Except that if you follow that logic the system makes no sense.. clearly they believe that *most* of the names they have are real valid names, or theres no point in the system existing *at all*

Lets see 19.99 retail wow box Check
Free email account with one of the myriad providers.. check
Gamecards at any online or brick and mortar retailer check
OR
Disposable prepaid "gift card" from just about anywhere Check

BTW you also have never been required to have name on account match name on credit card for wow.. and the only way to actually PROVE that you are you would require not credit card matching but rather submitting your government issued ID card #.. which even blizzard is not likely to try to do.

Completely false assumption, that is commonly made re internet behavior..

Anonymity by itself does *not* make people any more or less likely to post something.. its the person in question complete and utter lack of people skills.. IE yes they would say that sitting in church with mom.

Better still though is this scenario:

You refuse to participate in the "realid" forums.. but you have 30~ doppelgangers playing wow who all SHARE your real name..

So now some random basement dweller goes on a tirade about how much he or she wants to

Next day at work, your boss lets you know that you services are no longer required, and when you search for a new job, you cannot get past the "reference check" phase due to the extensive use of "googling real names" that is part of the recruitment process these days.

Now that we have that out of the way.. consider the following..

You have *never* had to have a REAL name to make a battle.net account , nor use a credit card for the account.. so for the low low price of buying wow retail box version @19.99$ you too can go on a posting spree in persona.

Now consider that due to the overlap in "real names" there is no real "community" around these realid names in terms of forums anyhow, since there are going to be duplicates for just about everyone..

What exactly does this system buy us? nothing.. what does it buy blizzard? A huge can of legal issues, and less stress on forum servers (at the start) go team?

The point is that while it would allow them to isolate whether the *drive* itself in the macbook air is somehow immune to the issue, or if its something to do with the operating system/file system preventing the issue to occur.

IE if You do the tests in OS X, rezero the drive install windows xp/vista run them again (in NTFS on the mac's ssd), then finally install windows 7 also to a clean drive under NTFS and run the tests a final time (this last test would have trim enabled of course)

Chances are that what is happening is that the OS X has an artificial limit in speed (for whatever reason) masking the problem.. If that theory is correct then installing windows 7 to a freshly zero'd drive on the air, should result in significantly faster initial performance than measured under OS X, with a dropoff to roughly the levels measured under OS X over time.

Yes you are free to do that all, and you are free FROM the chances that the government will retaliate for your opinion...

The government will NOT protect you from the consequences to your business of telling your customers that you think they should all be deported back where they came from.. or a politician from saying that his supporters are all fools and that he is only in it for the cash/perks from lobbyists.

The fact that you are trying to equate the middle eastern dictators with the US over this.. shows that you should have spent more time in what? 5th? 6th grade social studies?

Do you really think there are packs of gay marriage/civil union supporters getting ready to roll out nationwide in an effort to vandalize and stalk bigoted politicians and business owners? Or are you more concerned of the negative press that an organized group could accomplish such as P.E.T.A or Greenpeace or any other group manages to generate?

As to your posting that you would never vote for gay marriage, thats sorta what we are all arguing about right? You are owning your position on the subject.. i presume you are not telling a bunch of people that are important to either your political power/financial success that you totally support them and agree that they should have X right.. while posting this on slashdot? Its not about the opinion, but the hypocritical nature of holding one position "publicly" and another when you think noone is looking.

No there is a difference between a ballot and a petition..

The american system was founded on principles and ideals, as well as taking responsibility for ones actions.. anonymity was never really considered.. especially given the context of the time in which the country was founded.. a person was only the sum of his reputation and his word.. this is precisely *WHY* The Declaration was signed by the men who wrote it *AND* those who agreed with it.. It was lending the power of their own reputations to that which they believed in.. Had they wanted to be meek and anonymous, they would simply have signed it "the people"

Not sure what you think is undercutting .. as this is precisely the sort of "disagreement" that happens every day in every city/state/town.. people will still "fight side by side" for what they DO agree on.. while disagreeing on other issues such as this one.

No its not.. perhaps you lost the fact that there is no expectation of "secretly adding your vote to the list" ala a random poll.. when you "publicly sign your name to a petition saying I SUPPORT THIS!"

EVERY petition in every state is legally public record by design, and intent of the medium (petition rather than poll).. just because this has not been tested in court previously does *not* mean that anyone had any expectation of privacy when standing in the middle of a mall signing their name and address in public, on a piece of paper where the next 50 people will be able to read the name and likely anyone at all while the stack of sheets are on the clipboard they picked up.

The fact that noone cared prior to this does not mean that there was ever an expectation of privacy when signing a petition.

You mean intimidating and threatening to NO LONGER support politicians who are publically claiming to support X cause, and at the same time stating by signing a petition that you are actually against that cause? Or businesses claiming to be "friends" of a community turning around and secretly signing petitions that will cost them in many cases their entire business?

Thats not threats or intimidation its called consequences of poorly thought out decisions.

I think this is more about .. people feeling threatened that their business may be affected if for example.. all those they have been claiming to be supporting to get them to shop for years .. found out that they where signer number 7 on a hotly contested issue.

Its hypocritical all the way, but then so are many other issues.. If i am vehemently anti - whatever group happens to be on the petition for whatever reason.. I probably shouldnt be claiming to support them so they shop at my chain of shops.. or being their "political friend" when i need them to run for office.. and then turn around and secretly sign petitions that run counter to that.

Anything less devalues both of the viewpoints..

Because without transparency there is no way to take people to task for their actions.. you dont get to be a business that publically embraces say ... the immigrant community that keeps you in business, while at the same time signing petitions to get the borders closed and immigrants exported to another state, or deported.

Not to mention using "valid" names on petitions rather than mickey mouse names, which while they could be verified, would still be just as fake.. with no way of anyone knowing for sure if anyone on the list actually put themselves on the list.

Exactly correct.

I wish I had mod points atm.

Almost as much as I wish people understood the constitution and bill of rights .. *sigh*

You are quite wrong about UI patents not being tested in court..

The Apple UI patents where tested almost the day they where issued (see MS vs Apple over UI for windows and the resulting cross-licensing)

UI patents are NOT software patents.. oddly enough teh nokia patents are in fact about software.. just because its embedded on a chip does NOT make it any less onerous than a patent on an algorithm in a computer application.

So UI patent == "design" patent

OR "the windows start menu/taskbar combo" is equivalent to the "industrial design" of any other physical object such as the shape of a mouse, or the "look" of a laptop, etc.

Software patent / method patent are both crap, and unfortunately Nokia's patents are not for hardware innovation, they are for the *SOFTWARE* running within general purpose cpu's and DSP's within cellphones that make them GSM compatible.

If all it takes for slashdot to like software patents is to put them in a ROM or DSP, then the anti-software patent movement is doomed to fail.

Actually The real issue here is not android at all, it is HTC stepping on Apples patents not with "android" but rather with respect to touchflo and sense..

I rather think that 2 reasons prevented suit earlier when touchflo was windows only...

1) it was possibly covered under the cross-license deal between Apple and MS that dates to the 80s

2) it was such a small market segment that it didn't matter (a tiny portion of windows mobile phones from HTC actually had touchflo)

3) touchflo in its previous incarnations before sense was basically not close enough to the patents in question that they didnt feel a suit was needed

4) Apple was merely building its case since they hate to lose in court, and this was actually set in motion with touchflo 1.0

5) some combination of the above.

Point is.. this is *not* in any way relevant to the apple-nokia suit, nor does it relate in any way to "android as a whole" any more than it affects windows mobile devices as a whole, or "feature phones" as a whole.

As you point out nokia/apple suit will likely result in a cross-license deal of some sort, or one of them paying the other $$$ and a cross-license deal.. the same cannot be said of HTC-Apple.. since HTC owns nothing of interest patent wise.. and a loss in court could easily result in the company becoming non-viable (bankrupt) as a result.

Reading is fundamental and I was the one who brought up the *other* forms of expression protected by free speech.. the problem is that they are ALL in relation to government intervention in preventing you from expressing those ideas.. in other words.. As the owner of a concert hall I can restrict your first amendment right to free speech and not allow a KKK rally on stage regardless of how much money you want to throw at me.. If instead we are talking about a publicly funded government operated venue.. then the content of your speech cannot be the reason why you are denied the right to speak their (with a very narrow scope of exceptions) opinions.

For it to be a FREE SPEECH issue, it has to involve the government infringing on the rights to express *your* opinions however unpalatable they may be.