You do realize how commonly women are raped and abused by men

You do realize how commonly men are beaten and murdered, don't you?

they might happen to be more sensitive to the implicit or explicit threats

Oops, you're lowering the castle defenses now... Didn't you hear your sisters in arms giving you your marching orders? You're not supposed to admit that women are more sensitive to abuse... You're supposed to tow the party line, claiming that the only cause is evil men are being more verbally abusive to women.

I'm tall, 182 centimeters, and I still once had a guy literally pick me up and carry me back to his apartment when I tried to walk away from him.

Men are stronger than women, no question. Carrying a knife will even things out quite nicely, though. Clawing out eyes works pretty good, too.

In the list of people who are treated special, can we exclude female body builders and throw in any and all physically small or frail men? If physical abilities are the only determinant, we've gotta have a few categories, including the linebackers you mentioned. Female midgets must get the best treatment of all.

Why would anybody want to wait for a day or two for a piece of plastic when they can access the data instantly online?

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a USPS van full of Blu-ray discs...

Movies on The Pirate Bay don't appeal to me, because of the low quality of the rips. The idiots that put them together don't even know they should strictly stick to picture dimension that are multiples of 16, let alone selecting the best perceptual encoding options, making a good trade-off of efficiency and compatibility, using a proper rescaling alg., or better yet, not rescaling at all.

Streaming services don't really appeal to me, because of the DRM, Netflix's refusal to support Linux systems, despite how commonly such are used as TV-connected DVRs, and the inability to make an offline copy for later viewing, instead having to waste the bandwidth every-time you want to watch it, the ability for them to quietly discontinue carrying a movie, and needing to have your subscription in-force, forever, to be able to re-watch any movie you liked.

I guarantee I get infinitely more utility out of those little plastic discs than anybody gets out of your much more expensive streaming service, and probably more than copyright infringers, too, saving on disc space upgrades, not wasting time hunting for slightly less popular or older titles, and more.

Will Israel promise that if Hamas puts all its rocket launchers, military command and control, and military supplies neatly organised in easily identifiable military bases, Israel won't simply send a missile to figuratively cook all those eggs being put in one basket?

That's idiotic. The idea was to get them away from civilian homes, so when Israel does have to retaliate and destroy them, innocent bystanders aren't killed in the process. Promising not to shoot back would be crazy, and your statement massively misses the point...

Will Israel remove the embargo being imposed of Gaza so that Hamas can buy better weapons that they can use to precisely target Israel military installations rather than have to make do with using cheap mortar and rockets that is just as likely to hit civillian targets as Israeli military installations?

You'd have to first explain why Hamas has a military need to attack Israeli military bases in the first place, as opposed to, say, Israeli tanks and aircraft while they are in Palestine. Or why they need to attack at all, since they two are not at war with each other, and Israel could wipe them out in a matter of days if they ever did declare one.

everything I've seen the router is free* with the install

Nope. Second-step in the sign-up process is selecting between an extra $5/month charge, or buying one for $99. Go take a look, yourself.

Whatever price Verizon says it'll give you for FIOS, add $5/mo for the router rental that's forced on you, for absolutely no reason.

He and his cronies will get what's coming to them.

You don't watch Game of Thrones, do you?

Hint: The worse guy almost always wins.

FiOS is 1/8th mile away from my house but they won't bring it the last couple hundred feet.

Sounds like you need to strike up a deal with one of your neighbors, to sign-up for FIOS and host a WiFi AP aimed towards your house for you. Give them free internet access (throttled when you're maxing it out) or just a few dollars more than the bill, and you'll both come out ahead.

For me, a real sign of the death of Slashdot is the predictability of the trolls.

This statement just reeks of "noob".

The trolling (and gaming of mod and m2) was VASTLY higher in the early /. days. At certain points, it really was crushing any legitimate discussions. You have no idea how good you've got it, on that account.

Slashdot is dying because of Dice, nothing else.

At this point, it's pretty clear that if you don't already have it, you won't be getting it.

Not true here. It was quite a while after their announced buildout freeze that FIOS became available here. A neighboring city had it for a while, and since then, it has expanded a few cities away, and filled-in all the coverage gaps, too.

Frankly, I hate FIOS, because they immediately take away nice cheap DSL as an option. Why the hell does my mother need to pay $65/month for the slowest FIOS package, when she's never watched an online video in her life, still has no interest in Netflix, and wouldn't care whether it came in 480i or 4k? But nice cheap DSL is no longer an option for her, because we have FIOS.

Time Warner is awesome, offering a $15/month basic internet access plan even though they've got no competition in that space anymore, but if they get bought out by Comcast, we're screwed.

So you'd prefer the opposite order? Wars first, offshore oil exploration later?

What's the alternative? Do you think you can convince everyone that deprivation is better than plenty? Do you think the government will suddenly start adopting sound economic policies rather than economic policies to satisfy greed and envy and entitlement and grievance and short-term political goals? What would cause that to happen? And if it happened, what would cause it to continue?

Depending on where you live (state taxes?), that's at best a cool $350-$365 after payroll taxes (259-270 Euros) per week for a family of two to four.

Really? And would that $10.10/hr magically become more or less money with a family of 1, or a family of 10?

And actually, with a family of 4 on $20,000/year, you probably wouldn't be paying ANYTHING in state or federal income taxes in most states, so it would be $404/week take-home.

And more relevant than abstract cash figures:

"If you have a [full-time] job in this country, (thereâ(TM)s a) 97 percent chance that you're not going to be in poverty."

http://www.politifact.com/trut...

Methanol fuel cells need some research love....

No they don't... They're getting extensive use in forklifts, surpassing battery-electrics even at the currently crazy fuel-cell prices.

Now Unleaded Gasoline fuel cells... Those could use some money. Range booster for EVs or hybrids, an instant doubling of fuel efficiency over ICEs, practically no maintenance, and a future where fuel conversion efficiency isn't limited by Carnot.

Why should billions of people drastically cut their living standards to help a few thousand in the Maldives? Why should poor people agree to pay a lot more for energy to help rich FL coastal dwellers?

Do people on the coast matter more than everyone else?

Verizon can afford more lawmakers than you.