Which is interesting because, while I share the disgust in theory, I don't actually know much about the reality and the one time I have seen it before (I wish I could remember where) it was being used by someone who actually was producing serious content, you know, an actual output other than good feelings.

That said, what you describe sounds like about the sort of cult of personality bullshit I expect enough people to fall for as to be able to support some small number of professional loudmouths.

However, I am not sure thats terrible either. Money talks, basically this is a form of grass roots advertising. What fuels them is the perception that signal boosting has value, and well, that is hard to argue with when you see what major corporations are willing to spend on it.

I dunno, as distasteful as I find the idea of throwing cash at someone to rant for me (I provide my rants free of charge as a public service)...its probably more effective than voting.

Hmmm then that is a different question.... but only one of whether the force was justified against the safety of others. The drone operator was still in the wrong and he was defending his privacy.

Well he didn't shoot the man, he shot a mechanical proxy for the man, which is not the same at all. He attacked a piece of property which, under the direction of its operator, was being used to invade his privacy by invading the space over his property, and as he pointed out, not simply to transit the area.

Assuming the area was one where it would be generally safe otherwise to fire at a bird, then I have no issue with his reasoning, seems like he was in the right to me, even though I wouldn't agree if he had shot the operator; the two are not equivalent like that.

Doesn't even have to be LOGO these days:

#!/bin/python
import turtle
turtle.shape("turtle")
turtle.forward(50)
turtle.right(90)
turtle.forward(50)
turtle.right(90)
turtle.forward(50)
turtle.right(90)
turtle.forward(50)
turtle.exitonclick()

It's turtle.pendown all the way down.

Thats PervECT!

I didn't do anything embarrasing unless you think getting into fights

Just the sort of thing a potential employer would throw your resume out for. Didn't you hear about the teacher that was sacked over a "drunken pirate" photo?

It's going to be the norm in a few years instead of just an excuse for HR people caught wasting too much time on Facebook.

Pardons are forgiveness for guilt. He is guilty of nothing. Betraying a criminal conspiracy to violate our own laws and subvert the open process of their deliberation and public oversight is hardly a crime. If anything it is the people he exposed who should be recieving pardons if they are to be allowed to continue to walk free.

I am far more concerned with the administrations dangerous decision to lie to the public and cover up clear evidence of its own wrongdoing.

For the binaries groups? Obsessive gotta-collect-all-the-media pirates, mostly.

My ISP doesn't have their own netnews server anymore. At first they farmed it out to a third party but still included the service, but then they dropped it entirely.

I've been looking around for a service that suits my needs, I don't need/want binaries and I don't want to have to pay whatever month to something like Giganews to help bankroll the piracy for everyone else.

You CAN post YouTube comments using the old pre google+ identity. You have to manually switch it to the old identity in settings. See that little icon with your name attached on the upper right of the YouTube main page? Click it and you can tell it to use the old identity. Every once in a while in the past they'd switch it back but they haven't done it in a while.

But we shouldn't have had to do that.

Microsoft IS worse than Sony, always has been. Some divisions of Sony might have a "minor" in evil, but Microsoft has a Double-major in evil, a Minor in evil and is professional chair throwing extend embrace extinguish brand evil.

So PC centric developers are holding games hostage as well, right?

You don't pay less, you "spend" less, there's a difference. PC gaming is some Ian in the UK or Ivan in Russia spending all his quid or rubles on a PC, and then pirating all his stuff instead of paying less for hardware and then having money for games.

Or you have the guys playing nothing but one map in something like CS/LoL over and over and over and then BRAGGING that they don't buy games.

And then some people wondering why the PC release of multi-platform releases is an afterthought.

Here, let me give you an anecdote, do you know how Gaijin the developers of war thunder finish funding that game's development? They did a console game that was basically a pre-test of War Thunder:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

They openly said that without that game, there would have been no War Thunder.

That's right you do, but it leads to:

Mods exist because BRICers and Second Worlders are too cheap to buy games. Gamers who play nothing but free mods are why the PC is an afterthought. Sure there may be a few patches as well, but mods are the favorite of gamers who care more about free-as-in-beer than anything else.

Servers are a continuing expense that cost money to run don't they? PC gamers pay for WoW or EVE subscriptions, right? So they're idiots too because all games should have free multiplayer? PS+ isn't just multiplayer, there are other benefits as well, besides, it's less than one game a year. $49.95. Yeah yeah, spend $$$ on an overpriced video card but $49.95 a year is too much to help pay for server costs.

What interface is that? Who gets to say an interface is wrong? Isn't choice of UI a good thing? Some people might prefer a certain UI some might prefer something different. After all there are mods that change the UI in PC games, isn't there? And if it's controls that you're actually referring to, who says I can't use different controls?

I don't do that, only idiot shooter and sports game only dudebro gamers do that.

While I wouldn't say that Windows is an OS for stupid people. I do think that just because one can game on a badly designed general purpose OS like Windows...doesn't mean one should.

I am more concerned about this development of what appear to be nonsensical computer generated response comments.

Exactly. What is the difference between an automated system and one with a human at the helm when you can just replace the human with impunity if he decides he doesn't want to help you anymore?

Its not like some criminal gang where a defector could mean consequences. A defector from the drone murder program is just....replaced. Even if 100% of pilots became disgusted with the job and refused within a year.... it wouldn't even slow them down, it would just increase their training costs.

Right now, there effectively is no difference between the existing drone program and automated kill bots. The problem is what people want to do and are allowed to get away with. As long as they can murder with impunity, the methods which they use are unimportant.

I just don't see the point. These will be developed, and no amount of banning them will stop it or even slow it down.

The thing is...they can put whatever restrictions they want, and you can then either put up with it, or go to court over it, spend lots of money on lawyers. If you win, all you get is to exercise your rights, either way you pay out the big money; out of pocket.

Then, should you want another event, expect to be denied or offered the same terms and to AGAIN need to go to court over it, and pay out big bucks to win again.

Mass Cann here in Boston had this problem year after year. The city would deny their permit, they would sue, they would win, next year, same thing.

So effectively, there is a massive unapproved tax on events the city officials don't like.