If all predictions had indeed not come to pass, you might have a point. But of course that's hyperbole, which is to say: you are making shit up. In the real, fact-based world climate science has an all-too-good track record. Yes, it is not perfectly accurate, but that's really not something with which to comfort yourself. If you get run over by a bus, it doesn't matter whether it hits you from the front or the side: you're still dead. It's best to pay attention and get out of the way when there is a bus bearing down on you. And as for extinction events, it doesn't matter whether they're human-caused or not. What matters is not being taken out by them. Or anyway, so the thinking goes...

Right, that was my point. The methane doesn't just disappear.

Offshoring and immigration are completely irrelevant to the "information wants to be free" debate. One is about labor relations, and asking the government not to enable (though immigration and tax policy) greedy corporations to force down the price of wages for local people just to stuff the pockets of corporate shareholders and executives. The other is about communication and not prohibiting any forms of it. They have nothing to do with each other.

Yes. You got a problem with that?

The profit comes first. The full outline would be something like this.

* Do unethical things.
* ????
* Profit
* Deny the unethical things happened
* Admit something unethical may have happened, but ask people to wait before passing judgment
* Delay
* Admit the whole thing, but claim that the time for a response has already passed.

Expected, could and maybe do not have probabilities assigned. So when you say "with a very low probability," you are putting words in gmustera's mouth. The probability isn't very low. It's likely that this caused the Permian-Triassic extinction event. But I'm sure that you, with your anti-government rhetoric and your bunker in the basement, will survive an extinction event just fine. No doubt you've done the science, and figured out how much stockpiled oxygen you need to stockpile to get through it, and how big your airtight greenhousese need to be to grow the food you won't be able to safely grow outside, and that's why you're not worried.

Remember that uncertainty cuts both ways, Padawan.

About seven times better. Which is great if you don't have a warming problem; not so great if you do. Also, excessive CO2 production in the ocean leads to acidification, which leads to dead zones. And you really, really don't want dead zones.

Methane oxidizes, yielding CO2. You don't even know basic chemistry, and you are making scientific-sounding statements about atmosphere science. Sigh. One of the big problems with society today: idiots are completely sure of themselves, and smart people communicate with equivocation in contexts where equivocation will be understood to correlate with uncertainty. See? I can't even stop myself!

Well you're not alone in that, but I doubt you represent "most people" either. Most people with Windows do want Windows updates and access to the latest versions of Windows and Office. Many want some kind of "Dropbox"-like service, and don't care an awful lot what the particular service is. And most people who know what they're doing would like some level of MDM-- if only device tracking and possibly patch-management type stuff. Actually I would say that those things are becoming pretty much a requirement for most of the small businesses that I deal with, though most of the individuals I deal with don't necessarily understand what these things are.

But I also see a possible objection in that Microsoft shouldn't tie all these things together, but should continue to offer them as separate services. That makes sense to me. I'd hate to have to subscribe to all of those things just because I wanted one of them. But I don't think your objection holds up very well, because I'm suggesting that Microsoft should offer a perpetual license to Windows and Office for $100, which includes 1 year of all the updates, plus a couple of services that you can use or not. Still, getting Windows and Office for $100 isn't a bad deal. Continuing to use those services and continuing to receive updates would require that you pay the $100/year subscription.

Now, whether that exact pricing works out, I don't know, but I think it's a general model that would work for a lot of people, for both personal and business use. Speaking more generally, I think a lot of people are turned off by the idea of a "subscription" where their computer stops working when you stop paying a monthly fee, but the idea of paying a subscription to continue to receive updates is less objectionable. If you could wrap together most of the services that people actually want, along with a subscription for continued updates, all under a single reasonable monthly/yearly fee, I think Microsoft would do well. But I think all the product activation and DRM, and making things expire when you don't pay... it all just creates more confusion and annoyances for personal users, and more headaches for IT personnel. And I also think they should provide basic security updates no matter what, insecure installs only make them look bad, and hacked machines cause problems for everyone online.

I wish people would understand that this response is a standard rhetorical technique. You see it happen all the time in various scandals and cover-ups. Essentially the aim is to diffuse the response by delaying it until people can be persuaded not to care.

A few years ago, if someone suggested that the CIA is torturing people, they'd be accused of being unpatriotic and paranoid. As the news starts to come up, defenders change their message to, "Hold on there. There are some unproven allegations, but you should wait until all the evidence is in before getting upset." They drag the whole thing out for years, and when the evidence is in, the defenders say, "Well we knew all of this years ago. Why are you upset now?!"

Lots of things follow this pattern. CIA torture, NSA spying, unethical/illegal actions leading to the financial system meltdown, invading other countries, global climate change, and even Clinton sexually harassing White House interns. It's very often those same three steps: (a) Deny it happened; (b) Admit something happened, but ask people to wait before passing judgment; (d) Delay; and finally (e) Admit the whole thing, but claim that the time for a response has already passed.

It's intentional, and people will keep doing it because it works.

There's no reason one approach has to block the other.

If there is a monopoly, it should be regulated as a common carrier.

If they don't want to be regulated as a common carrier, they have to let the competition in.

Let the ISPs themselves choose. Would you rather be a regulated common carrier monopoly or free to do as you like in a highly competitive market?

Either way, the users win.

Hosting is absurdly cheap though. I have a Dreamhost "unlimited" (for purposes of hosting a website, not being your personal backup, etc) plan that costs me less than $10/mo. The labor required to build and maintain a hobbyist site for a large community would be worth more than cost of hosting. So if you've got hobbyists who are enthusiastic enough to actually do the community-maintenance stuff to keep their online community running, gathering a measly 33 cents a day on average across all of them can't be that hard. If just one person in that community makes a decent enough living that a $10/mo donation to their favorite online community is trivial, then bam, hosting costs handled. Or ten fans who can each spare a buck a month?

The only way I'd do a subscription for Windows is if I could stop paying without my current version self-destructing. Honestly, I'd prefer they did away with "product activation" and "Windows Genuine Advantage" (or whatever they're calling it now) in favor of a simple subscription for updates.

I think Microsoft would be smart to offer something like, "Pay $100/year, and get an always-up-to-date version of Windows, Office, antivirus updates, some basic MDM functionality, and 100 GB of OneDrive storage. Cancel at any time, and keep your current version of Windows and Office, but you won't get any updates or patches beyond critical security updates." If that were the deal, I'd probably go with it. Make it $150-$200/year for business accounts that offer Office 365 and some additional bells and whistles, and I think you have a business model.