Yes. Nobody really understands why. If you use the wrong emoticon you get several pages of heavily-compressed LOLcats.

If we take the fictional replicator concept to the extreme; yes.

We could all forgot about jobs and income and live in a Utopia where everyone is free to pursue whatever they want.

But in the more practical sense of 'if I could duplicate cars like I duplicate software' where the world isn't very different from ours - we do need income and we don't have an endless supply of unicorn farts to feed us, it doesn't work out so good.

But yes, laws to protect ideas are good. Disregarding those laws are bad.

And, everyone arguing otherwise is free to release THEIR ideas for free. But they don't.

a) As an opponent of restrictive copyright (but not an opponent of copyright) it would be hypocritical.

b) Through their dog-in-the-manger behavior (DRM, opposition to fair use, "FBI warnings") the publishers have made the idea of paying them money repellent and convinced me that they don't really want my business.

c) They have nothing I want.

He and other CAREER PARASITES need to stop wasting tax payers money and take a long hard look at where they dragged our (Californian) schools down to. Leland Yee is an attention whore, and this is not about Texas, he doesn't give a rats ass, his entire legacy has been attention whoring and sucking up public's money to unsure his job and jobs of his fellows bureaucRATs. California's schools are in a pitiable state and need help, NOT LIP SERVICE and sure as hell not more layers of costly bureaucracy.

I am now writing my formal apology. After reading much of the comments, I'm just going to admit, here and now that I am unfairly judging Texas. Yes, I have a biased opinion of the state from years of Military service, family ties, certainly a biased education and knee-jerk reactions to bad personal history, as well as recent events. I am struggling with all the talk and my own thoughts, but I sometimes come to the conclusion that it should all just come to pass. I'm not saying do nothing, do more! I'll take the stance that good or bad, either I like it or not, life is happening and despite the outcome, I will live on, as will all else. We can wish all the stupid gone 'till we're blue in the face but what else would we have to laugh at? How would you be able to say what was smart if you didn't have something to compare it to? If this is how it is, this is how it is...Be free and hopefully we won't kill each other. Remember the Alamo! (You know, back more than ten years ago when OZZY was drunk and pissed on it? C'mon, guys! You just gotta laugh...)

Stealing isn't even a good analogy to begin with. If we must use a car analogy, it is more like my friend allowing me to borrow his car over the weekend and GM taking me to court because they feel I should have purchased a brand new one instead.

Masnick's law strikes again.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Masnick's%20Law

I used to be the type of person who would get a full cable TV package and rent movies on VHS frequently, now I just download. I typically watch video downloads then delete some time later to free up space. Clearly someone is missing out on my business and I am not at all averse to paying for some content. When Netflix starts offering more streaming content in HD then I am there.

I think there needs to be a different model for current TV programs though. It's hard to sit through ads when one can simply download a tvrip with them all removed. Paying $2 per episode is not reasonable to me because, even in season packs, the costs can very quickly balloon to well over the cost of cable + a custom built DVR. There needs to be some flate rate service or some service with really cheap transactions for a single episode. I would stick ads in as a way cheapen the cost. Looking at superbowl ads as an extreme case, it costs advertisers 3 million bucks to reach a potential 100 million viewers, or 3cents per viewer, per ad. For a typical 1 hour TV program we get 18 minutes of ads, or 36 commercials. At superbowl prices this costs all the advertisers about1 dollar combined, for regular TV I am sure it is far less than that but it's a nice number to look at and gives a rough idea how broadcasters are actually making money. They are making a very small sum for each ad they are making you watch. Why not turn that around and keep the costs in the same ballpark? (Greed obviously, but let's pretend someone can see the benefit to not being so greedy)

There are many ways one could play around with this as all I am talking about is a video on demand service, but let's say it works like this. Subscriber pays some small monthly fee to sign up for streaming service, netflix or Hulu or what have you. This service allows you to purchase new premium content, ie new episodes of Lost, for a small, reasonable fee. Refund this cost if user agrees to watch ads. These ads can be targeted based on users demographics and there will be considerably less than 18 minutes per hour. Show monthly balance on some navigation bar that is always present except when watching content to influence viewer's decision. Display some sort of logo, or preview screen of all ads to be shown during program while viewer is deciding to watch for free or to pay for the ad free version. Charge advertisers for ads that are viewed, this can be done at a premium because they can be targeted and will have less competition. Charge them less for the logo in the preview screen, but do charge them. Pocket the money from those who pay for the ad free version. Yes it would take a long time to make something like this work, but with the right pricing I think it can work and it is a way that content providers can benefit from the internet rather than lose out.

That worked so well, I mean it's just ubiquitous now with overwhelming support right?

I don't necessarily agree with this. I think that the number of people already on facebook is definitely an obstacle, but just look at its own history. You just need to create momentum, which is difficult to do but not impossible. When I first joined facebook, hardly anyone I knew outside of one specific circle of friends were on it. But I would tell my other friends about it, and eventually they'd try it out, and presumably do the same to others. I don't doubt it would change, but I doubt it would change like facebook did, at least in regards to privacy. The set-up alone would make that seem like a non-starter. All facebook needed to do was change its TOS. That doesn't seem like it'd work here. What I think their biggest challenge is going to be is to make it as easy to use/join as the more centralized social networks. Anything that starts out by saying "allows you to set up your own node" is going to turn off a vast majority of people.

So did I, until AOL got wise to the practice and started shipping CDs instead. I remember I once had a teacher in high school who recommended this method for all our floppy needs, instead of purchasing them.

The authors of TFA (and the source article they based it on) confuse the issue by assuming that all infrared is the same thing. Based on the "green glow" look and the "830nm illumination" mentioned in another post, this system is working with near-infrared light (like conventional night vision systems), which is completely different from thermal infrared systems.
This system will not function as a thermal imager. If something is very hot (just below the point of glowing incandescently in visible light), it will register on a near-infrared system, but it's not a cheap FLIR replacement (sadly).

First off, parent isn't saying anything about security, so I don't see at all why this was brought up.

As for Java being 'proven', well, depends who you talk to. Everyone I know that has developed J2ME apps has fled over the last few years to the app store. We are starting now to see the 'power of Java' (read fragmentation) with Verizon pushing their version of Android, Google/Nexus One another, HTC Sense another. Welcome to the world of (slow - for now) Java on mobile.

Now as far as Apple only wanting you to use the tools they want - so F*%&king what?! Why do people wine and moan about this so much? I really can't understand it. Hey, when I wanted to make an iPhone app I didn't sit there and whine and bitch and moan about it. I *did* something about it - I f*$#king learned Obj-C - it's not that hard. Jesus christ, developers have become such wimps over the years, it's unbelievable. What happens when you want to make a Windows Mobile 7 Series app? Do you whine that you can't code it in Java or Obj-C or Javascript or Ruby?! No, you learn C# (again *not* that difficult), buck up, and *do it*.

Flash and Java have made developers *lazy*. Lazy because they think they can learn one language and they are *entitled* to use it everywhere (I love Ruby, but I don't expect to use it for everything). There is no one ring to rule them all - never has been. But ya know, people bought into the whole Java/Sun marketing thing, and it's only a marketing thing - write once run anywhere *never, ever* worked right. Adobe, Sun (well, now Oracle) are *companies*, not people or your buddies, but FOR PROFIT CORPORATIONS. They are the same as Apple. Just like Apple they want you to use *their* tools so they can 'lock you in' to *their* platform and claim victory as the best and coolest company in the world. Anyone that thinks Google, Adobe, Palm, Oracle, or Apple are a bunch of nice dudes who wanna be your friend is seriously delusional. They're beholden to their shareholders and roping developers into their platform is how they keep the shareholders happy and how they stay in their mansions. You want freedom? Write for the web only.

Apple has *the right* to have control over *their* stack - just like Microsoft, Oracle, etc has before them. Now it just so happens their web steering has done some good and this *should* be as open as possible - HTML5 is a really good thing. But to whine and bitch and moan that you can't put your porn or torrent or low budget mafia wars like game done in Flash on the app store is just stupid. People need to focus on *doing* things vs. whining, complaining, feeling entitled, and being so hypersensitive. Jesus, get over it and just make something!

Nuclear doesn't produce that much waste. Especially if we could reprocess the fuel. In the end you get a few tons of waste that's hot for a couple hundred years, but that can be dealt with better than the tons of crap coal spews out a day. It's just that we've had 30+ years of people scaremongering about Nuclear energy.

There's more waste than spent fuel, you also have the decommissioned plants.

Slight misquote there... it should say "food" not "toys" - I doubt that kids eating the toys makes them fat - LOL.

But if they really wanted to be consistent they should ban sugary breakfast cereals with toys and or with cartoon characters on the box and other items like Cracker Jacks that have a toy in the box. After all, that's preying on children's love of toys and cartoons to sell sugar-loaded unhealthy items.