Hope springs eternal, I suppose. But I'm not holding my breath.

Same tune, different pipers.

Every time they want to do these mega-mergers, we hear the same thing. It'll be great for consumers! It'll let us provide much more efficient service and lower prices! And we can't do X unless you let us merge!

After they squeak it through approval, it ends up with shittier service, higher prices, mass layoffs, and in many cases, X not getting done anyway (because why do that when they're no longer competing?). This will be the exact same thing.

We already know how this story ends. Why do we need to replay it yet again?

Just out of curiosity: How would someone responding to a question on SO even know someone's race or gender? I suppose for people who use their real names that could sometimes give it away, but SO also allows pseudonyms. So it's rather confusing to me how that could be an issue at all.

Hey, you know how dangerous that dihydrogen monoxide stuff can be. Thousands of people a year die from it.

I'm very glad Valve has "made an example" here, and I hope they follow suit with any other studios that pull the same stunt. If you want to get good reviews, make a good game. If you cheat and you get caught, you pay the price.

I certainly feel sorry for the devs and others affected by this who weren't responsible, but we can't let that stop us from penalizing cheaters.

Most of these places will look you up by phone number if you tell them you don't have the card with you.

The local area code plus "867-5309" has worked at any place I've ever been. (From the "Jenny" song, from those of us who wouldn't remember it.) And I'm apparently not the only one who knows this. According to my store receipt, Jenny spent over $30,000 at my local grocery store last year.

If that would happen, sure.

But it wouldn't matter for two reasons. Your average employee might reach management, but the days of there being a career path from the factory floor to the CEO's office are long gone. (It wasn't very often the case to start with anyway.) We're talking about executives, not your average floor manager position that an employee might have a chance of reaching.

Secondly, the reason I say to cut it in half is because these people make tons of money. Are you telling me you'd take the position for $3 million a year, but $1.5 million just wouldn't cut it? Because I suspect most of these lower level employees would be overjoyed to take it at the $1.5 million level.

There is no excuse for the people at the top making that much while paying employees starvation wages.

Cut executive salaries in half, put the savings in your hypothetical fund, and I bet you'll find it has plenty of money.

They still could have declared it as "payment for services rendered", or even "earnings from work as a law enforcement informant". The IRS doesn't care where the money you earned came from. If you declare it and pay your taxes on it, they're satisfied.

You realize that Jews, like everyone else, are individuals?

There are some Jews who support BLM. There are some who oppose it. There are some who support their principles but question their tactics.

Like, you know, all the rest of us.

It doesn't matter if I'm alright with it or not. They're allowed to do that. That in fact happens with many celebrities, they're called paparazzi. As long as they only film and photo in public, it's perfectly legal for them to be doing it.

If I ever got that famous, I suppose that'd be a good problem to have. If the person acts threatening or harasses you in any way, they could be prosecuted under harassment or stalking laws. But if they just want to waste their time taping me, hey, have fun being bored to death.

No, I'll still be the first to assert that private communication has a genuine expectation of privacy, and law enforcement has no right to monitor that without probable cause and a warrant. As I said above.

But what you say in public is public. If someone wants to scrape it all and analyze it, well, you made it all public. You said it to the general public, and the general public has the right to do what they will with it. Including analysis.

You don't get to on one hand shout out something to the public and on the other hand expect it to be private. You can have one or the other. Not both.

Do us both a favor, and don't presume either one of us for stupid. Here's what that actually means: Triple parentheses

No, it differs from Stingray in that fundamental respect.

Cell phone conversations are presumed to be private. If you make a cell phone call from a private place, to someone else who is also in a private place, you most certainly have a reasonable expectation of privacy for that call. But Stingray could be intercepting that.

On the other hand, when I post this on Slashdot, I can't reasonably expect that to be private. I'm posting it for anyone who wants to read it.

That's the fundamental difference. It's the difference between someone using a long zoom to take photos through your bedroom window, and you happening to appear on a security tape when you go to the grocery store. You have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your bedroom. You don't in the grocery store.

Oh, (((their))) cause, is it?

You know, the meaning of the triple parentheses isn't exactly a big secret any more. If you want to spew anti-Semitic crap, then at least have the balls to do it openly.