Schrodinger's cat had too many pieces and explaining it tended to be too complicated.

Regardless of how one feels about the iPhone, it did revolutionize the mobile phone industry in one BIG way: took manufacturing power AWAY from the phone companies. And while phone companies are still doing this to Android phones, Apple has remained relatively unscathed.

I believe the only hurdle left for the iPhone is to make it a completely data-only phone, relying on SIP instead of traditional phone numbers. I realize that this would be a HUGE negative for phone companies, who profit handsomely from unused minutes and struggle to profit from data hogs like iPhones.

Where do you see the iPhone going next? Are there any more new big advances similar to when the iPhone first debuted?

Unlike other physical and tangle forms of evidence, digital evidence is both nothing and something at the same time. It's too easy to both plant evidence (by either the defendant or the prosecution) and sometimes impossible to deny the evidence.

Furthermore, digital evidence doesn't necessary mean that I am the author. I don't have my phone on me at all times. I let friends use it.

This being said, I'm not discounting the importance of forensics. I just think more needs to happen before we can say something is evidence. Mind you, the large majority of crimes are committed by idiots who post pictures of their crime on Facebook. But for the small percentage of us who are either nefarious and trying to take advantage of the legal system or an innocent victim to circumstance, it's too ambiguous to say all the data on my phone is my own. (Wasn't Carrier ID a few years ago?)

Granted every piece of evidence has some sort of flaw of authentication. But I fear the day that I get arrested for posting "I just robbed this place!" about getting free coffee next to a bank that was getting robbed. (Yes, I would have an alibi, but let's not let this flaw ruin a good analogy.)

As MUCH as I agree with you, this simply isn't the case for the majority of the voting populous. Even very smart and educated people care more about whether you have a "D" or a "R" attached to your name than they care to admit. Our voting system is better than most other nations, but has major faults that it relies on the lowest common denominator and the system REWARDS candidates that can pander the best.

I have personally often thought about running a purely honest campaign where everything would be cited. The cold hard truth is the average voter doesn't care. They either like their party or they hate the opposing party. Independent voters often vote with their gut. A small percentage exists where voters like you and me actually check credentials of candidates. But for that few votes, candidates would rather pander to the masses.

My biggest problem is campaign promises. The vast majority of campaign promises made by presidential candidates cannot be fulfilled simply because they are president. For many of the reforms both Obama and Romney are proposing, they are better off running for congress. But the average American doesn't know this. The only thing the president has direct control over is foreign policy. (Yes, yes, they have a bully pulpit; but they cannot directly introduce bills, as Obama has shown with his online petition initiative.)

In short, the problem isn't our candidates; it's our populous. And since our candidates love a dumb populous, this won't be changing anytime soon.

I highly doubt that they didn't know the details of the bill. The bill was available via Thomas and it's broad strokes were known for quite some time.

GoDaddy wanted to placate the MPAA/RIAA/etc because it was a business decision. Once they realized that they had a massive exodus of customers, they made the business decision to reverse their stance.

Their decision had little to do with knowing the bill. Their decision was made because it was the fiscally responsible thing to do. They probably didn't predict that the fallout would be as drastic as it was.

So far, only a minority of customers finds these new types of models appealing, but it's a growing minority

As far as I know, Sprint is the only carrier that does this. If every carrier was forced to allow this type of competition, I'm sure it would become the majority.

I hate having to carry a contract with AT&T for two years. Phones are only discounted because you sign the contract. It would seem logical, then, that your monthly fee would decrease afterword but this is simply not the case.

Citing the Constitution is not enough. Yes, those words are written, but you have 200+ years of case law that show that the Constitution has been beaten up more times than is worth counting.

Without going into the nitty gritty legal details, the meaning of this sentence is often up for debate. Yes, Congress shall make no law, but the Constitution doesn't explain exactly what is speech. Is speech spoken words? Is it a napkin that has a logo on it? What about soldiers? Do they have the same rights?

The point is we don't live in the same world as the framers did. Many of them thought this was common sense, that no further explanation was necessary. Just look at any bill written today. Almost everything is hyper-defined. There are entire sections of contracts dedicated to "definitions" because words are so ambiguous.

While you and I may wish to live in a world where the Constitution isn't treated like toilet paper, unfortunately, we have to make do with what we have, less you want to start a revolution.

Production costs have increased.

And the market is responding appropriately. A few people are willing to pay $60 for a new game. Others are not willing to pay that much, but would pay $30 plus a few months (after all, time has a cost). Others will pay no more than $10 and are willing to wait years.

The gaming industry has a few options:

1. Find a way to control costs, which I submit is already being done with the number of sequels, etc. instead of brand new content
2. Increase the price, which they've done since demand for brand new games has decreased and demand for used games has increased (granted, the demand for used games increased because people don't want to pay the higher price)
3. Move to a product-key model where each device must be registered. This seems to be the direction gaming studios are moving.
4. Decrease the price for the game, hoping that people will purchase new instead of used.

This option is probably not going to happen since it requires long-term thinking. You're hedging that more people will purchase the game new if the price is so low that it negates the savings of buying it used. It also would discouraging selling since the owner wouldn't recoup much of the cost anyway.

But when has the gaming/music/movie industry ever been this forward-thinking without being forced to?

I don't have a problem with companies/organizations funding studies that test their own policies. The problem comes if they in any way influence the results.

The contract would have to be written basically saying that once the money is received, the benefactor does not have access to the results until published.

You forget that Facebook is not the product. It's users are the product.

A panic password does little to nothing for Facebook and only creates more work for them.

In this case, we would need a law to force Facebook and others to do this.

I imagine that drug testing has little to do with work performance than it does liability. If an employee is high or has drugs on company property, it would give the police cause to do a full search. Probably just to the employee's work area, but it's something the company wants to avoid.

IANAL or a LTE, but makes sense to just not hire someone who refuses a drug test than assume the risk and have something happen later on. I imagine this was the same rationale for giving up your social network credentials. The difference being that it's illegal to use controlled substances whereas it's not illegal to be on Facebook.