I love it when spamming scum does something extraordinarily stupid. Good luck getting into a minimum security prison after this little stunt.

That assumes the CEO/company understands the difference between an "airline pilot" and a "taxi driver".

Some companies for which technology is not a core competency don't really know,

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/why-patent-lawyers-are-clueless-about-the-software-industry/254963/

Yes, it is impossible to figure out which patents your software is infringing. The article I linked explains a few reasons why.

This would've been a more interesting article, if it discussed the merits or lack thereof, of the RedHat change in the Linux kernel.

The "drama" the article discusses is of no value to anyone, but the likes of Nerd TMZ (if there was such a thing).

Can we please stop posting articles such as these? And if someone does post one, can we NOT promote them onto the front page?

I expect a tremendous boom in offshoring development work as a result.

Every patent troll is going to contract the cheapest possible software development team to implement working code for their idiotic patents.

This is not the right solution to the problem.

Limiting the duration of software patents would be a better one, if abolishing them entirely isn't on the table.

I'm just waiting for my ironymeter to jump to 11 when the US Government condemns the spying.

Big fan of unRAID as well.

I set up a box for home this summer. 20-drive max capacity, currently running on 6.

The extensibility of the system was the biggest selling point for me.

He was using the Consumerist article as an example, not a description of what happened to him.

Poor summary.

That's all fine and dandy until someone loses an eye.

I read some accounts of kids being bullied these days, and their situation was pretty desperate because the bullies were members of gangs. Any violence in self defense (or otherwise) would be responded by a beating by one or more of the other bullies in the gang.

Try fighting that...

I really don't understand his argument.

The "machines" aren't scanning/copying/rehashing the messages just because they can. They're doing it with to expose the content to as many people as possible. Without content aggregators and search engines the majority of online content would have only a fraction of consumers they have now.

I also think it's naive to expect every single person out there to consume content the same way or the way he thinks is The Right Way. I consume information in multiple ways. Some I read very carefully word for word, and check references and related information. Some I glance through quickly. For some I only read the summary. Same for all types of content. I don't think I'm unique in any way the way I consume content.

I think most reasonable people would agree with what you said.

I'm a heavy Xbox 360 user. I haven't been banned from XBL, because I don't go out of my way to break the TOS. I have been banned (for two weeks...once) from xbox.com, for posting something some unnamed moderator didn't like. A few of my friends have been (temporarily) banned from XBL for things like having "FFTW" in their motto.

In all cases it was impossible to get the exact reason for the ban. When I was banned from xbox.com I couldn't even send a private message to the moderators asking about why I was banned, because the ban removed my ability to PM the moderators. In all cases the bans were handed out anonymously, with no information about how to escalate if you felt you were banned erroneously. People were basically left guessing as to why they were banned with no way to find out what the reason really was. This is consistent across the board with Microsoft.

If I don't know why I was banned, how am I supposed to correct my behavior? Not knowing also often leads to all kinds of unhealthy speculation, paranoia and conspiracy theories.

Why can't Microsoft just tell people? They have all the information about why they banned someone after all.

You haven't followed New York State politics. They're not interested in solving problems for their constituents or saving tax-payer money.

There was a discussion on this on Slashdot already.

The contract is NOT expensive, if you look at the requirements, which are (or were) publicly available on the Government's contracting job bank.

In fact, if you looked at the requirements, and have any experience in system integration work, you'd have felt pity for whoever schmuck ended up doing the work for this one. It was preconditioned to fail.

It does seem, though, that the contractor made a best effort to screw it up on their own with the non-compliant implementation. If the Government requires them to fix it, I'm pretty sure the contractor won't actually make any profit out of the project.

This retailer is seriously screwing its customers by hiding problems in product it sells. I would absolutely avoid shopping with the retailer if I knew who it was.

Consumerist.com, owned by Consumer Reports, is doing a pretty good job exposing anti-consumer behavior by companies. I would tip them off about this.

So if you didn't have to work â" and had more money than George Lucas and Steven Spielberg â" would you be like Sall and continue to program?

Yes, I would.

I would work on all the projects I don't have time for between 10-hour workdays and 24-hour take-care-of-the-children-make-sure-wife-is-happy life.

I would be busier than ever. And I would love every minute of it.