This is a good illustration of the folly of top-down "waterfall" methodology. Too much micro-planning in advance, no action.

It's just more eco-bullying, plain and simple. I, for one, am sick and tired of these deluded incompetents trying to bully others who demonstrably understand more about it than they do.

That is very definitely NOT what I wrote. Don't try to put words in my mouth. That practice is at least as evil as anything you have accused me of doing. I ask again: look in a mirror much? Do you know what the word "hypocrisy" means?

Here is the difference between YOU and ME (and nothing whatever to do with this "Winterfox" person): at least I acknowledge the behavior that I actually do engage in, regardless of whether you think I should apologize for it. You, on the other hand, seem to be blind to your own transgressions.

I did NOT claim I never "escalated", if you want to use that word. What I stated was that I won't apologize for it, IF I felt it was actually justified.

Let's be clear: I really don't give a damn about your philosophy.

I am not a pacifist. Attack me and I will attack back, and feel NO remorse for doing so. I don't care whether you want to call that escalation. Do you understand that? I don't care. Trying to go there isn't going to get you anywhere.

INVARIABLY, the people here on Slashdot who harass me in this manner have been people who failed to show I was wrong, but felt they were right anyway, and got all butthurt because I wouldn't admit I was wrong and validate their feelings.

Nope. Doesn't work that way. Show me or get stuffed. If I think I made a mistake -- as I may have once here in this thread, go back and read -- I will admit I may have been wrong and ask for pardon. But if I am pretty sure I have not made a mistake, you will not get an apology from me.

It's that simple. I don't give a rat's ass about political correctness or what other people think. I speak the truth as I best know it, without spin. If I am shown to be wrong, I will admit it. That's all there is to it. If your feelings get all hurt because of that, probably best to just not engage me at all.

For books, maybe. But it really just obfuscates the issue for software because they just swapped out "free" for "get", while still barely giving a nod to the DIFFERENCE between actually free, and "free trial but you have to pay to unlock the full version".

Granted, they did add an indicator for "in-app purchases", but made it as unobtrusive as they reasonably could. In my opinion, that is dishonesty. Or at best, being honest only very reluctantly and begrudgingly.

This seems to be most reasonable of the responses so far.

EFF has mentioned that when the end-to-end encryption is implemented, and then IF it passes their tests, they will update their Secure Messaging Scorecard for it. Right now its score is rather dismal: 2 of 7.

Currently there are only a few text messaging apps that get full points: TextSecure, Silent Text, OTR (Windows), CryptoCat, and something called ChatSecure which I had not heard of before.

Some people objected to CryptoCat being awarded all points, in that it hadn't been fully audited yet. EFF replied that it passed tests to their satisfaction.

I did not list phone apps such as Redphone because they're primarily voice not text per se.

We have been over all of this before. I am going to publish my proof that you were wrong, in time. Nothing has changed, and your insistence on a formula from me that is 100% irrelevant to the proof that you were wrong changes nothing.

Period. The end. You will get no more response from me to this continued HARASSMENT.

Public Service Announcement

Dear readers:

It is against my policy to respond to the person who made this comment. Ever since I challenged his incorrect answer to a question of physics several years ago, he has been rude and insulting, jumping into conversations that did not involve him for the sole purpose of insulting and harassing me.

That is my statement. You may make your own judgment.

I didn't say it was. But when research grant $$ is favorably awarded to research on a particular "side" of an issue (which has shown to be the case, rather extremely, over the last decade or so), then researchers tend to research only one "side" of that issue. Read the GAO report.

It doesn't have to do with "conspiracy", it has to do with political pressure. That's only "conspiracy" if you consider all Democrats or Republicans or members of any other party to be co-conspirators.

Researchers are human. They follow the $$ like anybody else.

Really. You're writing about other people's attitude, and you start it off that way? Do you not own any mirrors? Sounds like blatant hypocrisy to me.

When I believe that someone else has been unjustifiably rude or insulting, I have no problem with responding in kind. I can be wrong sometimes, and when shown I am wrong, I also have no problem apologizing. There are innumerable examples of that here on Slashdot over the years.

The qualifier is that first I must be shown to be wrong. "Shown" is the operative word. Merely saying I am wrong doesn't make it so. Show me real evidence, and barring contrary evidence I will accept it.

Hey... there are extreme Libertarians who are out of touch with reality, in exactly the same way there are extreme Democrats and Republicans who are out of touch with reality. There is nothing unique about Libertarians in that regard, and judging them all by the positions of an extreme few is as erroneous as judging all Democrats and Republicans the same way.

The actual Libertarian principle in regard to that subject is that polluting somebody's back yard is doing them harm. Another of the central principles is that one of the primary functions of government is to prevent people from doing harm to other people. Further, contrary to what many people say, the Libertarian principle regarding government regulation is that government should regulate only when it's necessary to do so.

But if you put those together, the result is that if it is necessary for government to regulate pollution in order to prevent people from polluting other peoples' back yards, then it should. Ideally that should be voluntary, but if voluntary doesn't work then the government must regulate it.

Does that really sound so outrageous to you?

If you could actually read my mind, you would know why you were wrong about that.

It's funny, but it's even funnier because there's a ring of truth to it.

Anything that's cheap enough to mass-produce in or on dollar bills, is also cheap enough for some person or group that is highly motivated to counterfeit.

That's the way stuff works, folks.

I mean heck... look at the holograms on Micro SDs. They were put there to foil counterfeiting... now they're being counterfeited.

Oh, give me a frigging break. Yes, energy companies (not just oil) spent millions of dollars on research and campaigns contrary to global warming alarmism. Some estimates go as high as $40 and even $50 million.

But according to a recent GAO report, our own government spent $106 Billion dollars on "climate change" research, and that was by 2010, 4 years ago.

So this "oil companies are spending money" argument works against the climate alarmists. No matter how you cut it, the "other side" has outspent them by more than 1000 to 1.

Pardon my reply above.

To me, it looked like a sarcastic comment aimed at me.

But I could have been wrong.