More time spent paying attention even when you didn't think it was important may have paid off on spelling and grammar. "ideas", "were" limited, "fully involved mentally" (ok, that one is probably debatable), "The" 20"-"somethings", "bored"

That said, the road we've been going down for decades already, since even the 40-somethings were kids, is one of more and more stimulation, of lower and lower quality. A hundred years ago, kids likely had to invent their own games, or, if they had access, they could read. 40 years ago, it was TV. Today it's Facebook. It shouldn't be surprising to anyone that we've been training ourselves to require constant stimulation, with no regard for how good it is. Or, rather, we've stopped learning how to just be quiet and focused on the here and now, no matter how "boring" it might be. It apparently is also a helpful skill for being respectful of those around you.

If the map says Taiwan (ROC) is a nation, that will offend mainland China (PRC). If the map says Taiwan is a province of PRC, that offends Taiwan.

Really, they're screwed either way.

At $work, we are mandated to call ROC a "region". That's as accurate as we can go without offending anyone.

I really wish you'd get off the fence and pick a position on the issue.

Keyboard/mouse are special. My keyboard and mouse are both USB and worked fine with the open-source version of VB. I went to the closed version to try to get a USB headset to work, as well as to try to connect to my kids' LeapFrog Tag pens. Didn't work, but haven't switched back as much out of laziness as anything else.

Yes. But you were the one to use the term "engineer" to refer to the guys who wrote the firmware for these routers. I was merely using it colloquially, in the same way you did.

I thought it was too strong of a word, but I decided that "engineer" was not the focus point of your original post. This one seems to have confirmed that.

Basically, the people who write this stuff wouldn't be what I'd normally call an engineer. But they do show why we need the Bobby Tables site (among others).

If "most engineers are not morons" then we wouldn't need Bobby Tables as an example when explaining simple security issues to them.

I am. I think the entire capitol is in need of punishment. Unfortunately, some of them probably will like that.

However, we're now straying dangerously close to off-topic here, so I'll stop now.

If, by answering questions about some other crime, I were to move from "known not to be an accomplice" to "known to be an accomplice", having been forced to answer those questions would fail the fifth amendment. By forcing Risen to answer these questions, we may find out he was actually a co-conspirator or an accomplice (or perhaps even the source of the leak itself). And thus forcing him to answer now has trampled his fifth amendment rights.

While it would be very dangerous, a very principled person (more principled than I) might think about using the opportunity to claim some illegal association with the crime, and then mounting a constitutional challenge over it.

As a Christian who is offended by the US Evangelical misuse of the term "Creationism" to mean something entirely silly, and tired of having to explain how it's only a small minority of Christians, with whom I do take an active role in attempting to re-educate every chance I get, and not Christianity in general that believes the earth is less than 10k years old ...

I thought the OP was funny.

Should pack 'em up and send them to Afghanistan or Iraq or Pakistan or anywhere else that POTUS wants to enforce, ahem, speed limits.

On the other hand, whoever did this doesn't merely have a sick sense of humour. They're highly insightful to the way the government is heading.

At the office, I told one coworker to fuck off. Just once. In person. In front of the team (sans manager). He sulked off. When a round of layoffs hit and took him with it, he asked for me to be a reference.

Sometimes, just sometimes, that verbal slap in the face is exactly what is needed to wake someone up. And they may just respect you more afterwards than they did before.

Fingerprint with no name, address, phone number, etc., attached = no useful information to be gained via subpoena.

If I store the key blueprint against my fingerprint, all the subpoena will be able to determine is that this key will open something (presumably a house or vehicle) associated with that fingerprint. The only actually useful information here is likely to be proximity - most likely, this is the most conveniently available KeyMe kiosk for the person with that fingerprint.

That's an awfully big net to cast for a vanishingly small amount of information.

Unless you suppose that the police have a suspect's key and want to reverse lookup to get their fingerprints, and you think that some judge will sign off on that subpoena more easily than just taking the suspect's fingerprints. Technically not impossible, but, really? I'm as paranoid about the police as the next slashdotter, but even that strikes me as a bit far fetched if only due to practicality reasons. Well, not if only, but actually only.

Where's the "+1, Bitchslap" mod when you need it?

I agree. What looks like your bad reading comprehension skills is actually your need for me to be wrong so you can be right.

To even contemplate that "some of us [...] wouldn't do this in the first place" is supremely arrogant and self-delusional.

And I saw the second part, but it still misses the point. We have these faults without necessarily noticing. You may not be in the original company's position of having your hypocracy pointed out to you in front of everyone, or at all, and may miss it altogether.

And even THAT misses the point. The point is that the hypocracy still existed, even if corrected later, and that further hypocracies will always exist due to our imperfect nature (inability to know everything and comprehend everything). Because we all have this, it should surprise nobody that the company referred to in the original summary would also have it. To say you're surprised by this is just your failure to understand human nature, and says nothing about their misdeeds.

And none of that justifies it. You keep reading justification into my responses. I didn't justify it. All I did was say I wasn't surprised by it. Their original position is still disproven by the hypcracy, not because it's hypocritical, but because they just proved why zero-marginal-cost information cannot have the business model they want to attach to it.

Any attempt to focus on the hypocracy will get them to be defensive, just like you are. We need to focus on the market rationale and how they proved what the market says about their product instead of flaming them. Understanding can lead to conversation which can lead to changes of heart. As long as they're getting defensive, they'll go on the offense and attack. And that doesn't help anyone.