Generally - I agree.

However, just because something ("Consciousness" in this case) is emergent and cannot be well described by the sum of the parts doesn't mean we shouldn't at least consider what these sorts of human/machine interfaces might do to our perception of self in the future if ever they exist.
My prediction: as long as I can still enjoy a fine single malt - and some bacon from time to time I'll consider the future a smashing success.

Often, nay consistently, life seems to mimic a shitty sci-fi B-movie plot.

If my Cable company had any competition, any competition at all - perhaps someday I might get a chance to switch to a service like this. Oh well - I guess I will just have to make due with 6Mbps for the next decade or so.

The cat is out of the bag so to speak. There isn't any going back now. People have realized the usefulness of P2P - and no piece of legislation anywhere is going to prevent its use. Worst case scenario - rewrite some protocols to encrypt data and make it look like normal traffic. Instead of writing dumb legislation how about a proactive approach (sorry for the management speak). How about some sort of coherent plan for how to deal with emerging technology in a way that makes sense?

It seems IP doesn't only belong to the company- but also at least to some degree to the person who actually developed said IP. As it is located in his/her intellect and it is sort of difficult to remove without destroying it.
Not that this argument about IP works in the first place - this guy is an executive.

Name one major business based in the Cayman Islands that is willing to raise prices in the midst of a major recession. The company I currently work for is included in this group. We don't get to just set prices in our market. Consumers aren't going to be picking up our tab. We may have to pay taxes on our profits (for the services we receive from the government like Patent Law enforcement and roads and such) causing us to lower dividends, but we cannot just raise prices in our market since we don't have a monopoly and we are competing primarily with large Japanese and South Korean companies.

Its only hype if the movie doesn't sync with a Pink Floyd album in a meaningful way.

A valid point. If only regulators in the US had balls.

Fines don't seem to be particularly good - breaking up market collusion and creating a more competitive marketplace would seem to be the goal. I'm no economist but it would seem to me that breaking up giants like Intel into many smaller companies could be more effective - but the crux of this seems to be that the R&D at this point is all toward smaller lithography processes. With only two major players in this market there is still significant incentive to invest in R&D but with more players it might be hard for each company to justify the massive costs of producing newer/better/faster processes.

The way things have been run at the FDA in recent history it would seem to me with enough cash - anecdotal evidence is quite sufficient.

and from the article -

OK as an additive in food? That is gross. Wait, hair pie? Nevermind.

They are Mormon crickets dude.

Google will maintain rights to the books it deems inappropriate even though they are not hosting them.

Perhaps you could just get your book labeled as 'inappropriate'. They would then pull it down right?

rm?