*sigh* Yes, because that's the same thing.

It's rather easy to identify fake anything, for the most part, in China.. unless you're some street-dumb newb who just walks off a plane and is SHOCKED that they copy software for sale on street corners.

Come on - doesn't this emphasize the crisis in US pharma that is so easily ignored? Canada creates a highly viable experimental vaccine for a very dangerous and scary virus, and US pharmaceuticals seek to pwn it up in their own market. The rest of the world wont be fucked by the Canadian government - they'll make it readily available...because the rest of the world doesn't suffer from getting fucked on pricing by the US pharma lobby and policies around it.

When I arrived in China, I was shocked at how cheap US pharmaceuticals were (authentic ones, not fake ones, of course). Why? They don't have the ability of collusion in the market place and the funny thing is: the free(er) market on pharmaceuticals means lots of competitive and chemically identical or near-identical in the functional sense products all over the market, so the ridiculous pricing schemes that work in the US simply don't work here. Free market indeed, it's funny when the market is far freer in a politically communist nation, and so many Americans point to China and say "COMMUNISSSTTTSSSS"!

I was also amused when I walked into a hospital, got an x-ray, took the x-rays home, and it cost me about $12 including a brief consult all in - and about 30 minutes of my time.

Oh? Punching is attempted murder? If that even happened -- the only statements of any aggression on the behalf of the deceased comes from the cop, who just so happens to have a very strong motive for making such statements.

Odd. I don't see assault being tried as attempted murder very often. I guess bar brawls are full of murderers, according to you. I'm sure when someone shows up at your door asking for help, you see that as a threat (especially if their black), and pull out your gun to protect your home as well, right? Get ahold of yourself you fucking nutcase.

Two different things: what you said was, he got what he deserved -- he was a petty thief. If the circumstance you have just fleshed out is the actual circumstance, it's a lot more justified than implying that someone who has done some ridiculously minor crime like petty theft deserves to be executed on the street. You can easily paint any scenario you want to suit a justification, though, so paint away.

Yes, petty thievery demands execution. Spot on, mate! Spot on!

What do you say we do with the swarthy cads who cross the road without even having the decency to use a crosswalk, guv'nuh?

Twitter itself is becoming an advertising / corporate platform, perhaps not the social media magnate it once was. I'd argue that, if Glass is dead, so is twitter - or at least heading that way, and that perhaps while their assessment holds true, maybe they need to rethink their own business model.

It's not programmed for one generation - it degrades, though, with successive generations, ultimately meaning if you want to have reasonable yields, you need fresh seeds. The biggest problem is that to plant normal seeds after switching to GMO, farmers typically need to wait ~7yrs. For many farmers, that's financially impossible - so they're even more locked into buying new seeds annually.

Do some research before you make stupid statements that show you don't understand the issue.

If farmers do want to go back to normal seeds - *once their contract with Monsanto is up* - they typically have to wait an average of 7 years and use a lot of round-up on the soil before growing non-GMO. That's pretty much locked in, no?

"any time they choose" -- not in this reality.

A few years ago, this was started: http://www.opensourceseediniti...

For some reason they haven't spread into Africa - but are all over North America/Europe in a large way, someone needs to start providing higher quality seed options for the poorest farmers of the world rather than leave the door wide open for obvious pillagers like most of the shameless extortionists in the Big Ag industry. Once they convince people of the higher yields and lock them in, ah.. one of the saddest things in the world - and seeing it happen in the poorest nations just compounds that feeling. These people need food. Technology can help make that happen. The technology that will make that happen - must not be patented and created with self-degradation causing forced-repurchase as a 'feature'.

Many people will complain about this. I initially thought along the same lines as many of the above posters when reading the blurb about what's about to happen - and also think it's terrible. What will happen, though, is the extremity and sleaziness also strikes enough interest that people _will watch it_, even if they hate Discovery channel while doing so. They'll get the viewers. They'll get attention. It'll be passed around. They surely know already that they have a reputation dive akin to GT Advanced's stock dive, so when you're deemed a channel with momentum diving downward so quickly I suppose they thought along the lines of: Embrace It...there are enough people who eat this shit up that it'll likely be their best ratings in recent memory.

Mt. Everest.. Mt Blanc.. a large part of the 'club' is being someone who can afford - and otherwise thinks themselves above the likelihood, of cheating the statistics. There is a certain lackluster cheating death and being above the rest arrogance that goes with these types of adventures, and there isn't necessarily anything wrong with that. There is also a lot of jealousy and resentment amongst the crowd who sits in their chairs at home criticising those who choose to try something different - without that kind of investment and spirit, humanity on whole would not be better off.

Welp, they got him! Don't we all feel so much safer. After all, the heinous crime of "assisting in making copyright content available" surely warrants the international manhunts. I can walk downstairs and buy a stack of any movies or games or, well, anything I wish in the open in China..good thing countries like the US use grand tools like embargos to press the Chinese government to do something about it!

It's easy to pick a famous name - or create symbols for these 'wars' and spend ridiculous amounts of money on the behalf of old-style big business with lobbyists and donations...but the solution to piracy is to change the business model employed by the companies or artists who are being hurt by piracy. Louis CK famously sold $1mil in a week worth of $5 specials on his own website, why? Because he put out a great product and said: You don't need to sign up with a bunch of information or provide me with a bunch of details, or opt into some kind of marketing scheme, you can give me $5 and get a product, and watch it anywhere on any device you want..or pirate it.. do whatever you like - but I'm trying to provide a quality product and hopefully you'll appreciate that.

The alternative is to fall into the game, music, and movie big industry problem of pushing out a massive amount of shit at high 'standardised' pricing to audiences who are tired of spending too much and getting too little, and as a result, driving people to simply pirate and try things before deciding what they really want to support. Personally I pirate most of my games, I also bought legitimate consoles and buy legitimate copies of games I *really* want, or buy authentic DVD/sets when there is something I really like out there - 100% of which I have already seen.

They'll get the hint, someday, or crumble eventually. For now, people like Gottfrid need to be admired for what they've contributed to making change happen.

The problem is any launch in China that fails will smoke some people on the ground. There are people on the ground _everywhere_. :D

So the tech giants are donating ALMOST as much as the clownface Ballmer receives in tax breaks from purchasing a sports team? Great job guys! Let us gather and praise the fractions of tax deductible gifts which pale in comparison to the profits earned by manufacturing in poverty stricken countries and shirking domestic tax responsibilities, because it is the only salvation to clean you're otherwise amoral-yet-wretched corporate souls.

This has been going on for maybe a month -- but glad someone has logged/traced/pointed it out.. at least for hotmail.com. It's not consistent - but it has happened to me maybe 10 or 15 times in the last month. Typically it's perfectly fine.