What makes an ad agency reliable to you?

One in which all of the employees are encased in carbonite, and whose computers and records have all been nuked from orbit.

Anything less and you have to assume they're still unreliable.

And what solutions do you recommend for individual blog authors to implement "host your own ads"?

Not Our Fucking Problem.

Sorry, but I will continue assuming all ads are crap I don't wish to see, served by companies who don't give a crap about my privacy or security and whom I therefore do not trust.

The revenue of web sites interests me not even a little.

Go to a subscription model and see if you can stay in business. Or accept that some fraction of users do not wish to see your advertising, and don't trust the companies serving them.

No kidding ... attempting to force your way into something guarded by armed military personnel and then discovering they're not afraid of you isn't terrorism.

It's a frickin' Darwin award.

I consider that only one of them is dead to be either extraordinary luck, or surprising restraint on behalf of the soldiers.

You know, I'm a pretty heavy user of tinfoil with an inherent distrust of government.

But even I don't need to look at this as an abuse of power by the government.

The rights of US military personnel to shoot your stupid self for trying to ram through a gated checkpoint with big giant signs saying "we can and will stop you, by force if necessary" has been established for an incredibly long time.

Most of the last century, I should think. Probably MUCH longer.

Sorry, but this falls entirely in the domain of "if you didn't see this one coming you're an idiot".

yes but they shouldn't be, protecting secrets shouldn't be more important than protecting citizens.

There comes a point where what you are doing is telegraphing that you are no ordinary citizen doing ordinary things.

Approaching that gate with the big barricade, armed guards, and the huge sign which says "this isn't your usual place, and it isn't under the usual rules ... keep the hell out", and then deciding you're ramming it anyway? Well, as I said, that's a special kind of stupid.

It isn't like these guys went trigger happy and went after someone who was doing nothing at all. Trying to drive through a military check point on a military base sends a specific enough signal that I think to expect to NOT get shot in that context makes you an idiot.

Ramming gates on a military base isn't something you can reasonably expect to fall under the domain of things you can do without Really Fucking Bad Consequences.

I'm among the first to complain about government over-reach. But fucking with armed military personnel under strict orders to keep everybody out? Definitely not that.

Seems like further evidence that the NSA believes it can do *whatever* it wants to any peasant that puts a toe out of line. I question whether lethal force was necessary in this case.

While true that apparently the gate crashers didn't shoot anybody

1) This wasn't the NSA, directly. It was the US Army guards from what I can tell.
2) If you try to crash a gate guarded by any Army, I think you should reasonably conclude you might get shot

I dislike the NSA as much as any nerd, but by the time you're talking about the people who guard military bases and other secure compounds you kind of need to understand these guys are deployed under a set of orders which says "we'll be polite as long as that is possible, and then we'll be significantly less so".

Maybe you think the armed guards on a military base should say please and thank you and be friendly, but there's usually big giant signs that say "do not taunt the lions, they will bite".

It's hard not to see getting shot as a completely logical outcome of what happened.

So in some abstract sense I can see why the NSA could be considered a valid target in some contexts.

But, honestly, trying to gate crash an Army base and then getting into a shooting match with the guards ... well, that's a special kind of stupid.

If you and your religion wish to be able to discriminate against someone on the basis of your religion, then you and your religion should correspondingly lose the legal protection of being discriminated against.

If you are such a whiny idiot that you think it should be OK to say "we don't serve your kind here", then you should have no legal or moral basis to claim that someone shouldn't be able to do the same to you.

This is giving religion an extra special place in law ... protected from being discriminated against, while getting a special exemption to discriminate against someone else.

So either shut up, and accept that you have no other ways you're legally allowed to discriminate against someone ... or accept that it should also be someone else's right to refuse you because of your religion.

There is no in between, and any claims your religion is so precious as to require you receive rights nobody else has is complete crap.

Sorry, but the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and ISIL want to have a society based on religious exceptionalism.

Which makes people who want to have religion be a special thing in law are full of shit, self entitled people, and are actually the enemies of a free and open society.

You know, I should think the more help you can give these guys the better.

Because if it can lead the firefighters in, it could also have applicability in guiding victims out while leaving firefighters with free hands to watch out for other hazards as they follow the people out.

I should think most of us should STFU about what firefighters need and don't need -- if someone who runs into burning buildings says this could help save lives, I'm sure as hell not going to arm-chair quarterback that.

What's wrong with a little basic research? Often it has benefits in ways nobody thinks of up front.

Oh, horseshit ... what's the waiting list for a Harley Davidson?

What's that? You don't think there is an air of luxury and exclusivity here?

America has never been egalitarian. In theory, anybody can become a rich douchebag and have more money than most.

But built into this has always been the notion someone will be rich and someone will be poor.

So, either you're all butt-hurt over the fact you didn't get signed up, or you're pointlessly wailing how unfair it is there are products which aren't available to just anybody on the day of release.

Me, I refuse to worry over how a bunch of people are feeling exclusive and cool to buy a product I don't care about.

I agree, they're really following up on this "cater to the rich guys" business model

But, but ... they're the ones with all the money.

I'm sure people will go gaga over this. I, and I'm sure many people, will continue to not give a damn about the smart watch market.

It provides me with nothing at all other than another gizmo I don't want or need.

Unless you're stockpiling Mongols, then it would, in fact, be Mongol Horde.

Just sayin'.

In one of the stores which is closing, there as a Best Buy and a Future Shop right across the street. So you shop at one and then go across a crosswalk to the other one.

They've always had mostly the same stock, and at mostly the same price.

I'm told the difference was Future Shop had commissioned (and therefore more annoying) salesman, while Best Buy wasn't on commission. I often found hard to get items were more likely to be stocked at Future Shop instead of Best Buy.

Many of us have always thought it quite stupid that the same chain always had two stores in many places, since nobody thought of them as competing.

So because hillary is found to be lying... i mean in the dark about her email, why are we all of a sudden asking everyone about theirs??

My hope is that people have figured out that all politicians are lying assholes who think the rules don't apply to them.

My fear is this is just a brief trend and reporters will go back to ignoring the fact that politicians are lying assholes who think the rules don't apply to them.

Why must we keep electing people who are so fucking stupid?