Oh, god, you have no idea how much this pisses me off. I've had a few family members get bitten by this when I've suggested they get VLC or Firefox. The bastards at Google allow people to purchase ads for these high-profile FOSS software project names and then they serve up malware.

I thought they'd stopped doing it, but checking now I see searching for both Firefox and VLC still show these links. And some morons still don't understand why people block ads.

Not quite that bad, but I have an older Chevy Lumina and in order to replace the battery you have to

- remove a front-end crossbar, the bolts of which have about a 50% chance of being welded to the chassis with rust
- remove the windshield washer reservoir, which involves removing the pump that's attached at the bottom of the container (without spilling too much fluid on the battery)
- remove a bracket from overtop the batter which is connected to the chassis under the air filter housing, requiring at least a 10-inch wrench extender (12" is better)
- remove another bracket that holds the battery in place, also fixed with a bolt located 10 inches down a tiny hole.
- wrestle the battery out past the main fuse/distribution box, which it barely fits past without breaking it
- repeat the process in reverse with new battery

Here's a picture. It's a nightmare.

It's so bad I found several sites online describing the process and mocking the designers of the vehicle. I understand that space is at a premium under the hood, but FFS, this is just bad.

That was true 4-6 years ago, but not today. Now we're seeing most of this stuff getting installed via zero-day exploits in browsers and plugins like Java and Flash, and distributed via third-party advertising networks. It's a lot harder to blame someone for getting compromised via a browser plugin they didn't even know they had.

The best protection these days is still to block all advertising, run with limited permissions, and have automated external backups with versioning. If the user is capable, blocking all third-party scripting is also incredibly effective.

You just listed some of the best features of email.

Now this is true. Antivirus software has been a joke for a decade.

It looks like they forgot to turn the Windows Firewall to "on" and set the Internet Security Zone to "High". That should prevent all hacks, right? /me ducks

I somehow lost the last line of my reply.

[...] that doesn't mean everyone agrees that it's a good idea, or that there's not something more practically beneficial to spend it on.

Interesting false equivalence. Ignoring the fact that I said nothing about how much money he should give to charity, do you really equate a $400 television and a few $12 DVDs to a $70,000,000 house?

Ah, the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" myth. Who knows -- perhaps once the majority of Africans have overthrown brutal despots, eradicated malaria and other diseases, and found reliable clean water they'll be able to start working on that.

How much time, money, and effort did it take to build a prospering American country and society -- from a largely empty land brimming with natural resources? Oh, and, how much of that came from Europe? "Self-made", indeed.

Oops, I think you tipped over your own straw man with that last remark.

There's no outrage in my post, and I think it's very telling that the examples you chose: a computer (which I use to earn a living), a car (which I use to get to stores to buy necessities), and a phone (really? [and it isn't even a smartphone]) actually are necessities for myself as well as the vast majority of people today.

Notch can literally eat his piles of cash for all I care. My point was simply that at some point you pass a level of wanton extravagance that you venture into a realm of wasteful absurdity. Our culture won't punish you for buying a $250,000 cell phone case, but that doesn't mean everyone agrees that it's a good idea.

It's his money to spend and I wouldn't stand in his way, but what a waste. Makes you wonder what kind of good could have been done or how many lives could have been saved with that $70 million.

Until they stop playing games with hidden and required patents, their talk is just BS. They have shown they have no intent to change that model time and time again, this round is no different. You can open source something that requires a DX call but if you don't open source DX and threaten anyone who does with patent suits, is there a point? It is hollow BS for all the same reasons. Don't buy the PR meant to distract, the underlying mechanics are still the same. They are antagonistic to open source and that won't change at a level deeper than the public messaging.

          -Charlie

And they can't afford $500 for a phone or $800 on a game console but they still do. $1000 is within reach of enough people to be called "consumer grade". That doesn't mean everyone can afford it. Not everyone can even afford a computer, but we still consider them consumer goods.

Ah, that brings back some memories. Thanks :)

Personally, I miss the ohnoitsbennett tag that used to get applied to all his submissions. I still tag his walls-of-text with it, but I think it's been blacklisted along with most of the other fun tags.