Your analogy is false, as the harm in counterfeiting comes from misrepresenting your goods while selling them to another. If I made a fake 10^5 American bank note (these did exist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_denominations_of_United_States_currency#.24100.2C000_bill) and put it in a picture frame on my wall, is that wrong? It would probably be illegal, but what actual harm is being done?

For this reason, many people believe that making perfect copies of other's property for private use is OK, hence the popularity of downloading hollywood movies off of bittorrent. We now have computers to make perfect copies of digital data, and also to share those copies with others. I personally think we seriously change copyright and to make it compatible with a world where copying is trivial. The genie is out of the bottle, generally purpose computers are not going away.

The difference? Massive levels of prejudice and bias, both official and unofficial from the federal government, state governments, the police, and the legal system. I would cite something here but this is basic, uncontroversial US history.

I don't think you should be allowed to have racially exclusive clubs, but I think you are full of shit with your "lot of black only club". For a moment, let's assume you are right. You still must be profoundly ignorant of United States history to think the shoe is somehow on the other foot. In some Southern states, blacks are over 90% of the prison population, but I am sure that is just some crazy coincidence, right?

It wasn't life that was unkind, it was their fellow white Americans.

Also, my mother passed through New York City on the way to Europe and remembers seeing signs saying 'No blacks' and such on restaurants. She is younger than 150.

Just buying a Nexus phone is unfortunately not enough.

I bought an unlocked GSM Galaxy Nexus phone online, from a Canadian retailer. Unfortunately the phone I got wasn't running the official google ROM, but Samsung's own ROM that was on a different (much slower) update channel. I had to flash my phone to google's firmware to move from 4.0.2 to 4.0.4. Within a few minutes my phone found the jelly bean update and prompted me to install. The flashing was pretty simple; the only issue was that my phone forgot its SMS centre number and mobile AP settings, so I had to program those back in to be able to send txts and use 3g data.

I say bad on Google for this one. I bought an unlocked nexus phone because I wanted to try out different ROMs on my phone, so for me this was not a big deal. I do think it's dumb that I had to hack my phone to get Google-supported updates.

Also, the other fun thing about Galaxy Nexus firmware variants is that their is basically no way to know which you have until you boot up your phone. Some people who purchased from the same source as me got the official google firmware, it seems totally random. I do like my phone, its really nice and smooth with jelly bean, but the device experience could have been better.

The playbook is actually a pretty good tablet. The hardware is great, though I wish the screen resolution was a little higher. As it is, the screen is great for reading in landscape, but portrait is a little cramped.

The OS is quite good, I have tried the ios and android and find this the most intuitive of the 3. The playbook OS makes it obvious which of your apps are running, and let's you run things in the background if you wish. The OS in general feels polished and well thought out. The app store is surprisingly well supported, but it is missing 3rd party support for netflix, Skype, and the like. Also, you can wake the tablet by swiping the screen.

That said, I would have a hard time recommending the playbook because of 3rd party support and how it has fared in the marketplace. Too bad, RIM has a nice product here.

You make a false equivalence here. Both sides have clowns, but one side has the vast majority of publishing scientists and the royal scientific societies in many nations. Only one side, as i have seen it, argues with data. Also, to my knowledge only one side has stooped to using pr firms with ties to the tobacco industry.

Just posting to undo a mod, I thought you wrote the first half of your post.

I recently picked up an lg bluray player to use as a netflix machine. I think netflix is a nice service, and I wanted a machine my mother (who is afraid of computers) could figure out. So far it has been a crappy experience, and I can see why people are not lining up for blu-ray:

-A few setup things were arcane, like having the aspect ratio stuck at 16:9 until I changed some other setting.
-The wifi throws a fit every so often, claiming there is no connection. I have told my mother to restart the player as this seems like the simplest solution. No other devices on my wireless network have issues like this.
-The updates system is completely braindead. You can't disable updates, netflix is disabled if it wants to update, updates over the wireless always fail, and there is no version checking. I installed the updates with a usb stick, but it still prompted me to install the exact same version number over the internet connection. I could even install the same version multiple times from USB, it always thought it was a new update. I ended up having to temporarily run a network cable across the living room floor.

By contrast, my mother has never had issues with our DVD players, you put the disc in and it works. No setup, no updates, no shit, it just works.

I have no plans to buy a single bluray disc, but I find myself wishing i had just got her a nintendo wii for netflix. This bluray player is ok when it works, but between the bad design issues I mentioned (assuming other players are similar), Bluray spec versioning, HDCP issues, and the like, I cant see non technical people putting up with crap like this.

The Assasin's Creed games are not to my taste, but I approve of the main character being an Algonquin. The history of the aboriginal people of the United States and Canada has not gotten the attention it deserves, and its great to see it used as background in a popular work.

I had a similar experience with a grandmother, and I understood your post only too well. Alcoholism is a truly depraved and meaningless existence; when a family member has been a drunk since before you were born, you feel like you never met the real person.

I think the summary was written too matter-of-fact-ly for something that is debatable, but alcohol is a big nuisance to society. Alcohol increases aggressiveness and lowers people's inhibitions. People harm themselves directly by drinking, but everyone else pays with increased violence and rowdiness (especially on Saturday and Sunday night), car crashes caused by drunks, fires caused by drunks who fall asleep smoking or cooking etc. People do anti-social things on many drugs ('Assholes in Action', as Frank Zappa said) but alcohol is one of the most annoying I've seen. Most drugs leave people content to keep to themselves.

On the other hand, I do believe alcohol should be legal and have no problem with people who drink responsibly.

Really, though, the choice is not between one or the other, but between one or both. The Government of Canada only has direct control over whether they implement internet surveillance, they cannot realistically stop child abuse. This current government is a big fan of expensive yet empty gestures, for instance their mandatory minimum sentencing bill.

It works the same way. Our MPs and Senators (Canada's "Lords") are usually very careful about what they say outside of Parliament.

What the minister said is not so out of line for what passes as discourse in the house of commons, which is best described as a room full of retarded shrieking monkeys. This current government is quite petty and crass, and they have said worse.

So you infer anger from Unknown Soldier's post, then infer from my post that I inferred anger into your post. Actually, Unknown Soldier's post doesn't seem especially angry to me. But what do I know, I don't have your apparently Deanna Troi-like empath skills.

Like a post below says, try following your own advice.

You can stop the name calling, also, it makes you look foolish.

A video game may be entertainment, but the money exchanged for it does pay for food and shelter. Blizzard does want our money, right? So why do they make their games worse on purpose?

Also, by your reasoning we can't judge a non-essential product. This seems silly.

I'm guessing the above is a joke (good one, my Yankee brother), but I would like to point out the Queen is not part of the Canadian government.

The Government advises the Queen; the Queen listens to the Government by custom. For example when a new Governor-General is chosen the Prime Minister gives the Queen a list of one name and basically says, 'take your pick'. Our system splits those who make decisions (government) from those who have authority (crown). This is also why the provincial governments are theoretically equal to the federal government, as they each ultimately derive their authority from the crown. This is also why bills passed by parliament need approval from the crown before they are law, though in practice this approval is just a formality.

I always think of the crown as a referee rather than an active participant in our politics.