This time, I for one am confident in Microsoft. Sureley they will find a way to make half of their crap malfunction in XP mode.

I am not fully up to speed about this cloud computing mumbojumbo, but as far as private people and control over data is concerned, all data that is important to me is stored on Google's servers. All mail on Gmail, all scheduling on Calendar, all contacts on Gmail as well. Oh, and I always back up important office documents through Gmail. So that would be it, 100% of what is important to me is on Google.

I know I am not alone...

As long as there is hardware around which only supports WEP (basically, every other laptop produced before 2005) it would be stupid (from a profit/marketing perspective) to sell an access point which does not support WEP.

Just a heads up: the graphic card might have something to do with performance in 3D games. Just a heads up.

That Communism and Capitalism is pursuing the same endgame has been stated over and over by several scholars. If so, I believe you must make a distinction between the capitalistic technicality and libertarian philosophy. Capitalism is the system in which US politics and corporations has been living in the last half-century or more. To me, it seems as this system is working towards an inevitable end, which would be the total corporate-socialist hybrid you mention, in which a one company, one government rules all.

The solution to that problem would be liberalism in the sense Adam Smith intended it. A diverse economy so large that the small companies it consists of has no possible to in any substantial way influence the larger whole. In an economy ruled by Adam Smith, company mergers would be unheard of and one bankrupt car manufacturer among the tens or hundreds in the market wouldn't even make headlines. If the US car manufacturing market as a whole would lose its advantages compared to Chinese manufacturers, the US companies would go bankrupt one by one, probably at a slow and manageable rate, causing no major distributions to society and surely, they would not gather much attention from politicians.

To me as a European, that would mean cheaper and better cars, produced in China and cheaper and better whatever the US market would start producing instead.

The issue is that the government allowed those companies to grow so large. I heard one tenth of all jobs in the US are connected to the three auto companies. That number is enough to scare any politician into a bailout.

Thus, the issue is not that the government steps in with rescue funds, the issue is that the government, by allowing mergers, allowed for those companies to grow so large that their survival becomes an issue of national economic stability. One can only hope that the government will take this opportunity to hack n' slash the brands out of the company (like GM is doing with Swedish SAAB at the moment) and make sure a similar situation can never arise again.

AI. I want AI.

Haha, get real.

A valid point to some extent, but still no.

This uproar among Slashdotters is not heard only when politicians trade the democratic freedoms and rights we all have come to take for granted in order to please the media lobby. It is also heard when US customs claim the right to go through all the data on your laptop when you cross the border or when voting machines are closed source. Or when the Swedish government and parliament passes a law enabling a civilian authority to scan _all_ communication passing the Swedish border (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA_law).

My guess is that this is due to the fact that the average Slashdotter was here when it started. Or at least, as myself, have the deepest respect for what it was that got it all started. Thus, the average Slashdotter simply understand the implications to the potential of the internet and the purity of democracy of a closed source voting system, or the lack of privacy when passing through customs, or the wider implication of sacrificing privacy and freedom on the internet - just to save music.

The downloading is rarely the issue. The issue is the liberties and justices sacrificed by lobbied and next-to-corrupt politicians in the name of saving the record industry. The consequences of this will not stop at pirates, it spans over the entire society, effectively undermining the freedom and security enjoyed by all of us. Is it really worth it? Some people seem to think so. I don't and I don't give a shit about filesharing.

That tool is already available for Spotify. However, the 30 second commercial every half-hour just isn't enough an inconvenience for people to abandon the superb client. And why would you want to record the music to your hard drive? First of all, that is probably legal in most countries, second, why would you want to waste precious hard drive space when everything is available from Spotify? (I see one reason for this: transfer music to your mobile device, but a Spotify mobile client is under production).

What!? That wouldn't make sense at all. 0.4 equals 0.40 no matter what common practice is. But yes, it would be more appropriate to type $0.40, but now I didn't, and there is is NO WAY you can misunderstand what I meant. Really. There is no way. 0.4 is always equal to 0.40. And 0.400. And 0.4000. Should I continue or is the pattern clearing up?

MATHx314, is it?

In Sweden, the charge is around $0.4 per transaction. I think.

My rant was directed at notion that "modern" societies are more vulnerable simply because they use modern technology and require a lot of know-how to work logistically etc. These are issues that other features of being modern, namely interdependence, would take care off.

I specifically mentioned that this was only a minor aspect of the consequences of a massive nuclear strike. The political meltdown and the following power struggle you mention would probably be a much more important aspect.