True. Also, very rarely does the cashier even touch my card, much less look at the back. Usually it's just swipe and choose credit or debit. Doubtful the picture is very useful except against very large purchases.

I know we love to hate Microsoft here, but this is not just Microsoft behavior. This is the behavior of almost all large companies with IP portfolios.

The problem is the direction IP law has gone and continues to go. Don't hate the player, hate the game

That may be true, but a Vice President isn't generally an officer of the company, particularly in a large org with hundreds of VPs.

How understanding is your partner if you pause mid-thrust to check your watch?

Not to speak for GP, but I think it's less about the 150 million as it is about Microsoft's decision to continue to support Office for Mac, even though it helped leach sales away from Windows. Without Office on the Mac in 1995, the decision to buy a Mac in a business environment would have been much harder for businesses to needed to share documents with Office users (which was just about everyone back then).

Who said that Slashdot was only about technology news? "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." This matters.

Right, because the American culture is the One True Culture. Your ridiculous statement implies a false choice: American culture vs. poisoning girls who want to go to school. This is, in fact, a great argument for multiculturalism. If Afghanistan were more of an educated multi-cultural society, these nutjobs would have a harder time getting a following. As it is, when everyone only sees one culture (their own), treating women like this is the only "normal" they know.

Not sure if there's any legal basis for that. How can the concept of ownership not apply to copyright? If I create a work, I own the copyright for that work. It is a tangible and potentially marketable asset and I can transfer that asset to someone else. With that copyright, I have the legal right to control (subject to some limits, such as fair use) how that asset is used.

I know this isn't a popular idea here, but copyright is, in principle, a good thing. The length of time we're giving it is ridiculous, and the way the *AAs are handling it is problematic, but to listen to many people here, they think that "information wants to be free" so there should be no basis for copyright. Using this logic, should it be illegal to create a work and not publish it at all? Would that even be within my rights? Of course it would. If I have the right to publish or not, clearly I should have some types of rights to control how it is disseminated after I publish.

I fully reject the idea that once I create a work of art that I'm morally or in any other way required to give it to the world to use as they see fit. The creator of a work does own the copyright for that work, and can do with it as he sees fit.

That's funny, because you sound exactly like a psycho cowboy looking to get into a shootout.

Back in the 90s, I was a middle school math teacher. I always felt my job as a teacher was to educate a rounded person, so I included non-math discussions and assignments from time-to-time. One of my classes was Algebra II, taught to 8th and 9th graders. These were advanced students, and I enjoyed teaching about things outside the math world, some of which related to math, some of which didn't.

For this class, I generally offered some extra credit points to students who completed an out-of-class reading assignment. I listed books like Flatland, The God Particle, and yes, Ender's Game. I warned my students that it had some violence and harsh language, and left it up to them to decide. Never got any complaints from any parents, fortunately. After reading this, that book would probably go off my list.

I do agree it showed bad judgement to read this book to a classroom, full of students with varying levels of maturity, and students with vastly different tastes for violence and strong language. I would have never done that. Firing the teacher? Calling the book pornographic? That simply ludicrous

So let me get this right. You have problems with your Pontiac, so all GMs are bad. I really expect more out of the /. crowd. Anecdotes are not data. Never have been and never will be. What we have here is data that shows that all cars are getting better in quality (including GM), and you're single data point that disagrees with the large data set. Which one shall we throw out....?

Awesome. I noticed they feature a Noah's Ark exhibit. Of all the crazy Old Testament stories to hang your pseudo-scientific hat on, are you sure that the ship that carried two of each of the millions of known species that currently exists (since, you know, evolution isn't true) is the one you're gonna pick?

Are you aware of any real implementations for this? I see so many hurdles that making this happen "swiftly" is probably not going to happen. For instance:
How do you ensure all nodes have a unique IP address routeable from every other node?
How do you maintain reliable name services?
How do you bootstrap a project like this? Without a huge majority of users moving, with no guarantees, almost simultaneously. This concept couldn't handle a sparse array.
I'm sure there are theoretical solutions to all of these problems, but anything realistic?

That would also keep passengers from using their devices, including people in taxis, trains and buses. It'll never fly. You take away one of the top use cases for mobile devices in urban areas.

Beg to differ, but the Risk officer should definitely not be the CFO, nor report to the CFO. In a large org, ideally the Chief Risk Officer should report to the Board, and should be independent from the CEO, CFO and CIO, where significant amounts of risk lie. The purpose of the CRO is to make risk assessments and corrections independent of the other officers, who each have different priorities and reasons to ignore risk. Of course, in reality, the CRO often reports to the CEO, but having the CRO be the CFO or report to the CFO can cause a huge conflict of interest.