So, precisely how again do they suggest sites verify ages?

How do they verify anything? Do you really think people are going to provide a porn website with their actual names and dates of birth? Would you?

Why the hell would anybody trust a porn site with that? I wouldn't trust most any website with that information ... both because it's none of their damned business, and because I assume they're grossly incompetent at security.

These idiot politicians want a world which is wrapped in bubble wrap, and must be softened to accommodate children. And I'm sorry, but that's simply not possible.

But expecting every web site in the world to implement age verification to keep David Cameron happy is asinine. However, most news stories see about Cameron make him sound like a bit of an ass, so that's fitting.

What he want simply won't work, but he wants to appear to be doing something. Like every other damned politician who thinks they can legislate the solution to the problems of when society meets technology.

Doesn't sound like a porn plague, it sounds like puberty.

12-13 year olds going through puberty, their hormones turned up to 11, obsessed with sex in some manner or other? Unsure of feelings they have about sex, worried they think about it too much (or not enough), all the anxieties of youth and social/sexual roles?

This is somehow new and driven by online porn?

When I was that age we were obsessed with porn, too. Everybody knew whose dad had a skin mag, some had their own secret stash. My friend and I on our way to junior high in 1978 found 3 porno mags in the street. Two were issues of Hustler and one was called "Double Cunt Fucker", a hardcore mag that had penetration, a 3-way and jiz shots. Probably average for what's online.

The problem with porn is that it's only appealing because society can't get a grip on sexuality.

Yeah, but you don't allow advertisers to fill your front lawn with billboards, stand outside shouting at you from megaphones, and spy on the details of everything you're doing.

Of course not, lets reenforce this race to the bottom where no one has control over anything in their lives, reenforcing ignorance and learned helplessness. God forbid someone have control over his machine!

Windows has defaulted to auto updating since XP. That does cover most of the average users, who never change the settings. Taking the control away for the few times it is needed is ridiculous.

Most clueless users do have autopatching turned on in previous windows versions. It's the default. Forcing it is a problem, though, if a patch breaks something.

It should detect that the cached files are corrupt, delete them and redownload. Microsoft really loves to make a process out of moving files around.

A pro-Linux bias on Slashdot is

A complete myth. At least these days.

Slashdot has several bags of crazy, all competing with one another at various times.

There's Windows fanbois, Linux fanbois, and Apple fanbois. Over the years the ratio of those has swung back and forth, these days I'd say on balance you'd be hard pressed to say there's a strong bias one way or another.

At various times it's been chic to tend more to one or another, now it seems like Slashdot has grown enough that there's at least 30 different kinds of batshit crazy at any given time, all struggling to get out.

But let's face it, the actions of the Linux people in their unwavering belief in the perfection of Linux is no less sketchy than the people whose unwavering defense of Microsoft defies logic.

I'd like to say Slashdot has a bias towards rational thought. I'd like to, but if anything I'd say Slashdot has an increasing bias towards fixed positions and screeching monkeys flinging poo.

There's always been poo flinging, but now there's less rational discourse.

Sure it was good behavior.

But it was borne entirely out of the Linux people saying "OMG, teh Samsung is teh sux0r".

I do give them a lot of credit. More than the people who apparently insisted it was the fault of Samsung in the first place.

Perhaps competitive prices coupled with perceived quality (and good experience on other platforms) led to these drives being selected by more knowledgeable or performance oriented people.

These drives then got pushed harder or in ways more likely to expose the bugs, leading to a perception that they were unreliable under Linux.

All the HVAC techs I've ever talked to have told me that it's better to have the compressor run continuously than it is to short cycle it.

I had new AC put in about 10 years ago and if cleaning the A coil is something that's supposed to get done, they sure don't do the sheet metal like its something that's supposed to be done.

My A coil failed (I think they used a non-R134a coil) after two years and the guy had to do a lot of sheet metal surgery to get the new coil in.

After many complaints that Samsung SSDs corrupted data when used with Linux

There was definitely some self-interest there.

Samsung can't have people saying their SSDs corrupt data when it's not them doing it.

and anal fumigation by tobacco smoke used in that "CPR" of the 1700s are exactly the same as modern CPR

Oh, come on, you're just blowing smoke up our asses.

Honestly, what I want to know is ... who the hell was the first person to decide to try that?

I'm sure there's some "rule #34" porn out there for the adventurous. Somehow I suspect urban dictionary has a definition which includes this.

The mind reels.

On the one hand, yes, CPR traces it's history to the 1700s, even if it wasn't the entire modern version.

On the other hand I can find at least two references which acknowledge Jude as being part of the modern version of it.

But, more to the point ... thanks to all of the people throughout history who have helped us find ways to save lives.

And you can be damned sure that the use of CPR in its modern form has saved a tremendous amount of lives.

Sorry for your loss, voxelman. Few people can claim to have contributed to saving so many lives.

You don't think Oracle would allow something to be designed which didn't maximize license revenue, do you?

Why, yes, we'll sell you this CPU for $800 ... but the licensing costs for your organization running this in production in a web-facing environment will be 16 trillion dollars.

Oracle is all about maximizing license revenues.

One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison. It costs a lot of money to maintain private islands and yachts.

And besides, nobody is forcing you to buy it, hey - there are cars that cost millions, are you complaining about that too? And why would you? How does this product or its cost affect you? Isn't its ownership entirely up to you? Surely nobody would need a car like that?

And when the fuck did I say anybody was forcing me to own it or your choice to have one impacted me? I don't give an elephants arse what you buy for your own machine. I think that such stuff exists is cool, but the overwhelming majority of people will never need it.

I said "wow, you wacky people and your crazy stuff", followed by "this is what I have and is entirely suited for my needs".

I'm entirely aware there are legitimate reasons for all of this stuff. But knowing I don't need it, nonetheless I continue to be wowed by these crazy high end stuff.

Get over your fucking self, and read what I wrote.

I'm not saying there aren't reasons for this kind of stuff. I'm saying for those of us who don't need it and know we don't need it, we can get the performance we want with entirely different hardware.

Because when I rip a CD to MP3, and the same fucking CPU stays pegged until that is done, I can pretty much tell that processor affinity in the scheduler means that, yes, for all intents and purpose, while it is running that task gets a mostly dedicated CPU. Which allows everything else I'm doing to keep running smoothly.

If you truly need the performance, buy any damned thing you can afford and justify.