"Until the American public stands up and demands"

I see this partial slogan bandied about all the time, that we only have ourselves to blame. How the fuck exactly do we stand up and demand? Most of us do already .. voting doesn't fix things. Peaceful protest doesn't fix things. Hell, the only real power we do have is w/ $, and that doesn't fix things. Snowden has done what few of us are capable of, mainly because we're peons, and it's still not fixing things.

"Until the American public stands up and demands" means the only real way things will happen will be through violence.

Completely agree. I'll quote myself for no other reason than I just 90sec ago stated the same thing earlier and you completely encapsulated how I feel. I have a feeling that there are quite a lot of us like this.

"We expect it from China because they are [more or less] (not us, so therefore) a potential enemy, like Russia, like latest Islamatyrant, blah blah.

(going US centric) We were raised to believe that the US was better than what we're finding out it's doing. We were taught to believe we are a shining beacon of freedom, democracy, that our way is the best way - or at least it's the best way done so far - because look at all of the failings we see around us.. we take the moral highground making us better than the tyrants who do the stuff that we despise, etc.

There are a lot of Snowdens out there.. not necessarily in what power or knowledge we have, but that those of us that feel everything instilled in us about our nation's greatness is turning out to be complete bullshit."

We expect it from China because they are [more or less] (not us, so therefore) a potential enemy, like Russia, like latest Islamatyrant, blah blah.

(going US centric) We were raised to believe that the US was better than what we're finding out it's doing. We were taught to believe we are a shining beacon of freedom, democracy, that our way is the best way - or at least it's the best way done so far - because look at all of the failings we see around us.. we take the moral highground making us better than the tyrants who do the stuff that we despise, etc.

There are a lot of Snowdens out there.. not necessarily in what power or knowledge we have, but that those of us that feel everything instilled in us about our nation's greatness is turning out to be complete bullshit.

The 80s were the worst thing to ever happen to us.

'It's basically an all-you-can-eat buffet and we're the fat guys. The sizzlers trying to narrow the front door so we can't get in.'

Who cares? That's the point of a buffet.

Charging by usage is an invented pricing scheme pure and simple. It costs no more or less for Comcast to have data running over a line (not even the cost of electricity.. once it's on it's on). I can leave my TV on 24/7/365 (100% usage) and pay the exact same amount if I had left it off for an entire year. Hell, I could add 5 more TVs (each with their own box) and leave those on year round and it would still do nothing to my bill [outside of the boxes].

Also, the T3 comparison is nowhere near valid. Bandwidth costs close to nothing. With a T3 you're basically building your own infrastructure for that access, which is where the cost comes. Comcast already owns the infrastructure.

CompUSA (retail location) sold store brand CD-R and DVD-R discs that were top and bottom plastic layered, the printed labeling on top almost feels like an extremely thin felt. I've got at least a dozen CD-Rs (roughly half music, the other half *ahem, tsk tsk* mostly fps games) from the mid-late 90s that I burned in college still reading like a champ.

80MB/s write? You're high.

My HTC One (m7) barely reaches 12MB steady, occasionally peaks near 15MB.

You I like :D

So what should be done when a corrupt system cataclysmically fails the citizens it represents and all of the methods for fixing that system and addressing those grievances are completely fucked over?

Our entire system is broken and nearly everyone is too busy circle jerking to care.

I chose my words carefully.

Is it going to take violence to get things fixed?

Seriously. The only thing that's going to accomplish anything anymore is outright violence. Maybe then 'the people who need to know' (whoever they are) will start taking notice at the bullshit that's going on in our patent system (hell, any dysfunctional system). Talk doesn't work. Diplomacy doesn't work. The democratic process no longer works. Peaceful protest doesn't work. What else is there? These patents are directly attacking damn near everyone in commercial and professional photography. And when a bullshit patent is used to attack a person's livelihood or their means of supporting their family or their passion, and the result can leave them destitute, how is that any different than a violent attack against that person?

Patenting something like this with this much prior art (fuck photography, anyone who has ever applied 3 point lighting and used the plain white background in 3d studio project preferences has prior art) is outright bullshit.

I know I'm in the minority on this, but Vista was far better than XP.

Wow.. haven't seen this in years!

I'm sure it works for the author and I'm all for 'if you can't find what you want, build it yourself', but I'm also sure he's the only person who will appreciate it.