This is a self-contradicting problem. I have absolutely no interest in killing myself or being killed, unless and until I'm incapable, which is precisely the point at which I need help. What I want to be able to do, while capable, sane, and demonstrably *not* in any immediate need and *not* under any duress, is set up the contract (oops, the "will and testament") that specifies the conditions under which I want to be assisted off this mortal coil since I can't do it myself any more.

I am in favor of a right to die, and I simultaneously appreciate the concern that people will be pushed into it before they want to - maybe even by well-meaning "avoid suffering" arguments, as opposed to "die faster and stop using up our inheritance" situations. In our current legal environment a hospital can ignore a properly executed living will, and fight a properly executed power of attorney (not to mention where some states still don't have "living wills"), and claim that it is "erring on the side of caution". And anything suggesting that one wishes to die, no matter how dire or specific the circumstances, immediately gets cast as an attempt at suicide which clearly indicates mental incapacity, so *of course* it should be ignored.

I know the "Darwin Awards" are intended as a joke, but consider a purely animalistic / mathematical perspective: the individual doesn't matter to Mother Nature. Most species produce lots of offspring simply to overcome the high odds of dying before reproducing. Those odds are mostly external from predators and injury, and also include internal causes like illness, "unfitness" (in the Darwinian sense), and any kind of defect. Some calculated risk-taking is useful, but poor calculation skills (or excessive bravado despite calculation) lead to the "Darwin Awards" concept. Maybe, in the same vein, some amount of fear / depression / unhappiness is useful as a moderating influence on behavior - as often stated, courage is not the absence of fear, it is persistence despite fear - but too much of those emotions renders the individual less useful, and enough of those emotions to cause self-damage or self-killing is a trait that will self-cull from the gene pool.

Is it, then, worthwhile from a purely economical point to try to baby-proof the world, or would it be more practical to emphasize recognition and identification of people with problems for targeted help? Not to mention impinging on everybody for the safety of the few (a hot reaction in so many posts here). This has some analogy to the issue of "playground safety" meaning that children get no exercise and learn no skills because the play area must be totally safe for all activities and ability levels. At what point does making the world totally safe mean nobody can have a cooking knife?

I would think that a specific *goal* would be to have a car with enough independence that the passengers could be drinking, though only as a specific use coase of the more general category "unable to drive" due to physical or mental handicap, incapacity, ability, age-related infirmity, or even a frivolous desire to concentrate on something else, be it reading, work, or companion(s). On the other hand, if you need a license to be a passenger, then a very significant portion of the potential utility is missing. One would expect that you need a license to take individual control, and perhaps to be able to drive outside of a control grid area.

Let's see how fast they can shut down that accounting website . . . .

Now if only Microsoft could find a way to embrace-and-extend the cellphone system, so that Microsoft phones only work right with other Microsoft phones, they might be able to do what they did on the desktop . . .

But . . . there IS a love story with Wyoh. Polygamy could be a hot seller in the modern ethos. And there ARE shootouts - unfortunately, brutal government suppression of civil unrest, but that's PC nowadays. And the Loonies DO throw rocks. So the Hollywood maceration machine will say, "Hey, we included lots of stuff from the original book, what are you complaining about?" while losing much of the meaning that readers got out of it. (By the way, American democracy used to be secretly socialist; just watch "Teahouse of the August Moon", in which the naive good officer insists that any profits from the town have been banked in a collective account to be shared equally like a family, and his superior shouts "But that's Communism!")

Let's see, just how badly could they mess this up . . . Well, I still have the paperback with the reversed artwork, showing Mannie with the WRONG ARM being cybernetic, so messing up a book has a long and storied history.

The obvious problem is that the story takes place over a multi-month or year-long period, which never comes across well in a movie. This would need a miniseries to do it justice.

The problem with "recognize based on content" is that the system has to *open* the file to read a *standardized* *header* to do this. Good luck getting people to standardize on a header for everything; there are multiple conflicting standards for pictures, and audio, and various other "containers" already. And does opening the file just to check content type count as a reference, or as a use? Or is system activity magically exempt from being counted? Extensions date back well before DOS, because they're simple and obvious and straightforward - not clever, not the best, not complete, but simple.

And the icons are selected by . . . . you guessed it . . . the extension.

The use of "My Whatever" had one primary purpose: forcing the use of a space character in commonly used file references, thereby breaking any DOS-era program being used on Windows. Space characters had been a clear delimiter since mainframe days, including in CP/M and other mini and microcomputer programs. Windows permitted space characters in a file name, which was inconsistent enough (what was wrong with underscore?), and then encouraged - almost *forced* - the use of its default directories with embedded spaces in the name.

I also agree with others who have pointed out that it hides something that should not be hidden. If the default place for a user's data is "users\username\data", and the system prevents one username from accessing anotheruser's data, that's a good thing to understand.

Users aren't supposed to need to be technically literate, any more than automobile drivers should need to be mechanics or engineers or machinists or metallurgists. A lot of us get paid *specifically* to make this stuff simple enough for a child to use. The problem is that we've been so successful that the common user is not just passively clueless, but actively self-harming - just like the automobile industry making the *average* car equal to an old sports car without anyone suggesting that drivers should get a little more practice.

Maybe this is saying that you can't sue for something that hasn't happened yet - and, indirectly, that the law requiring protection of confidentiality (and penalizing failure) has no teeth, and that the limits against abusive overreach of law are allowing an end-run around the general intent.

Let's say you had a workman at your house, and they left the garage door unlocked when they were finished. If you come home and everything is fine, then there is no cause for legal action. If you come home and your house has been robbed, then first it's the robber's criminal act, and then maybe there's a civil action by your insurance company to get money from the workman's insurance company.

The hospital is seen as the *victim* of a theft, just as if a doctor's or psychiatrist's office were broken into for drugs and some records were stolen, rather than a *culprit* for "failing to maintain HIPAA confidentiality". YOU have to go after each person who does something illicit with the information; each marketer, each fraud instance, each problem, is individual. And since each of them is small individually, it's YOUR burden to chase them as a civil matter rather than a criminal matter that would get you some help from society (through the police agencies).

Because it's the same zillion-to-one chance, but as the jackpot goes up, the risk/reward ratio looks better. Or maybe it's the other risk of being the person who could have bought the winning ticket but didn't.

Maths is fun. So is game theory. Which do you choose, increasing the odds of getting more of the prize - without increasing the odds of getting the prize in the first place? or increasing the odds of getting the prize, without increasing the odds against having to share it? Two distinct issues.