All they did was provide the software. Just as a telephone company provided the wire (back then dialup was still popular). Should companies be able to sue the phone company? No. Then neither should they be able to sue limewire, or microsoft, or any other person's software that enabled song downloading/copying/burning to CD.

So subtracting 10 years off my birthdate is a Facebook offense?
Ooops.
:-|

>>>There must have been quite a bit of trial and error in nature for something to have perpetuated to this day.

That's kinda the point. Life wasn't "born" until 1 billion years ago. It took nature 4 billion years of trial-and-error to make it happen, and even then there were some failed experiments (like anaerobic bacteria that died-out when earth became oxygen-rich).

It's not about quality. Foreign workers are no better than Americans.

Corporations push for imported people, because it keeps overall US wages low. Else US engineers/scientists could demand $200,000 and get it. Having cheap imported workers keeps the salaries lower, and saves Microsoft, Lockheed, etc money.

Well here's my opinion on this Apple overheating situation:

On second thought, never mind. (runs away from AppleFans wielding the -1 mod stick)

$9000 may not sound like much, but if the guy writes multiple books each year, he's making more than a guy at McDonalds or Walmart. Also there's the opposite example of the man who earned ~$10 million by selling his books for just one dollar each.

I shared this story a few weeks ago on my Facebook page. Here were some of the responses from "typical" americans:

- "I'm sure there's more to this story than you are hearing. My friend is a soldier and he's a good person, as are his commanders."

- "You are too nuts for me. The government can be trusted."

- "I'm okay with this. Government needs to be able to root-out the terrorists inside our country."

And so on.
I am saddened.

>>>most of these will be unbelievably terrible
>>>Sci-fi is very, very difficult to translate to the screen.

Precisely. A magazine (Analog?) recently published their top 20 movies based on solid science.

They only came-up with 11:
Destination Moon (1950). This movie was made with the involvement of the space community of the day and Robert Heinlein who wrote the story it was based on.
Predator (1987)
The Abyss (1989)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Credit Arthur C. Clarke and Kubrik
2010 (1984)
Contact (1997). Credit Carl Sagan
Deep Impact (1998)
Gattaca (1998)
Red Planet (2000)
Minority Report (2002)
Primer (2004)

As for the movies of Summer 2011, only "now" and "rise of the apes" looks like "true" science fiction. Although it's hard to say until I actually see it.

>>>Why would an AI care?

It's the Zeroth Law - "...not harm humanity, not by inaction allow humanity to be harmed." Haven't you seen the Will Smith Robot movie, or read Asimov's Foundation & Earth?

Of course one of the problems with the Zeroth Law, according to Asimov, was that the robot can never be sure if he is making the correct choice, due to the inability to predict the future. Psychohistory provides a solution, albeit an imperfect one (it can be derailed by the unexpected).

QUOTE: "The law restricts access to most electronic communications by government officials, allows state agencies to charge higher costs to answer records requests, and places the burden of proof about whether a record is public on the person asking to see the record.

"The cards are stacked against citizens so badly that almost everything can be kept private," Cuillier said. "They can say no to every request and there's nothing that can be done."

I would argue that the government is taxpayer-supported, therefore all the information belongs to the Utah citizens, free of charge. Charging people outside the state might be reasonable, but charging your own citizens makes no sense. Perhaps it's time Utah dissolve its government and create a new one.

>>>A right, by definition, does not require action on the part of another.

Well said.
People just have to learn that what they publish, just like a newspaper, becomes a permanent part of the record. (Or at least until the paper or server dies.) Some servers like Google groups let you erase old messages but most, like slashdot, do not. (Which is why I post under aliases.)

- Google (and other corporations) need to be investigated at every opportunity, and their licenses revoked (or broken-apart like ATT) if found guilty. The semi-equivalent of a prison sentence.

And no I don't consider google a "good" corporation. I don't understand people who do?