For general human rights I'm right with you. I also agree that it's very important that property rights are maintained, but I believe property rights to be a subset of human rights.

There is also an insidious creep in the reasoning for war, and in the acceptance of collateral damage ( people who have had their human rights denied in the most permanent way ).

War over human rights, war over oil, war on inanimate objects ( drugs ). You're defending the idea of war over functionality in a games console ?

I think this is worse, as it denies both human rights and property rights.

Also. As this is purportedly a science based site, the only way to keep a frog in a slowly heated pan of water is to take it's brain out first. Maybe you could use this as an analogy for your slow decent into believing war is a suitable solution to every problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

Wow. So property rights are more important than, say, the people who lost their lives in NY on 9/11 ? 'Merely individuals being injured or killed' by a 'well-defined and easy to fight' enemy ?

Let me get this straight. You think a slow erosion of the consumer rights of a society is more important than an attempted violent destruction of the entire society ?

Yes. But it's not a war. The subtle difference is that one is some functionality removed from a home appliance, and the other is your parents being blown to bloody shreds in front of you, and your children.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210

Harmful to, harm to others around you.

Iirc, Prof. David Nutt was the former UK government drug adviser until his arguments about the relative harmlessness of cannabis we're ignored by the government.

Microsoft is already doomed because their primary product is an OS, which seems a mostly solved problem * and isn't interesting in a time when the market is pushing a thin client model standardised around the browser. Microsoft requiring a new version of windows ( Win 7 ) to run their latest browser ( IE9 ) could be seen as a sign for this, particularly when other browsers perform comparatively without this requirement. ( Chrome is fast on XP )

Apologies, people working in interesting OS stuff, I mean the times of 'OMG overlapping windows' are past.

One of the reasons is that you can carry one machine with all current OS's on it, WinXP&7 & Linux in VMs, for testing across browsers.

The url bar on iPhone is about 60px high, tool bar at the bottom is about 45px. 10px is just about enough room to get a legible line of text with no borders/chrome/spacing.

No he earned it by understanding the limits of his knowledge and asking pertinent questions.

Science fiction is however empowered by that very same thing, it sets imagination/targets for the people who will make the next technology.

This is artificial value and scarcity created by limited manufacturing, you'd be reducing that value by copying it. If you're looking for edge cases then 'what if your heavily pregnant wife was ten minutes from giving birth and you were 9 minutes by car away from a hospital.' gives you the opposite moral outcome.

What about unique items, the Mona Lisa ?

Would it be reduced as 'best painting, like ever' if everyone were able to hang an exact copy at home? The original would be worth monetarily much less. The benefits to society of everyone who's interested being able to study the finest first hand would be enormous.

I dislike it, especially when used by intelligent people, as it attempts to construct a hierarchy, ranking multi-faceted people by one characteristic. That characteristic being one the author finds or thinks themselves gifted.

It's like the archetypical 'jock' figure ranking everyone by how much they can bench press, and finding everyone else lacking. They're right, it's true, it's just really not that useful or interesting as nearly anyone can do it if they pick the right scale.

Grouping and naming people for something they do not have is a cruelty.

I have no control over you using whatever words you like, but I stop reading at 'sheeple'.

The problem is that 'sheeple' is a meme, it's a good example of what it describes, quick judgement without evidence or thought.

There's too much to read already. Someone who uses the term sheeple is likely to be going to waste the next two paragraphs and minutes of my life in an ill considered attempt to distinguish themselves by repeating a basic observation in the name of ego.

Most people are less intelligent than someone with above average intelligence.

Well done.

In the UK, a recentish study found alcohol to be much more harmful to you, and to others around you, than tobacco. Alcohol worse even than heroin and crack.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210

Just some medical procedures being too expensive for society to pay for is preferable to ALL medical procedures being too expensive for society to pay for.