Gaming typically relies on skill, not chance. If you play most games long enough, you'll be able to consistently beat certain levels. If you win at the roulette wheel, you're no more likely than before to win again. That's the difference. Otherwise, "exploiting pleasure-seeking behavior" could be stretched to describe every last industry in existence beyond the sales of food, water, shelter, and basic utilities.

With the model of directly purchasing the game itself (and no in-game purchases, like standard PC/console gaming) you can at least read about the game and have a reasonable expectation about what you are paying for. The real problem with in-game purchases is that the game is "free" or low-cost in the most technical sense, but after you invest many hours advancing the game you find that you can't really prosper without making additional purchases. It could be construed as a form of bait-and-switch.

The other problem would be that many of these games are aimed at children who make purchases the parents later get stuck with, but this problem begins in the home and should be solved within the home by actual parenting. That's not as convenient as using the tablet like a cheap babysitter but it would certainly be more worthwhile. If you wanted to solve this by government action, that's simple too: declare that these purchases are contractual in nature (the parent agreed to pay charges made to the phone bill or whatever) and that minors who make them cannot be held to a contract, therefore the companies cannot collect money when children make them. *Poof* - end of shitty business model.

SpaceX do not "already have" a Falcon 9 heavy, its still in development and won't have its first launch until next year at the earliest.

I guess you are forgetting the multitude of Flash and Java applet vulnerabilities that have come to light over the past few years, most of them cross platform in nature.

I think the main issue I have is that this EC spokesman is expecting Google to make decisions regarding the public interest rather than erring on the side of caution and removing everything - the moment they do make decisions regarding the public interest, you can bet your arse they will be hauled back into court and have to justify themselves.

So by going to the extreme and implementing the ruling across the board (barring obvious requests that can be rejected), Google is protecting themselves and showing what a stupid ruling it is in the first place. There is no alternative approach that Google can take that doesn't open them up to further legal action.

Because that's the faction that runs the man who runs the US senate and who runs the man who runs the executive branch of the government.

The same could be said for any emerging technology. That argument would have applied when SSL was new. Maybe one day Tor will be standard, you buy a new computer, get online, and it's using Tor without you ever changing any settings. The EFF is already saying that everyone should use Tor. At this point, the only reason it's not the norm is because it's fairly new. I wouldn't be surprised if we see computers within a couple years marketed with privacy in mind that come with Tor already installed and configured, or ISPs adding exit nodes to their networks as a PR privacy initiative.

I remember when Patriot passed, I was very suspicious of it. It all got rammed through the system a little too easily considering the power it granted to the government. Everyone was so gung-ho at the time though. That also reminds me of when we decided to bail out all the big banks. I was the only person at the dinner table saying that they should be allowed to fail and that other, more responsible, banks would buy up the pieces and life in the free market would go on. Everyone was giving me reasons why that wouldn't work, and then years later they were trying to tell me why the banks should have been allowed to fail.

It seems that people forget about their convictions really easily in the face of extraordinary circumstances. The fact is that those circumstances are the most important time to keep your convictions. Patriot should have never been passed. The promise to repeal it was the entire reason I voted for Obama the first time. Bastard really got me, didn't he?

Get shelved by Democrats, you mean. Ask Harry Reid (who sets the legislative agenda in the Senate) about his priorities, if he can articulate them in a complete, unmuddled sentence that doesn't include assertions about how his party has no rich donors, etc.

If this were the House, the tone of the comments here would be all about specifically named anti-science conservatives, not "politicians." Why aren't we naming the anti-science liberals behind this cut?

That's more than a feeling, that's a fact.

What if they don't want to buy it back for that much, what if the offer is now $2 billion? What if the stock price tanked? What if a court blocks the sale for whatever reason? There are risks to both the buyer and seller that I'm comfortable having them take if that's how they want to play the game.

I simply disagree. I'll also freely acknowledge that I should not be the person to draft any kind of law like this. Hell, I wasn't even focused on campaign finance specifically, I just got behind it because Lessig is actually doing something instead of sitting around and talking like everyone else. I see his point though. If it was up to me, I would focus on 4 issues as a starting point for a fix. That paper articulates my position, or at least what it was last November. The more time passes, the more I'm starting to believe that this system is hopelessly broken and irreversibly tilted in favor of those currently in power (I'm not just talking about politicians). Maybe the fix is to abolish all political parties completely and have everyone run on their own name, I don't know. I can promise you this though: unless a substantive push for actual reform gets off the ground in this country, as soon as I can afford it I'm going to expatriate myself. I don't want to live in a hypocritical system which claims to be free but is actually ruled by money and actively tramples on everyones' rights. This country is a far, far cry from the "land of the free and home of the brave." A lot of people living here have continually shown themselves to be neither free nor brave. The people with the money have seized power for themselves, and they are willing and able to spend vast amounts of money in order to make sure that the power and freedom stays with them, at the possible cost of everyone else.

By the way, have you been reading about all of the protesting going on in Germany over the US Federal Reserve? Because I haven't seen it in the news. I've been checking Fox, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post... it's weird though, I can't find any mention of it. Like it's not even happening. Why would virtually all American media refuse to cover a story like that, wouldn't it have some sort of interest here in the US? Or worldwide media, even. I'd almost think that media around the world are controlled by the same group of people. It's almost like when small-party candidates run for office, the media virtually ignores them. Why is that? Well, I can't think about that right now, I have to keep working because I have this mortgage to pay. After work I'll stop by Wal-Mart and pick up some food, then go home and watch entertainment and sports news until I pass out. I'm sure someone else will look out for me.

What I think? I think everyone who has been running this country for the past couple decades has been a cunt and deserves to be thrown out on their ass and locked up. That's what I think.

Or juuuuuuuuust anothaaaaaaaa cuntrie.

Wait, what? All of a sudden we've decided that violating rights is OK if it makes us more secure? When did we decide that? I don't remember any court decisions that said "well, it's unconstitutional, sure, but it's OK because..."

Well, I guess it has to eliminate a significant portion of the "to/from" communications that it seeks, change the manner in which it conducts upstream collection, and develop better technology, then. Right? Or just stay exactly the same and ignore the unconstitutional part of everything?

There's a quote from Benjamin Franklin around here somewhere...

How many laborers would they need to make all of those molds to allow them to build 10 buildings in 24 hours? Would your method be any cheaper than $5,000 per building?

I assume you missed the part about building 10 single-room buildings in a day for $5,000 each.

Did anything ever come of that with other employees? Or is that a case where the company also had no idea what they were giving people to sign and aren't aware that they own all of this IP?