but in this case the authors were anonymous - they are NOT going to de-cloak to enforce a trademark.

It's probably better for the security of the community at large to carry on calling it TrueCrypt (3.0, clear who the new team is, etc.). Trademarks exist to prevent confusion - in this case, using the same name is the minimally confusing option. The license is unenforceable and securing people's communications is more important to society than the wishes of the retired authors.

Imaginary property ain't real but the risks of electronic adversaries certainly are.

People just look at domains at BestBuy, then purchase them from Amazon.

"...because we would like to participate in a meaningful way with the universe"

The universe does not care and is not capable of judging our intentions or how "meaningful" (what's the measurement criteria? who decides what's meaningful?) our actions are

Stop anthropomorphizing.

You are correct that many conflicts result from competition for resources. The universe has almost infinite resources, so having cheap & plentiful resources available would tend to greatly mitigate resource-driven human conflicts.

At the very least, it will drive the conflicts away from the planet.

Strat

How about trying *actually" being in the woods with your friends?

Right. My kids visited with some family friends, and their kids play Minecraft 3-4 hours a day.

I guess it's entertaining, and they do neat stuff _in_ Minecraft, but it'll all illusory.

When they came home they asked me if we could get Minecraft. I told them, "of course not - go outside and build a treehouse. Get some sunshine while you're at it".

Minecraft is conditioning the factory workers of tomorrow. If we're to build a digidystopia, at least my kids can be running the thing. :/

it shows that neither know what they are talking about

no kidding - you could make a drinking game about how many elements of this story sound like they're from 2002.

The industry already settled on mp3, sans DRM. The market is not demanding anything Apple is offering.

And Bono can keep on trying to make sure poor African kids can never listen to his music (they'll never pay two days' wages for his post-Zooropa music). It's just sad that he pretends to care otherwise.

Didn't South Park point out that 1 in 4 Americans are idiots?

Yeah, and that's the problem; it's still not nearly enough. Even if they weren't idiots, the secede opinion would then just be 2/4, and you can't secede with that much lack of consensus, without a lot of societal strife and unhappiness.

(Before anyone replies "whoosh": whoosh yourself!)

(I'm not even sure why you'd want to use any web browser at all for this kind of thing. They should just make XBMC, MythTV, etc plugins. No, scratch that: they should publish APIs, and then let those teams write the plugins themselves. But anyway...)

If a vendor can't use standards well enough to be compatible with what you use, then just pirate. They'll either supply the files that you can use, or someone else will.

I don't see the problem, unless it's that you feel compelled to fight someone who tells you they don't want your money. If that's the case, then get over it. You can't make someone be greedy, and it'd be a pretty shitty world if you could.

So when do you ride down Electric Avenue on that Harley?

I was going to respond only to your first paragraph, but your last paragraph proves what I'm about to say.

Abstinence education can work, when you encourage critical thinking along with it and do not try to use ignorance to protect innocence. I took what I learned after I was married in Catholic NFP classes, and am using it to teach my special needs son about sex. Being well aware that his body will outpace his mind and critical thinking skills on this issue, I started early with my form of abstinence education- about age 5. Now at 11, he is both protective of his own eyes (hiding during certain scenes in Big Bang Theory, a show he otherwise enjoys) and protective of other people's modesty (necessary, since mommy runs a daycare) . He's already run into homosexuality at school, and handled it by coming to adults with the issue rather than attempting to dissuade a rather aggressive same-age predator on his own.

I have no doubt whatsoever that by high school, he'll be a leader, not a follower, when it comes to sex, and will be armed with the ability to make the correct decision when it comes to abstinence before marriage.

But only because we've talked about it, and because I've been honest.

How much math does it take to use a slingshot?

I always thought it was an awesome idea to have a bigass set of computers at home... Ya well now I get paid to manage a bigass set of computers professionally and I'd rather just leave them there, thanks. Also there's no compelling reason to want my own servers for the sort of things I do, VMs work so well. I'll just lease one from somewhere, or spin one up at work.

At home, all my gear is related to, well, home use. More than a non-geek would have for sure but no data center.

Exactly. You're the kind of people they want to keep out. People who think that $5k is a waste. For their target audience, $5k is either not worth even thinking about, or a fair price to pay for making sure you spend your time only with people who fall into either of these categories.

Those TV and music starlets will stay on FB because they want and need to stay in touch with their fans.

The wealthy have always segregated themselves. That $10k membership fee in the golf club is not because keeping the grass short is so expensive, either. It is to make sure everyone you meet there is in your class.

Frankly speaking, I'm mostly surprised that this doesn't already exist.

Hard to tell what point(s) you're attempting to make here.

So, is killing efficiency your yardstick?

I don't see how efficiency relates. Heck, there are species of marine life who eat the egg-clusters and hatchlings of their competitors, and that's upwards of tens of thousands or more.

Or is it the use of tools to kill?

Chimps and other apes will often pick up a branch to swing at another when they are angry/aggressive. Other examples of tool-use by apes is abundant. Google will supply you with examples.

Seems in that regard the only difference is the level of sophistication of the tools/weapons related to the differing complex intellectual levels of the two species.

No doubt if apes had a similar size brain and intellectual capability as humans, the technical level of their weapons would rise as well.

Many people like to attribute some sort of "perfect moral innocence" to animals while humans are somehow forever separate from animals and that all human effects upon animals are "unnatural" and inherently bad and wrong. They also tend to decry human behaviors that have roots in our animal nature as somehow evil and unnatural.

It's an emotional response motivated by compassion and I appreciate that. However, humans are just as natural on Earth as deer or whales. Everything will always effect everything else, and species will go extinct and new species arise as long as life exists.

Since our self-awareness and intelligence and ability to control our environment allows us to avoid natural systems of regulation, we must consciously choose to find a balance between not causing undue harm to animals and nature while not placing undue limitations on the advancement of humanity towards moving outwards into space.

Earth is not a perpetual-motion machine, and we need to leave the cradle. Humanity cannot afford to hunker down, slow progress, and ration out ever-dwindling resources. That's a recipe for extinction.

Balance is the key.

Balance will not be found at the extremes.

Strat

Yeah, can't figure out how a gender studies major ever gets anything other than the type of job gender studies are supposed to eliminate.