I thought HBO had a more sensible approach to piracy. Or was that just the Game of Thrones producers?

I like to pay for content I enjoy, to promote more of that type of content, but I'm not giving money to people who don't play fair, and don't care about the health of the market and culture in general.

DRM is an issue, because it targets the paying customer. It can only get in the way, it has no other purpose.

If they could make DRM that didn't get in the way, they wouldn't need DRM in the first place.

I agree, those whose business is DRM are the ones who benefit, not anyone else. My bet is that far more money is lost to DRM, than to piracy.

Rather than bail them out, you can simply take over their properties when they become worthless. Or make a deal to take them over rather than them becoming worthless, and have ownership, rather than simply give money away. In the process, fire or sue those responsible for the collapse.

Or, bail out the next layer down, ensuring change and that the same exact problem can't happen again.

With their own torches that they'll use to set fire to stuff, so they'll have an excuse to arrest the lot.

I have 2 bits.

My understanding of the current and all 3D up to this point, is that it's basically a series of optic illusions, abusing the limitations of the eyes/brain, making you not see reality as it is. And I find that scary. One image is fine, but I don't want to sit through hours of it.

Yesterday I was surprised to learn that my nephew was watching Mickey Mouse on YouTube. I thought they would be all over that. And there seems to be newer stuff up there, too.

I was thinking snow and ice, but I'm not sure if that will last.

And we keep shooting the bears (not me personally, but they're apparently not allowed to be here).

Maybe if we beef up the hole in the ozon layer again, and hoard all the sun screen.

This means keep up the pressure. It doesn't mean take it easy on them.

I wouldn't mind living for a few centuries, if technology and medicine made that a pleasant experience.

" I do not know if it includes water thermal dilatation, but I hope it does."

I'm not sure, but if you add all the rest of the ice that could melt, apparently it's 80 meters.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs2-00/

I live far inland and a couple of hundred meters above sea level, so I figure I'm safe in any case. But the lake I can see from my house is only 70 meters above sea level. The land of the fjords is going to get a lot more fjords, I think.

Well, the resources on Earth are what it is all about now. Before we get to rely on resources in outer space, to get to that stage, we probably have to solve a lot of problems with the resources available down here.

If you mean there is more space on the planet, I disagree. We're not the only species. And each other species is linked with multiple species. The more we displace and interefere with other species, the more we alter the entire ecology of Earth. It's better the less space we occupy.

And quite a large number of people live in poverty with each day a struggle to get enough food to go on to the next day. While a lot of others do completely mundane work that leads to no progress at all. And some are just stuck in fundamentalist religious socieities, where you're only supposed to stick to centuries old dogma. What we need are more people educated, more people doing research, yes, doing the science and work towards new and better solutions. But we could do far more, with fewer. Especially as we're not consuming various limited resources at a rate far beyond what they are renewed at.

A well organized, large section of the population people could defeat the government. Although they should have a far easier time doing that through the democratic channels. Even with the inherent faults, those can be dealt with if there is will.

The biggest problem of all, is how organized the elite are, and how good they are at setting everyone else up against each other.

It's one thing to invade and occupy foreign land, and never see victory because of local efforts. But to overthrow your own oppressive government, when they have vastly superior arms, yes, look to Syria. And maybe Libya, before foreign support.

Maybe they'll succeed, although I'm not quite sure if there are just two sides operating there, one that wins if the other loses. But you're going to need an actual militia at the very least. Not just individuals armed to "fight the government" all by themselves.