They are also the reason most websites on the Internet are free.

Not sure how old you are, but lots of us do remember the internet from long before Big Corporation Overlords discovered this "new-fangled web thingy". And it was always free ("free" both as in "free beer" and "free of ads"), although hosting did cost a shitload of money compared to nowadays. But people ("people", mind ya, not "money-grabbing corporations") put up free content nonetheless. Because they enjoy sharing stuff.

Remember: the same people that complain about ad-blockers are the people that make money off of the free contribution of others. That's the Facebook model: let users provide free content - we collect the money by selling their souls.

Excuse me using extrem vocablary, but this is utter bullshit!

Here's a quick run-down from the man responsible for the (media-created) "global cooling" of the 70s.

Besides the excellent explanation of what went wrong in the first place, how he found out about it and published his new findings immediately, the part I especially like about that article is the the final paragraph:

Ironically, inside the scientific world, this switch of sign of projected effects is viewed as precisely what responsible scientists must do when the facts change. Not only did I change my mind, but published almost immediately what had changed and how that played out over time. Scientists have no crystal ball, but we do have modeling methods that are the closest approximation available. They can't give us truth, but they can tell us the logical consequences of explicit assumptions. Those who update their conclusions explicitly as facts evolve are much more likely to be a credible source than those who stick to old stories for political consistency. Two cheers for the scientific method!

The Red Cross knew about the concentration camps in Germany during WWII, but did nothing to help them.

The Red Cross is strictly apolitical. Only this allows them to go and help everywhere. As soon as they would take sides in a conflict, they're out of (their) business. The more lunatic a leader is (think e.g. Assad/Syria these days), the more likely he would deny the RC to enter his country and help. And most of the time (the people in) these countries need help the most.

While I get a nag screen for being unable to connect (anyone know how to turn that off?)

Haven't tried that in a long time, but it used to be:

• Have internet connection and start Steam
• In Steam, select "Offline mode" (or "Go offline", can't remember the exact phrase)
• Exit Steam
• Disconnect internet connection and start Steam again. It should remember it's offline setting.

The admittedly weird and counter-intuitive thing is to be online to go offline ...

Not even that. For many text field, e.g. the Slashdot comment field, SQL statements can be a completely valid input. I coult be explaining to someone how to solve a problem in SQL, or I could be re-posting a "Little Bobby Tables" joke. All very valid, nothing malicious.

I'd say it depends on the page's content. I really can't think of a valid reason for SQL statements or Javascript snippets in pages dealing about celebrity A or pet B or most other fields of interest outside of IT.

They want to build it upon XMPP, according to the Ars article I read earlier this day.

Making these two operators the same symbol just leads to developer confusion and a complicated context-sensitive parser. See also: any BASIC programmer that ever tried to learn C.

Not true. Assignment in BASIC is Let (or Set) A = B, whereas comparison is A = B.

I agree that the unfortunate fact, that for most current BASIC dialects the 'Let' is optional, results in the confusion you were referring to. But you can't blame a language for terrible/lazy programmers.

Until just a very few years ago (around the time of CMCA), in order to enforce a copyright you had to DECLARE it.

Short answer: No.

Long answer: No, not i.e. in Germany, where you automatically posses the copyright of your work. No need to declare it somewhere.

Conclusion: even back then, it depended on where the author(s) was/were from.

Much to my dismay, my own country, Germany.

The simple fact of the matter is that the US is recovering from one of it's worst recessions ever. You can't cherry pick a point in time, and claim victory.

That recession you're referring to ... don't you think Europe suffered that as well? Only to be followed by the current Euro crisis (which is a direct result of aforementioned recession, mind you).

Germany... is slightly more touchy about issues pertaining to surveillance and the general topic of totalitarianism, for some reason.

Yes, we (the German people) are. No, we (the German government) are not. The later will happily share whatever they acquire with its "friends" in Europe and overseas.

Technically both NSA and BND/Verfassungschutz are not spying on their own people ... but if the BND spies on Americans and the NSA spies on Germans and both swap their findings, all laws were respected.

I'm not making this weird shit up, that's actually how our government argued in this affair. Granted the wording they used was of course more not-so-obvious politian-speak. But that's what they said.

In most countries of the world, if a non-parent gave an 8-year-old access to the same level of porn as GTA 5's strip club, they would be severely punished.

You left out an important word. It should read 'In most unenlightened countries of the world ...

We've got the same amount of "porn" i.e. in shower gel commercials in the afternoon TV program. And no-one is severely harmed (kids) or punished (adults).

To me, being non-practicing is the very definition of patent trolling.

Ever heard of the Fraunhofer Institute (of MP3 fame) or its sibling, the Max Planck Society?

These are dedicated research centers, partly financed by the tax payer. Their very goal is to invent and create patents and license them.

This could be a (partial) answer to sunday's Ask Slashdot question, "Attracting Developers To Abandonware?":

I can't code in any meaningful way, nor do I aspire to. I could easily pay for a supported version of icewm, but I can't personally pay someone enough to keep it alive. I'd love it if someone took a personal interest in the code, to ensure that it remains up to date, or to make it run on Wayland or whatever.

[... ] or browsing data was accessed

My guess is that they're talking about proxy servers here, which isn't too uncommon for ISPs.