I think that is your first line of defense, and your first line of inquiry, to start with. How about Mom and Dad stop chasing what the Joneses down the street have? How about Mom and Dad stop worrying about working all the time so they can have a $650,000 McMansion like Sue and Bill do? How about Mom and Dad teaching their kid(s) to be happy with what they have and not lusting for what Bill junior has? How about Mom and Dad get over the stigma of having a conversation with their children and, you know, FUCKING TALK TO THEM - NOT _AT_ THEM? And for the love of whatever you hold dear, do not do this once they are 12. Start the conversations at age 2 - they won't understand it all then, but the topics are there and they will absorb that information. That concern. Those values. Instill in your children respect for adults, respect for others, and respect for themselves. Teach them right from wrong and how to tell fantasy from reality. Do NOT try and teach this to them when they are too old to give a shit what Mom and Dad think or believe - teach it to them from the beginning.

Tell the government to get the hell out of deciding how we discipline our children. Until and unless one is drawing blood and/or leaving bruises in places they should not conceivably be such as around the shoulders, ankles, chest, head, upper arms and so forth - basically, if it is within a few inches of the ass of that child AND this is not a persistent pattern, then fuck off and let them discipline their children. I'm not saying every child needs a spanking, but I know that my generation (late 30 year old and into 40 year old group) grew up respecting adults, authority, and without the vast sense of entitlement pervading our society today AND most - I would say 90% - of my friends and acquaintances had their ass spanked when needed. Or we were grounded and sent to a room NOT filled with every electronic marvel of the age so it was an actual punishment. We were not bribed to be quiet with a toy. We were told to be quiet or you'd get a real reason to cry... and we believed them.

I could go on but I think most people get my point. How about we start with getting Mom and Dad to be Mom and Dad and not "that authority figure I can ignore because they are never home and always working"? How about we start taking personal responsibility for ourselves and our children and stop blaming the TV, video games, and everything else BUT ourselves?

Considering that the term "Mountain Dew" was originally Southern and/or Irish slang for moonshine, I'm not so sure about that.

See the Mountain Dew Wikipedia article; look under the Packaging section.

Simply tell the prosecution / judge - "I run a TOR exit node to help preserve freedoms on the internet, especially those of people oppressed in countries like Syria and other places. If you choose to prosecute me for running a TOR exit node which, by its stated purpose and nature, is encrypted and anonymous AND which I have no control of the data flowing through it then you must also prosecute EVERY internet service provider over which the same data flowed. I do not know now, nor have I ever known, exactly what data flows over the exit node. Just like ISPs do not know what data is flowing over their networks."

DO NOTHING ELSE. Even if it makes complete sense to you (keeping an encrypted backup of all your data and computer images off-site), the prosecution will do what they can to skew that to "Why did you keep encrypted backups off-site? What are you hiding?" Fuck 'em. Don't give them any ammunition in their fear-mongering quest to rule your life. Come away clean and then lawyer up and sue the police departments, all government levels* involved, and even the prosecutor. Your aim with the lawsuits is not to get paid, it is to get all your electronics back in a timely manner if they refuse to give them back once you are cleared. Of course, if they're being dicks about it then the object is to get your equipment back and get VERY large settlements.

*Not sure how the government levels are in Austria, but here in the United States we have city government, county government, then state, then federal. Depending on who is doing the prosecution, I would start my lawsuits with that level of government and work my way down. Same with the police forces involved.

Should this not cause everyone who has a PayPal account serious concern since Discover will be issuing cards to each person with a PayPal account? Will this card number be linked to your PayPal account AND visible in your PayPal account information?

While I don't think they have started issuing cards yet, this is still a current and future problem. IF they had started issuing cards and even if you had no money in your PayPal account, they could still attempt to use the Discover number, if known, and see what they can get. If I was Discover, I'd be blowing up PayPal's phones with calls to the CEO discussing this situation - and our very reasonable consideration to kill the deal.

I've dropped this quote on /. before in a similar conversation, but it applies just as much if not MORE here:

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
  Robert A. Heinlein

Would not calling a space probe "her" then bring all new meaning to the victims who have been anally probed? Would that not mean that "she" was hermaphroditic??

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them."

He also said -
"Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold, with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead, and with their wings exceedingly small. He did not, and that ought to show something. It is only in order to shield your ignorance that you put the Lord at every turn to the refuge of a miracle."

Both of these, from a man of God - a devout Roman Catholic, are what I use in conversations with those who, just because they believe in $DIETY, think their suppositions are the right ones. I try to point out to them that science and religion do not need to be enemies, and that humans who refuse to actually think are what make them so. Unfortunately, it ends with the "pious" person sticking their fingers in their ears and going "NA NA NA NA I can't hear you! Science sucks! NA NA NA NA" :-p

Fuck you. Don't go there.

Come on, this is ridiculous. This is the same kind of bullshit ultra-conservative religious people spout in the USA when they talk about naked people on TV. NEWS FLASH!! Turn the fucking channel and don't watch it. Or, even better, how about having a REAL conversation with your children explaining why you don't want them to view that material. Not just the reactionary one of "Don't look! Don't you ever look at that filth!" response because, guess what?, they're then 100 times more likely to go look at it. On the other hand, they might still look at it if you actually explained your reasoning behind not wanting them to watch it - you know, a real conversation with your children (because they actually understand a lot more than you want to believe - or do believe) and not just one of those "Because I said so" moments.

Sorry, that sort of degenerated into a rant. The basis still applies though ;-)

I'd like to see some sanity return to patents, since nothing exists in a vacuum. Everything new has been influenced in some way by past experiences and influences. From a rock rolling down a hill to rocks turned into wheels to wooden wheels to modern rubber tires, it has all been an improvement on the previous improvement. I hope Samsung prevails with this line of defense to the utter ruination of Apple's patent-ly bullshit attempt to stop their competition.

Frankly, the way things are moving, it might not be too long before software patents are gone and "look and feel" and other such patents actually have very limited lifespans or are disproven because the "look and feel" are based on a previous incarnation. I'd love to see THIS improvement made to patents and then improved upon again with copyrights included. You know, that whole "secure for a limited time" thing...

Please, please, please tell me you are joking... I am an avid reader of science fiction from William Gibson/Neal Stephenson to Robert Heinlein/Isaac Asimov and around to John Varley and Spider Robinson. In my much younger years (call it late teens), I tried to read Battlefield Earth and then the Mission Earth series (I had the first 5 volumes in hard cover for some reason). I quit reading Battlefield after 60 or so pages. I quit reading the first book in the Mission Earth after 20 pages or so. I do not mind technical detail in my books but gah!, those books bored me to tears with their writing style and the details included. I love some good pulp fiction but those don't cut it. I was hoping for fantastic considering the series was 10 books. What I received instead was drivel and 4.9 unread volumes (5+ if you count Battlefield).

Oh, yeah, the movie was such a large pile of shit that we could fertilize the mid-west with it for 20 years or so. To be fair, I might give the books another go. It has been a while.

Undoing a couple of mods as I felt I must post after reading the majority of this discussion.

As Heinlein said in "Time Enough for Love":

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

I personally believe we lose more than we gain by specialization and over-specialization. Yes, it makes some portions of society flow better, be more efficient but overall I believe that it breeds slow decay and/or a caste society where inequities beyond what we see now exist. Teach your children, your friends children, your younger cousins, and friends to critically think, to do something you can do that they can't, and in response get them to teach you something they can do (or know) that you cannot do or do not know. Raise everyone around you UP and quit trying to tear them down and suddenly, your life and those around you improve. If they insist on continuing down the path of tearing others down to raise themselves up, Darwin them out of your circle. Let nature take its course. Continue to learn and pass on what you have learned to others that you care about. It can only help, everyone including yourself.

I've been considering killing my Facebook account for a while. This just speeds up the process. I only use it to keep up with Birthdays and to network for local business opportunities. I believe I can find alternative means for those.

Hell, I believe everyone should find an alternative to Facebook since the giant, soul-sucking monster that is Wal-mart is joining forces with them. All hail Great Cthulu!