I'll be impressed with 3D when the technology lets me focus (and subsequently, blur surrounding elements) on what I want to focus on so my vision isn't forced into the director's "focus-box". Currently, its a gimmick that doesn't improve much, is tiresome after the first couple times, and will destroy a film if poorly implemented.

Thank you for a balanced perspective. The number of people in a supposedly intellectual society who are still unable to widen their view to the realities of this kind of terrible occurrence makes me sad.

From the video alone, there is absolutely no way for anyone to make a fair judgment or come to any conclusion. If a crime has indeed been committed those responsible should be punished. But a rush to judgment based solely on this is absurd.

In a room crowded with pitch-forks, torches and a lack of constructive thought processes - of which there is far too much of these days - your statement is a breath of fresh air for those of us looking for intelligent perspective. It is appreciated.

But there is another flaw in your argument. Bob cannot go and post an email that Alice sent to him on Facebook (well, legally at least). Even though Alice doesn't have 4th amendment rights over Bob's copy, she still does hold copyright over the message. She granted him an implicit license to read the work when she sent it to him. She did not grant a license to show that email to anyone else...

I agree with you up until this point.

Without a confidentiality agreement between the two private parties (Bob and Alice), information divulged by Alice to Bob is done so of her own accord and with no expectation of privacy. Bob has every right to reveal its content to anyone he chooses. There is a reason NDA's exist. The only way this argument flies is if there is an explicit legal binding between Bob and Alice to keep information pertaining to... whatever... private.

Because real choice doesn't exist. As an unsatisfied Comcast customer I cannot get broadband or television that competes in speed/price because they have a monopoly on the market in my area. It doesn't matter if the public is wise to it or not. Without viable alternatives at competitive prices I am stuck with Comcast as long as I want the type of services they provide.

Alternatively I am not at all thrilled about a Comcast/NBC merger and hope it dies a fiery, hellish death. And because its the right thing to do I am confident some jackass receiving a kickback will ensure its survival.

...until society sees the eventual benefits of a fantastic technology which allowed pure electric vehicles to fully replace traditional combustion engines.

In the global picture, the world is more complex than that. This isn't the same thing as subsidizing a product or industry in which we are already enslaved (*cough* big oil...).

Just because someone gets rich from taxpayer money doesn't mean the action won't benefit us. Even if the company fails, their efforts have potentially ushered-in a new era which will benefit us all. That effort should be nurtured and encouraged; period.

Its about progress; not perfection.

Lol. The Spider Man trilogy, as a whole, stands as one of the worst of the decade. Spider Man 4, if you can use Spider Man 3 as any gauge, would've been the biggest turd Hollywood's put out in a long while and I'm not so sure even Toby's star-power could recover.

Just to play devil's advocate here:

Ignorance is expensive. Mind-numbingly simple isn't the issue and is in the eye of the beholder (I'm not a physics genius and I'm sure I'm a complete idiot to many). If 'just make it work' is worth $150 to someone then what's the problem?

Sure, you could say the service COULD be less expensive but the consumer is the one who sets the price in the end. People pay for a perceived value. I wouldn't pay $150 for this kind of service because to me its highway robbery - then again, I'm not ignorant to this issue and can do the work myself.

As a small business owner I do understand the value of doing business however and the more you know about who, what, when, where or how the less expensive things are.

On the flip-side - selling a service that does the opposite of what it claims is false advertising and, last time I checked, illegal.

Just my 2 cents.

The App Store is full of bogus reviews - its taken this long for Apple to boot someone? WTF? There are a huge number of apps with 1-star reviews along with an equal number of 5-star, "this sweet app is awesome!!!" reviews mixed in. When reviews are that polarized it is glaringly obvious which developers are paying for positive reviews in order artificially inflate their ratings amidst the plethora of negative responses.

Honestly, the App Store needs a better rating system; one which flags apps who have blatantly polarized ratings/reviews.

When push comes to shove survival of the fittest rules all. When it comes down to the wire of being able to support yourself and provide for your family, morality is far less a consideration than providing is. Simply put, like it or not, morality is in the eye of the beholder and nature doesn't give a rat's ass how you FEEL about anything.

Company's that don't treat their employees like valued assets will discover it is the very foundation of their business which will turn on them when they need them most. The old-boys-club (or woman's club nowadays) can fall to ruin under the pressure of a survivalist-economy just as quickly as they can layoff a $30k worker in HR rather than cut $100k+ executive pay or bonuses by 1% in order to help keep that worker and their company strong.

No loyalty or sense of community = no loyalty or care of the communities well being.

With apple, though, it is different. Their anti-consumer moves are so shiny...

Bull. Apple is evil, granted, but their rise isn't because the masses flock to shiny, polished, gemstones. It's because their products have a history being user-friendly and bringing the power of traditional tech-only gadgetry to those who either can't or won't learn a more complex device.

I use all the mainstream platforms out there, in my work, on a daily basis. They've all got their pitfalls and suck in their own way. However, my iPhone, as a consumer device capable of doing most of the consumer-related things I want from such a device, freakin' rocks — jailbroken or not. And I am certainly not one who generally cares about shiny/polished. My complaints with my iPhone are 99.99% directed towards the telecom industry.

If Apple borked my iPhone by a) hijacking my device and pushing advertisements to my phone or worse b) forced me to interact with said advertisements, you can bet your ass the damn thing would end up in the trash.

Now, on the flipside, if Apple can implement such an action (although I don't see how seeing as how the first FF plugin I install is adblock) in a way that is non-intrusive and doesn't disrupt the joy in using a device then, who cares? Advertisements aren't inherently anti-consumer and are perfectly reasonable on the whole — anti-consumer only exists when consumers don't have a choice. As far as available devices are concerned, nobody can claim the iPhone is the only option available. The market is quite anti-competitive, as a whole, however it stems almost entirely from the telecoms; not device manufacturers.

So, write your congressmen and the FCC and tell them to turn our mobile providers into utilities and stop their collusion practices because that's where your complaint should be. Apple couldn't compete if they implemented forced advertisements in a world where mobile provider choice was on the side of consumers.

my 2 cents.

...here *HAS* to be some lawyer out there who's good enough...

Of course there is... the questions isn't is there one, it's who will pay to purchase their super-hero legal services that's the problem. Verizon has super-hero lawyers on retainer -- the general public doesn't have deep enough pockets and those who do shouldn't be expected to spend vast amounts of private wealth being a societal-savior to a public whom refuses to educate themselves and is more interested in shiny than intelligent.

Except that physical access always trumps encryption. You need to go beyond simple encryption when your attacker might be a coworker (or a maid or janitor) -- you need a security policy that mitigates the attacks.

As an example, instead of whole disk encryption, suppose you just want to read some PGP encrypted emails on your coworker's computer, which you are allowed to SSH into (as is the case where I am now). One strategy you might try is to SSH in and use the microphone to listen to your coworker's keystrokes while he is reading his email (perhaps you can predict when he will be doing this -- e.g. if you send him a message marked "URGENT" and you spy on his network connection, so you know roughly when he received it). The time between keystrokes is related to which keys are being typed in -- not an exact measure, but enough to reduce the search space if you are trying to guess a passphrase. Thus, policies must be in place -- perhaps that no microphones may be installed on systems dealing with high security information.

Encryption is great if your attacker cannot get physical access to your machine (or something equivalent like logging in remotely), which is a common scenario. However, if you are dealing with uncommon data and your attackers are determined to see it, relying on encryption alone is simply not sufficient -- even if the keys are stored on a smartcard (you could be mugged) or if the keys are based on biometrics (your corpse is still sufficient).

Spell and grammar check aren't enough to ensure proper sentences.

As long as paper books exist, they will be more desirable to a specific segment of the market, specifically those who wish to resell their books. For those of us who like to keep our books, (mostly those of us who don't buy books unless we want to keep them), an electronic format is more convenient and provides a better selection. Therefore paper books will be more desireable based on lack of drm or ability to resell them because they already aren't.

On a much more important point than you calling me names that add no value to your point (there arent any shills or fanboys rushing to attack you, so dont call them out, and if you arent referring to me, then dont mention them, and if you are calling me names, then you should have spent 30 seconds reading my others posts on /. and noticed that it simply wouldnt be true. I just happen to disagree that drm is the only factor to look at when buying things.), you have an interesting contradiction within the same paragraph.

So you think that publisher's desire for control will kill the paper book market, but that consumer demand caused publishers to provide drm free music.

I don't know how you can state these two things. If you said them a year apart, I would still question it. But you said them in the same paragraph.

To be fair, if you actively choose to purchase a book with drm in electronic form over a paper version, you arent being repressed, whether or not you consider yourself to be part of the public. On the other hand, pirates generally aren't doing what they do for the public good either. They don't "got your back." They do it for notoriety (thats 'popularity' for the sake of being well known, rather than being well liked).

 

While supporters of traditional marriage use legal and ethical means to promote their agenda, supporters of gay marriage use illegal and unethical means the moment it appears that doing it the legal way isn't winning support...

First, I'm not going to debate the merits of either side of the debate. Belief what you will, however...

If you think for even a moment that supporters of traditional marriage don't break the law and use intimidation your global perspective on this issue is completely fucked. People on both sides are equally guilty of doing awful things to other people. Religious folk (of just about every faith) have centuries of persecution and hateful violence towards non-believers. If you're going to stand up on either side of this debate and call people out to disagree with you directly the least you can do is acknowledge that there are egreious faults on both sides.

Pointing the finger at either side while maintaining the other is innocent of similar violations is outright ignorant hypocrisy.