I'm ok with them watching porn, as long as they don't have to see that rampart violence that litters TV.

Let's teach our kids that if someone fucks with them, it's ok to fuck them back.

It is not a necessity. Not any more than a computer, an internet connection or a dishwasher. It's a matter of convenience and enjoyment. People want to watch their shows. And to watch them, they need to be able to do just that. They don't care that they get channels they don't want to get. What difference does it make for them?

Hmm... couldn't we simply do away with them instead of me? I mean, it does accomplish the same purpose.

The problem is that the only real option you have is abstaining. You don't want this behaviour? No cable TV for you. Because there's no such thing as a "channel mix" that you want. Have you ever taken a look at the average "basic mix" of channels? Nobody, absolutely nobody, on this planet would choose these channels. No matter what his interests.

If you're not happy with this, your choice is to do without. Not only without the channels you don't want, but also the ones that you would want. Don't want Sports and Bible TV? Ok, no SciFi for you either.

And most people would rather grin and bear it than abstain. Essentially what it means to them is that they don't get the 100+ channels promised but actually just about 10, with 90+ more that could as well not exist.

Cable? It's the only reason for having a TV anymore.

Why make your kids cry? www.thepiratebay...

Where is it, and how does one get there?

The main problem is here the ease of duplication. You have here a commodity where nearly all the cost of its creation is fixed. Per unit costs are negligible, and duplication of a unit is trivial. If you are allowed to duplicate and distribute the unit you paid for, depending on the total market there is actually the danger that the maker cannot sell many units, resulting in you having to pay for the total production cost, or market forces dictate that this commodity cannot be produced anymore due to higher cost than benefit.

In a nutshell, if you can copy as you please, people whose income depends on producing content will stop doing so.

We could now start a debate whether that would actually be a good thing when people start creating content (or, if you please, art) out of love instead of base desires like money. One thing would still remain, anything where production takes many years and costs lots of money will not be produced anymore. There would be no blockbuster movies and no AAA games. And yes, again, it's debatable whether that would actually be a bad thing.

What I can agree with is that copyright has gone out of hand. That's true. We're now at the insanity of the lifetime of the author plus 70 years. In other words, it's unlikely that the works of the Beatles, which were created half a century ago, will go into PD before I die. That's essentially copyright for over a century. Copyright originally was meant to give a creator an incentive to create, so he could recover his expenses and reap the rewards for his art. But where is the incentive if I can milk a single hit forever?

Original copyright was 7 years. And back then, that was pretty tight. 7 years was not a lot of time for an aspiring artist to get his book printed and sold. Some managed to get into a second issue and still earn royalties for that, but usually, especially for young artists, those 7 years went by VERY quickly. Back then it took a lot of time to get a book edited, printed and distributed. Advertising was WAY slower (and less efficient) than today, and by the time most people actually learned of the book and wanted to buy it, copyright was expired, other editors printed copies and the original author got jack.

And that's when copyright went bananas. Today, we have INSANELY long copyrights while at the same time the time from conception to distribution can be measured in days. Hours sometimes, even. That simply makes no sense anymore.

So I do not agree that I should be allowed to do "whatever I want" with the work. I should be allowed nearly everything, in this we can agree. I should be allowed to use it however I please, view and listen to it in whatever fashion I please and if I do not want to use it anymore I should be allowed and able to sell it. I should not be allowed to duplicate and distribute it, though, at least for a sensible period. The original 7 years sounded very sensible and I think reducing copyright to this 7 years would allow copyright to become again what it was meant to be: A tool to balance the interests of creators and consumers of content.

So ... you enter it into a competition where exactly that is being tested? I'd rather let that AI play in some online casinos...

Wait... who says that's not already happening?

Ah, ok, allow me to explain the joke: Hipsters do whatever crap they do and claim they did it "before it got cool". Or, to stress it even further, stop an action when it becomes mainstream. Tell you something about them actually enjoying any of the crap they do... but I digress.

So Hipster jokes center around them doing something "before it gets cool". Like: How do you turn a cocktail into a hipster drink? Microwave it for 30 seconds and drink it before it gets cool.

This.

Why would I want an AI that plays games? I want an AI that takes the boring tasks off me so I can play games!

As far as I can tell, the robot just took the job of the jargon texter. And those bozos being out a job can only lead to a better world.

Because the e was already there before it got cool.

Usually when it comes to the whole security show spiel, there's little, if any, relevant information going public. Especially when it shows that the whole crap is just a big, useless black hole for pork barrel money. How often and how long have we been asking for anything that shows the whole TSA annoyance has anything coming close to resembling having a positive effect on security?

But suddenly we get such a report without even asking for it? C'mon. What crony didn't pay his kickback in time so his project has to be axed?