Atheism has nothing to do with Stalin's murderous ways. In fact the entire argument is silly..... the original poster mentioned "atheist values". Those don't exist. An atheist doesn't believe in god.. that's it. Other than that an atheist could hold any views. Atheism is a not a set of beliefs and is not similar to an organized religion

We begin today's lesson with a discussion of the horrific history of the Rapa Nui and Easter Island. We'll draw a line from that ancient environmental disaster to the current situation in Los Angeles where the ditance between "your fucked-up shit" and "my pretty shit" is currently the width of one street in most places.

We all breathe the same air, we drink the same water. Ultimately, it all "our shit." Today's homework is Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" for a discussion about how well separating the Rich from the Poor works.

Software patents literally make these open source projects illegal

You know, I keep seeing this said over and over again, and I've been letting it go, but I can't anymore ...

A PATENT DOESN'T MEAN ITS ILLEGAL TO IMPLEMENT IT.

It doesn't mean you can't make it open source.

All a patent does is grant someone a right to exclusive use ... IF THEY WANT IT TO BE USED EXCLUSIVELY BY THEMSELVES OR LICENSE IT TO OTHERS.

Having a patent doesnt do anything by itself, it gives the holder of the patent specific options.

It is not illegal to make an OSS h264 codec, you just simply need the license authority to allow you to do so.

You people really need to get a freaking clue before you go ranting about things you don't understand.

Let me ask you, how many people has the MPEG-LA sued over h264 ... there are OSS implementations ... how many of them have been sued? I can count to one higher on my dick, so just stop with the retarded bullshit you're pulling out of your ass.

Whats absolutely ludicrous is how completely ignorant of reality you and the rest of the 'ZOMG PATENT!%!@!@!@' twits are. You know what the biggest problem for patents in OSS is? Ignorant OSS zealots without a clue.

I suppose the fact that Novell, Redhat and Canonical all are patent holders just slipped your fucking mind too right? There are most certainly patented features in the Linux kernel, and it doesn't fucking matter because the patent holders are OK WITH THAT. It actually means that no one else can stop Linux from using those ideas. Patents help OSS too, just like software licensing.

I get that you don't like patents, but what you need to get is a god damn clue about what patents do, how they do it, and why they exist. You clearly don't know any of those 3 things. You're just another one of those people that rant about things they don't understand. Like the twits who rant about software licensing followed up immediately by telling everyone how GPL is gods gift to the world. Pure ignorance and stupidity.

I don't know what makes you say this, unless you're suggesting that the "people who have listed phone numbers" demographic is somehow not representative of the population as a whole, but telephone polls, if done properly, have the benefit of taking completely random, and thus fairly representative samples. (Again, if done correctly, i.e. large enough sample base, using proper selection algorithms, and evaluating the data sensibly.)

You got a reference for that? Not disputing your point, I'm just interested.

As a Mac user, I have to disagree. Under System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > '+' symbol, you can specify any menu item from any application as a keyboard shortcut. Add to that the Full Keyboard Access feature on the same page, and you never have to use your mouse with OS X again, ever, unless you want to.

Also, I highly recommend the free Quicksilver background application, which is a real time-saver. It's a keyboard-based application launcher with a few really neat advanced features.

So... you're planning to get rid of the Sun? ;)

Odds are they're doing this just to get attention away from the recent sex abuse scandal.

Sounds like the next RIAA ad campaign.

*sigh* Alright, let's look at the points you're making here:

Music is not just DRM-free, its also SMALL. BitTorrent's strength is moving big files, while pirated songs are very small in comparison, you can just email em to your friends.

Firstly, bittorrent's strength lies in distributing files efficiently when there is a high demand for them, regardless of size -- something which ordinary server-client scenarios aren't particularly good at. Even if what you're saying is directly and unambiguously true, it doesn't imply that therefore you shouldn't (or wouldn't) use it for small files. If you have a 100M connection, are you really just going to use it for movies^H^H^H^H^H^H Linux ISOs because everything else is "too small"?

A lot of porn online is DRM free, so why so much porn in BitTorrent?

This one's easy. Consider the possible sources of porn on the 'net: you can either get crappy quality on flash video sites, or decent quality downloadable files on paysites or P2P networks. A lot of people will feel reluctant to pay for porn, due in part to paranoia ("what if someone sees my credit card statement?", etc.) and in part to shame (in the same way you would feel reluctant to pay someone for sex). The only option that has both quality and anonymity is P2P.

I'm not saying you're right or wrong, just that your points aren't particularly well thought out.

...a fair amount of other countries already have multiple carriers for the iPhone. Let's hope this stirs up some competition.

Sup dawg, we heard you like taking pictures, so we put a camera in your camera so you can take pictures while you take pictures.

Same here â" for the most part.

In fact, I'd have to argue that my spelling and grammar have not only not suffered, they have actually benefited a great deal. Since English isn't my native tongue, I owe a lot of my fluency and vocabulary to English-speaking IRC rooms that I used to frequent quite a bit a few years ago. While I did have extensive tuition in English (having been at a bilingual school for most of my life), I'm pretty sure that my essay writing has improved because of IRC. I'd argue that it's better than reading books (not that anyone should give up on that) because of the interactive element: you can ask to have things explained to you by natives who know what they're talking about (most of the time, anyway), and you'll be corrected by the grammar/spelling nazis if you make a mistake. Of course a lot of this depends on finding a decent e-community that uses real English and is populated by people with at least half a brain, but if you're lucky enough to be part of one, it really does wonders to your English, especially if you're a foreigner.