I will continue your foolish analogy. You said, "Likewise, when I buy a 360, it's not Microsoft's 360 anymore." This is entirely true. You own your Xbox 360, but what you are arguing is that not only should you be able to do whatever you want with the hardware, but that the manufacturer's online marketplace should not be able to regulate its content at all. In other words, not only are you able to do whatever you want with the hardware(no disagreement here) but that they should have no control over content on Xbox Live(give me a break). You own your Xbox 360 and your Iphone you don't own the Appstore or Xbox Live. Apple and Microsoft also have "Private Property."

You are arguing that Apple has no "moral authority" to decide which apps it can provide in its own store because you own an iphone and it is your "private property." You are conflating the piece of hardware you own with the service that the company provides along with it. Isn't the app store Apple's private property? Shouldn't they have a right to use the property the way they want?

If you RTFA, it turns out that HD-DVD is only still in the lead if you don't consider the PS3 to be a Blu-Ray player. A more accurate headline would have included the word "stand-alone" in it somewhere.

I still remember what made me get a Genesis. I remember going to the store the day Mortal Kombat came out and buying it for SNES. I think I paid 70 dollars for it. I got home and popped it in the console and the blood was replaced with sweat. Sure it was stupid, but I was 10 years old and I wanted my game to be ultra-gory. The worst part was that instead of ripping the opponent's spine out, Sub-Zero froze him and shattered him.

Every now and again I create blogs with my name prominently featured to throw the man off when he tries to google me.

Exactly. I did a case study on this when I was in college. Basically NYU is really savvy and throws all their money at things that are cheap and produce high-earning grads(Law, business, economics) while ignoring or underfunding more expensive fields that don't produce high-earners(relative to cost). It makes sense for a school that doesn't have a huge endowment like the big ivies, but at the same time, it creates an incentive for schools to ignore fields that don't produce high-earners(philosophy, history, english) or are very costly to maintain(physics, biology, nanotech, etc.)

This year USNews decided to count night programs where many law schools hid their most unqualified(by USNews standards) students. Most bit the bullet and took the hit in their rankings. Brooklyn Law pretended their night program didn't exist,which is why it isn't listed in the part-time section.

If there is a way to monkey with the rankings, schools will do it. USNews rankings are taken seriously enough where they should really improve their methodology so that it is at least more difficult to cheat.

Can whoever the hell modded this comment as insightful explain the following to me:

How is this insightful? Even if the article was about music and the abuse of the legal system, wouldn't the fact that someone pirated music tend to support the idea that someone else finds value in it?

How does this comment(which seems to assume that the RIAA trained these dogs to sniff out pirated CD's) relate to an article about trained Malaysian dogs sniffing out pirated DVD's?

I understand that these views are valued highly here on slashdot, but they don't relate to the article or the discussion. I'm surprised I haven't seen any "insightful" comments complaining about Sony's rootkits yet.

I believe Gilbert said that a big influence was On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers. I hope they never reveal the real Secret of Monkey Island.

I'm sure this is not the case, but this thing might be small enough that if they position an additional right shoulder button correctly you could use the d-pad with your left hand and the analog stick with the right hand.

Since we have a common law system, the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Best guess: Would depend what court you were before. Wisconsin thinks it is fine and New York thinks it isn't. The Wisconsin approach is more in line with the Supreme Court.

I just read the full text of the opinion, and your summary is pretty apt. The worst case for them was US v. Knotts, where the Supreme Court held that a more primitive device could be used without a problem. They pretty much said yeah well this technology is much more powerful. It also didn't help them that they didn't have any reason on the record for putting a GPS device on his car, and probably put them on tons of cars. The dissent, I think rightly points out the Supreme Court's Knotts/Kyllo/Karo distinction that tracking devices/enhanced sense devices do not violate the fourth when they are used outside the home, but are overly-invasive when used inside the home.

The police may do this in Wisconsin without a warrant. In New York they need a warrant. I don't understand the rest of what you wrote.

It says it in court decisions interpreting the constitution. Like the Wisconsin decision cited above for example.