1) Either most users of Slashdot are European and don't trust the US, or 2) Most users of Slashdot are American and don't trust the US government's motives. Either way, makes your conundrum make perfect sense and not hypocrisy. Considering how involved the US government seems to be in every proposed international 'treaty' that would heavily regulate the Internet in the name of 'stopping piracy', can one be faulted for thinking this is just another attempt at ensuring they remain the 'heavy' behind things like shutting down Megaupload, behind trying to get Assange charged with crimes (not to mention what they did to the poor bastard who sent Wikileaks the info in the first place)?

You can't control the Internet. That's our job! --- US Congress

Come on. Anyone with a shredder knows that even if it isn't very good, you have to really make an effort to put information that would cover several lines of a page together into something that is real. And paper flying through the air isn't one of those ways.

Exploits are not new (even if it was a mistake on ArenaNet's end, it is still an exploit) and the punishments for using them are not new either. Ethics dictates that if you know some act to be wrong, then it would be wrong to perpetuate that act even if you can get away with it. Argue this all you want, but they were at fault and are lucky they are even getting a second chance. As for other legal issues, courts have found Terms of Service to be binding and thus we must follow them. If they say that inappropriate conduct can result if an ending of a person's account, then they can do it. Free speech doesn't apply in this case, and even using that as a reason shows a supreme lack of understanding about what free speech is. Free Speech isn't a blanket protection for what you say. You can say whatever you damn please, but that doesn't mean you cannot be punished for saying it.

Anyone else perturbed that a Political Science professor is the one who suggests this? What reason would those who study politics need to support removing algebra from any curriculum? Maybe it is so that the populous is dumbed-down and unable to reason properly for a candidate? But in truth, I do not know what this guy is talking about. I took the SAT a couple times (once in high school, once while in the service to try to improve my score), and the math section at the time was not even up to the level of algebra. So how is it that he, and others, believe that algebra is causing people to drop out of school? It is so easy to blame just one thing, and as we all grew up with the 'what will I use this for later in life' question, it is easy to blame mathematics. But in reality, kids drop out of school based on a combination of multiple issues. Drugs, bad parenting, learning disabilities, becoming pregnant, etc. Realistically, if there is a subject in schools that can be toned down, it would be English courses. Do we really need to study poetry in depth? Probably not. Besides, advanced math tends to be an elective, meaning those who aren't pursuing a degree in a STEM field typically do not need to take more of it. In other words, there are so many easily studied counters to his argument that it is almost funny.

Remember Fukishima? Their problem was that they didn't go back far enough with their historical data when they designed their tsunami wall. Now, in what amounts to the same thinking, people do not want to overstate any possibility of water levels going too high for the sake of the almighty dollar. So when the ocean levels rise, or a 'once-in-a-lifetime' hurricane swells the sea up high enough, will those who support these lower levels be responsible for the cost?

This shows what the downside to such 'donation-based' funding schemes. The point of making it a donation is that you give someone your money with little or no expectation that you personally receive anything in return. That is how it differs from an investment. In that, you would sign a contract stating what portion you would receive of any profits made. If the project failed, you still had no recourse, but typically your required return would be more than what you put into it (and thus the risk element).

Considering the much smaller number of people who work in the nuclear field compared to, say, fast-food workers, I would say that most people who speak crap out of their behinds have no real clue what they are talking about.

The one thing I dislike sometimes about Slashdot is that people only seem to post personally selected 'quotes'. This is one of those cases. The reactor building does not have "No water". It has water, and that water is at a decent temperature for what it needs to do. The point of the article was that there wasn't as much in there as they thought there would be, meaning that the leak in the building is probably worse, and located lower, than they originally thought. And with less water level means higher radiation levels (as water acts as a partial shield on radiation).

I think what we need to get out of this is that this is for a patent application. 1) It needs to be approved (though it probably will). 2) This does not mean they can make every remote already out there do this. What its probably intended to accomplish is give Microsoft a way to profit if TV/movie producers decide that they want to cause these charges to occur. Then Microsoft can say 'hey, we already thought of that, pay us money'.

Basing teacher 'performance' on student grades and exam scores is very open to corruption and manipulation. For one, students who do not like their teacher may purposefully underperform in an attempt to get rid of what is actually a good teacher. Such evaluations also unfairly give the view of a good teacher who works with poor performing students, even if the students improved significantly. There have also been many instances of teachers, principals, and even school districts who cheat the system by giving students a leg up on what is on the actual exams. How can we, as parents and tax payers, allows this to be the sole method of determining a teacher's performance? So what could be done? That is the hard part. Performance reviews are always a subjective matter, which is part of the reason why they were never meant to be seen by the public. In my opinion, school/district/government administrators should have more ability to actually observe performance without the teacher knowing they are being observed. But if test scores continue to become the focus of government and public scorn towards teachers, then an independent review board should be used to assess the reviews in order to incorporate real-life situations into the final assessment.

Hiroshima was hit with an atomic explosion. Fukishima did not have this. Completely different event. Chernobyl didn't even kill nearly this many, and they actually had their reactor explode. There have been ZERO deaths so far. The only certainty is that the CHANCE of cancer in many of the workers will increase. CHANCE is a big word. This isn't a guarantee that they will all get it. And anti-nuclear activists will always claim that there is a cover-up happening. But maybe you should take a cue from one of the founders of Greenpeace (a big anti-nuke organization) supporting the expansion of nuclear power.

That's BS. The NRC's job is to ensure operators are operating plants safely. When you are at a meltdown situation, you are already beyond that point. The NRC will do its best to advise, but stations themselves have many contigency plans in place should they reach this point. Three Mile Island was the event that prompted that to happen, and we haven't had a meltdown here since. Chernobyl was a big ball of s**t that only proved the US had better procedures, precautions, and design than the Russians. Fukishima, while a problem, generated confusion primarily because TEPSCO didn't want to tarnish its reputation by revealing how bad it was.

No one has 'won' Iowa. This election did not determine anything that matters come convention time. It simply was there for each precint to designate delagates to the county converntions, which happen in a couple months. Then the counties have their votes, and send delagates to the state convention (which I think I read was in JUNE). At that point, the state convention determines who 'wins' the states delagates to the convention. What this means is that if someone drops out of the race between now and the other conventions, the delagates assigned to them Tuesday will change their votes, which again can change any result we think we may already have. This is why primaries are so much better than caucauses.

So, I can only assume that once Apple does this that Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will start suing for patent infringement. Apple will somehow win despite it being obvious they are violating patents. Then after Apple sells a $700 console that for some strange reason millions of people buy despite not being any better than anything else, Apple will sue those three for having violated patents it has that really are the same as patents everyone else has and win.