Exactly when did allowing a paranoid network admin to continue to deny access to critical city systems to anyone but himself become "right"?

Regardless of the mitigating circumstances, Childs was still in the wrong on this one -- having dimwit managers is not an excuse for denying the rightful owners of the systems access.

What????

(1) it unfairly punishes sellers that focus on many small sales

A sales tax is a percentage. 7% of $100 is the same rate as 7% of $1000. If company A made 1,000,000 sales at $1 and Company B made 1 sale at $1,000,000 dollars they would both pay $70,000 dollars in sales tax. How is there anything unfair between Company A and Company B again?

it unfairly punished buyers that need to make any small purchases

No it does not for the same reasons as above.

it does nothing to stop people from just bulk purchasing things so they only every make one "transaction" per month or year (which will only further encourage conglomeration and other creative tax dodging).

Which is why sales tax is a percentage, not a flat amount like $1 per transaction. If that were really true Costco would be 1000 times bigger a company, you would pay for your utilities a year in advance (accounting for an average and receiving a rebate), and we would have refrigerators and freezers the size of Coliseums.

Its a percentage.

In short, there's a reason there's a focus on income and not transactions when it comes to taxation.

Yeah. It's called control. An active tax system that focuses on the People's income and not Corporations allows:

1) The IRS to be created.
2) To be FOUND GUILTY BEFORE INNOCENT, not in a court of the law, but by IRS employees that are allowed to know precisely DICK about your type of business and be completely incompetent.
3) A government entity with the absolute power to seize property, ruin lives, and generally act like complete asshats because of #2.
4) A government entity that rarely pays for its mistakes, while making the People dearly pay for theirs.
5) A government entity that is a complete coward and would rather get a court case dismissed than allow the creation of precedence which could be used by others to defend themselves.
6) A system of tax codes so ridiculously complex that the People, who are the most disadvantaged to understand it, can benefit the least from any knowledge that could be used to avoid 'higher tax liabilities'
7) A system of tax codes so ridiculously complex that the People, who are the most disadvantaged to be represented in their creation, that they are ultimately created by the wealthy, the powerful, and the Corporations. Those with money generally have the means by which to enjoy a substantially reduced 'tax liability'
8) The excuse to violate privacy and inspect the incomes, purchasing habits, and finances of the People.
9) The simple tool possessed by Government and the Influential to ruin lives, and put undue pressure on others to conform to whatever. A tax audit is a serious threat and damaging regardless of innocence. It costs time and money.

10) The ability for Government to gain an incredibly valuable information gathering tool for Intelligence without ever making it look like an Intelligence Gathering Tool.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.................

Let's break down the alternative?

A consumption tax based system.

1) Corporations, not the People, bear the responsibility for compliance. Generally speaking, Corporations can afford tax services (already do), must be aware of the laws and comply with them (mostly so), and already bear the burden of compliance with so many other rules and regulations. Adding another one could hardly make a dent.

2) A passive system, as far as the People are impacted. When you consume something your tax is included. Nothing more complicated than that for the People.

3) Your finances and banking data become truly private again. Unless you are suspected of a crime you can enjoy your privacy in peace, which is what the Founding Fathers intentioned all along.

4) No organization exists that can take away your freedom and property again without due process and treat you as guilty before innocent.

5) To provide benefits for the poor simply do not tax food stuffs.

6) Make the People equal again with Corporations and the Wealthy. When somebody purchases a multi-million dollar private jet they will generate far more taxes than most normal people do in 10 years, instead of it being a write off and not taxed now. It will actually be fair. I could care less that a rich person ultimately pays more taxes, as long as the rate is the same.

This definitely does NOT deserve to be modded "insightful".

Corporations? Damned thieves can tramply anyone, and everyone, with no repercussions.

Really? If people don't like the actions of a corporation they have the right not to fucking buy that corporations products, and you'll see how quickly the things change.

Go ahead, people, cheer for the corporations. None of them are doing anything for you.

Except for everything you see around you. Was PC made by a government decree? Can you remind me which government invented, and made economically profitable electricity, car, airplane, TV, cell phone, etc etc?

Your government supplies your drinking water, builds your roads, responds in the event of disaster, and much, much more.

I'm glad you saved the most idiotic comment for last. The government DOES NOT do any of those things. It is the taxpayer money that pays for all of those things, the government simply manages it (usually in a notoriously inefficient, wasteful and corrupt way). Yes in some cases it is a necessary evil to put all our money together and pay for some things that way though it should be avoided wherever possible. In any case, there is nothing to be thankful to the government for! It is simply taking our money and paying for things on our behalf. Please try to remember that simple concept.

You do realize that KDE, for example, also uses the same HTML component - KHTML - for both its standalone browser, and help system

There is a very big difference here you miss.
You're trying to compare the Linux security model with Microsoft's lack of any security model.

The act of compromising a Linux box in any way is a very difficult task, mostly impossible unless you have direct access to the thing.

Windoz on the other hand is the script kiddies wet dream.
Very few windoz users have the knowledge to secure the their boxs and this is clearly evident by the percentage of M$ boxes pwnd by the botnets and variety of worms/viruses/trojans/malware running rampant in the wild.

Give me a break. Pressing the F1 key will kill your system? WTF is going on in redmond? Are these losers all on crack?

New Hampshire believes in an environment where... property taxes pay for police and fire protection...

So if I'm visiting New Hampsire, and I get mugged or pickpocketed on the street, or my car bursts into flame on the highway, I should not expect to call any authorities and have them respond?

What kind of dumb response is this? Paying for police and fire with property taxes is normal for probably every state, and obviously these services aren't limited to residents.

I was not referring to monopoly as in exclusive right to control a technology (that's what the patent system is actually about). I meant monopoly in the sense of gaining control over a market (in this case the market of smartphones) that is actually larger than that single technology by locking in users (as illustrated with my steering wheel example).

The patent system was not designed to create the latter and applying patents in this way borders on anti-competitive practices.

In my opinion many user interface patents should not be granted in the first place as they lack the necessary degree of inventive ingenuity. They are just anti-competitive 'land grabs'.

"Many user interfaces have been patented, including one of the most enduring, the QWERTY keyboard."

I may be mistaken, but I don't think that the two are comparable.

The patent which includes the QWERTY key layout is focused on the engineering specifics of one particular implementation of a mechanical keyboard. Sholes, the inventor, wasn't trying to claim a patent on "pressing keys to apply ink to paper", or even "rapidly pressing multiple keys". That had all been done before.

This seems very different from today's "user interface" patents, most of which seem to be a thin layer of design laid atop someone else's actual invention. Which is not to user interfaces are unimportant, just that they should not be patentable.

I am not sure I agree. Anonymity on the internet is valuable and important. A domain is kinda formal though. Slashdot for instance is somewhat responsible for the content here. They don't need to really police it but if it were brought to Taco's attention people were arranging drug deals or something they would be obligated to help, the authorites.

All and all I think its a good point of balance; if you are going to have your own domain there should be a responsible part that can be easily determined and contacted when needed.

The DIY precautionary recipe against a hangover is: Boil one liter of water, add half a teaspoon of table salt, and six teaspoons of sugar. Let cool and drink before you go to bed. For increased efficiency also take vitamin C, either in the form of a pill or as a glass of orange juice. The scientific explanation is that alcohol affects the levels of a hormone called ADL, something which in its turn makes the kidnies less able to take up water and important minerals and vitamins. This leads to dehydration and lack of said minerals. Further, the process of breaking down the alcohol lowers your blood sugar level. Thus, the easiest non-fancy precaution against a hangover using only household ingredients is to compencate the deficits using the above recipe. In sweden it's also possible to buy more carefully balanced anti-hangover pills with a more advanced mix of minerals and vitamins. They too consist mainly of sugar and salt though. Examples of such pills are "Revigör" and "Bakis". Source of above is fraga doktorn, also as crappy google translation.

Corn doesn't want to be farmed, it wants to be hunted!

I think that if there was a billion dollars and nothing but a human baby standing between them and it, they'd smash it's skull in without even a second thought.

They don't WANT to kill humans in the sense that that would take time and energy away from their primary goal of profit and in the sense that humans might try to kill them in return. Otherwise, I doubt it matters much to them who lives or dies.

If you think thats how babies are made - we need to have a talk...

What? Of course CRTs have motion blur issues. Just because they have no fixed pixel grid, it does not look that bad.

And is the effect sufficiently noticeable to disqualify this tech? I highly doubt it, given how prized CRTs were amongst the gaming crowd, among others, until LCDs improved sufficiently to displace them.

"I've worked 15 years in climate research, acquiring hard data"

Case in point. You are stating you are an expert but you don't even know about the inaccuracies. So either you didn't bother to even evaluate the information from the film, or you just wrote if off the list as "right-wing" tripe. Ofc there is the possibility that while you are an expert, you still don't really know shit.

Yet I'm sure it still eludes you why people have a problem with the "trust me" mantra.

Or an awful lot that are currently going to college and serving in the military at the same time, and are becoming more educated.