Should users just sit back and accept this as the new normal?

It doesn't matter if they sit back and accept it or not... it *IS* the new normal.

Of course, it is much easier to live in a reality where you believe what makes you happier about living in the first place... so the desire to want to resist this sort of thing is entirely normal.

We have satellites and landers there, is it impossible for any of them to point a camera at it?

Why do you think a mall cannot refuse to let certain people in? In fact, they most certainly can... For that matter, they wouldn't even need to give them a reason to do so. It's private property.... once they've been told to leave by appropriate persons, it's trespassing if they don't start to comply, within reason. It would, however, probably not fare very well for the mall's PR if they did this sort of thing without just cause, so it's in their own best interest to not be indiscriminate about who they would ban. Malls most definitely can and do ban people, however, but ordinarily there's going to be an underlying reason that is generally determined to be in the best interests of the security and safety of those who are in the mall.

Uh... no. That underground system known as "The Tube" is, by definition, a rapid transit system. Also, it fits almost any reasonable North American definition of a subway other than using as a proper noun to refer to one specific underground rail system. Since you didn't capitalize the term, nor did you use it in any context where a proper noun would have been implied by the surrounding grammar, one can only conclude that you are therefore simply factually incorrect. Saying that London doesn't have one just because people who live in London don't call it that is like saying that there are no elevators in London, nor people wear pants in London, just because the UK has different words for those specific terms, which even at best can only be taken as some sort of an attempt at trying to be funny, but it is still factually incorrect. If you are using a word in a sentence, then you presumably know what that term means, and that meaning is just as applicable to what London has as what can be found in North America.

prove that there is any basis to believe it's only 6,000 years

Such a small age for earth is typically accomplished by biblical reckoning... and it is achieved by adding up all of the time that elapses over the acocunted generations, plus the time it says that certain things took, it appears, by biblical reckoning only, that the world could not have been created any longer ago than in the vicinity of 6,000 to 7,000 years. This reckoning, however, assumes very important things, which one may or may not accept as definitively true. One, it assumes that the bible is valid as a historical document with regards to events of antiquity that are greater than written history itself, and two... and this one is probably even more important, even if one were to accept that the Bible were true, it assumes that the biblical accounting of events of that time is actually exhaustive, and that the chronicle could not possibly have been compressed from what actually happened for the purpose of writing it all down, and since such minutia was not considred important for purposes of conveying the message that the chronicle was intended to tell.

Note, you see... you asked for proof that there is any basis to believe that it only 6,000 years old, not proof that it actually *IS* 6,000 years old, nor proof that the biblical account is necessarily even accurate. If one already believes the Bible to be true, then the accounting in the bible is, in fact, a not wholly unreasonable basis to come to the conclusion that the earth is that old (even if that conclusion is not indisputable).

* idea - (Abstract) Patents deal with ideas, concrete API code does not.

Nice subtle moving of the goalposts there...

An API is not the same thing as API code. API code is an implementation of an API, and not the API itself, even if you describe the API by using a programming language notation as if you were writing code.

Code is obviously copyrightable, regardless if it forms part of an API or not... But the API itself is only the interface, and does not actually contain any code, and such an interface is ultimately only an idea... there's nothing concrete about it like there is with code.

Of course, a particular expression of any idea may be entirely copyrightable, but even that doesn't give one a license to exclude other people from expressing the same idea on their own... especially when the idea is narrow enough in scope that there aren't many unique ways to express it in the first place.

Doesn't this give any nation-state the permission to hack the servers of any other nation-state if they are deemed to hold "criminal" content?

Yes... as long as the former nation state is larger/wealthier/more powerful than the latter.

Why would the firing be illegal if the employee was hired in an at-will employment state?

I suspect I was downmodded by somebody who thinks that by slowing down, I am trying to somehow dare a person behind me to crash into me or to deliberately annoy them. I've met people who actually think that I'm inviting an accident to happen by doing this, but I've utilized this technique in the past and have never been hit because of it (the three times that I have been in a car accident where the vehicle behind me collided with mine was when my vehicle was actually already stopped, and legally required to be so, either because of crossing pedestrians at an intersection or because of signal lights, and there was nothing I could have legally done differently).

Anyways, Obviously I would not slow down as quickly if they were already too close behind me, since they may already not have adequate distance to safely react to my change in speed, but I would still ease off on the accelerator, and give them every opportunity to the best of my ability to permit them to pass me. In general, however, I try to remain observant enough about what is going on around me so that if I notice a speed demon behind me rapidly closing, I can start adjusting my speed to make it easier to pass me *before* they start to pose such danger.

Obviously you'd still have to come into direct physical contact with it, but wouldn't the fact that skin is porous still pose some risk of skin penetration?

The GEGL core update by itself brings no new features (user functionality).

I don't dispute that point, but I do not think you realize just how much GEGL support being in will enormously accelerate the features that are currently on hold and waiting on it.

The reason things haven't really progressed very far, if at all, on many of the features that are waiting on the GEGL port to be finished is not because they are taking their time with them, it is because any work that might be started before the GEGL port was complete would likely to be entirely a waste of time, and because trying to implement it without GEGL being in would take a lot longer anyways, GEGL support would probably be in before it was complete, so there's no point starting on something that would have to be entirely thrown away before it's done, and can be relatively easily done once the underlying architcture has been modified to be amenable to it.

Consider when building a home, the most amount of time is spent making sure the foundation is properly in place. Once it is, a house can be built on a good foundation comparatively very quickly. Likewise, once the GEGL port is finally in and 2.;10 is out, you will doubtless be witness to vastly accelerated GIMP development of some of the most urgently desired features. Internally, for all intents and purposes, 2.10 will be almost an entirely new program.

First of all, GEGL will definitely be in the next version of GIMP... second of all, once GEGL is complete (which is again slated for the next version of GIMP), virtually all of those additional features will suddenly become feasible to implement where the previous architecture of GIMP made them untenable (and why no progress has been made so far, or often very little), and they will probably come into play quite quickly afterwards, You may be right that not very many may get in for the next version, but because of what GEGL opens up the possibility to do within GIMP, the release cycle between 2,10 and future stable versions that implement such functionality will be much lower than the time frame between 2.8 and 2.10.

In other words, not very far at all.

There's nothing magical about it. Skin is porous.... and if it's there long enough, some water on the skin can be absorbed into your body before it evaporates.

I like Serenity too, but in matters of law, what the law actually says and what actually takes place *ARE* typically quite similar. Exceptions may exist (I've heard people say that one can get ticketed for going the speed limit where everyone else is speeding, but I've never met or even heard of anyone specifically that has actually ever happened to), but I would honestly suggest that such occurrences are likely few and far enough between that getting a ticket for traveling the speed limit while everyone around you is speeding would probably be a manageable situation that would only land the officer who issued the ticket in a whole heaping lot of trouble when you go to court to challenge the ticket, I'd further suggest that the only kind of police officer that would do it is one who was either ignorant of how it would actually go down in court when you fight it, or else desperate enough to meet some kind of quota that they may have that they would gamble that you won't try to fight the ticket in the first place.

Quite possibly... I've been driving for 25 years and never received any ticket for going too fast, nor given any kind of ticket or warning for ever going too slow, except in online forums such as slashdot, and only by people who object to those who might diligently pay attention to what the traffic law expects.

If I were ever dinged for going too slow when I was actually traveling the speed limit, I would challenge the ticket, win, and the issuing officer would probably get a reprimand for being an asshole.