In that case the correct answer would be "moar boosters!"

Not to mention that sometimes the people doing covers of some songs are actually better or at least more entertaining than the original group.

Ya know, I wonder why them terrorists don't do that themselves. Why don't they blow up some nasty corporations instead of, say, subways and running events? They really suck at PR, do you have any idea what goodwill they could harvest if they blew up some corporate HQs?

If movie quality was any reason for a rise or decline in copying, infringing would have hit rock bottom years ago.

ISPs send out threatening letters to those that they find copying. ISPs see a 70% drop in copying.

In other words, a third of the people who got the "you filthy pirate" letter simply ignored it.

Well, duh. When I control your computer, I control what anything running on it can see, including myself.

But you're invited to write the better mousetrap. I'd be delighted to test it.

I do. If that's possible at all. Besides, not always does "disabling" a service really render it secure against an exploit targeting it. That's the whole point behind an exploit, that whatever it attacks does not behave as it should.

Seriously. NetUSB? On a router? WHY the devil would I want that?

But lemme guess: It was cheap to add, it was a feature that we can tack onto the "look, shiny!" list of things the router can do and people simply count down the "features" of a router whether they need them or even know what the fuck they are.

Meanwhile, it becomes near impossible to buy a router that is JUST THAT. A router. And in case you're wondering "hey, why would you want that when you can have $feature on top of it for FREE?", look no further than this exploit. Without the useless gadget that netUSB is, this exploit would not exist!

I'm with you, if, and only if, these people get that information (and I mean information, not the usual scaremongering drugs-are-baaaaad bullshit) to make an informed decision AND I don't get to pay for it if they make a wrong one.

That provided, I'm with you. All the way.

I'm not telling them what to do. I only tell them what will happen when they do it. Whether they do it or not is their business.

Seriously. With every teenager having a cellphone, complete with picture cameras and basically a pocket computer, teach them to keep their security tight. What happens with their data. What happens when they take pictures of themselves. And that the internet never forgets. How to keep their data secure. How to avoid being taken advantage of. And what problems they will run into when something is being abused. And how to react to it.

It is about the thing that will have, invariably, no matter what profession they decide for, the one skill they WILL need in terms of technology.

You think there's a shortage of rats in D.C.?

That's easy. Whenever the media need a new hype or pharma corporations need to get rid of stockpiled old antidote.

I think it would be far more sensible to ensure that more interesting and less damaging alternatives are legal. If there's legal heroin from a stable and clean production, there's no need for desomorphine made in less than optimal circumstances with more toxic junk than active substance in the mix.

Pretty much any "horrible" drug has a less dangerous and sometimes even better working alternative, with the "horrible" version only having a market because the cleaner version is either not available or more expensive, and both of these conditions are rather due to their legal status than the actual production cost or possible supply of precursor materials.

Most voters are idiots. Easily swayed by the fear of the unknown and a rather diffuse urge to "protect their children", of anything and nothing. Control their children would be more apt, in most cases, but I don't even want to go there.

People are afraid of change in their life, and they are afraid of things (and people) they do not know. The more conservative and the less contact wanted with "the others", the more fear.

Alcohol was something they knew. And they knew that it ain't bad. They even had a drink or two themselves and did they die from it? No. Of course not. Did they go insane? No, again, of course not. And so the support for the ban was very low outside the overzealous self-proclaimed warriors of moral. It was even "cool" to break that law.

Not just among teenagers.

As you correctly identified, the main reason for the fear of drugs (and yes, I mean fear, it's not just rejection, it is fear) is that drugs are "the unknown", and that we've been told time and again that drugs are bad, bad, bad things. It doesn't have to be as hilarious as "Reefer Madness", but we've all had our share of "drug awareness".

Do you think it's a coincidence that the discussion of the legalization of Marijuana happens now that the "generation of love", the Hippies, are about to reach the age that just so happens to be about the age most top level politicians are in? The generation of politicians that is now in power is the same generation that smoked pot heavily during their teen years, and they learned that it's not really as their parents taught them, that it's not leading to the fall of humanity and civilization.

In other words, we'll probably see the legalization of Ecstacy around 2030.