He didn't promise that you could evade taxes, or launder money, or run a "non-profit" as a for-profit operation, if you were a marijuana grower or distributor. Hence, raids continue on businesses that are committing such crimes, and their choice of product does not mean they are free from prosecution. They went after fairly visible operations, ones that were making a lot of money and growing rapidly, because California MMJ law does not allow such business practices.

Let's take, oh, car monitoring systems.
(1) we've installed this logging software on your device;
Like a car error monitoring system.
(2) it is not possible through normal means to deactivate it;
Like a car error monitoring system.
(3) this software runs without any disclosure or agreement in your contract;
Like a car error monitoring system.
(4) this software runs on your device even if you are no longer under contract or even subscribed as our customer;
Like a car error monitoring system.
and (5) this software is not an integrated component of the device's operating system.
Like a car error monitoring system.
Do you, perchance, use a horse for travelling?

If you file a false claim, you not only get to pay for all financial damages to their site, you also have to pay for all legal costs. For IP lawyers, it's win/win.

"the" Democratic Underground? No, it's just Democratic Underground, or DU.

I'm imagining you trying to turn on a car by swiping your fingers on the dashboard.
Repeatedly.
It's hilarious.

It's not "a swipe to start using a touch interface". It's deliberately moving an image, with a gesture, across a touch interface, to verify that a "swipe" isn't accidental.

Exclusive rite? You mean, like a Masonic order?

"Frankly, if the world standardized on C tomorrow, and we just used extensions thereof for different platforms and purposes, we could all concentrate on getting useful work done and quit dicking around with learning the latest obscure and allegedly more elegant syntax."

FTFY

It's about time we started subjecting the complexities of society to science and computing on a massive scale. For the younger geeks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series

I work internationally. This means that I don't get to pick where keys are on a given keyboard. This also means that touch typing is worse than useless, because it teaches something that is *WRONG*, but habitual.

Bullshit. I got competent in PHP not because I had a job, but because I was willing to volunteer for the project. I got competent in PostgreSQL not because I had a job, but because I was willing to volunteer for the project. I got competent in OpenLDAP not because I had a job, but because I was willing to volunteer for the project. (etc)

FWIW: Timur Dykes (the perp in the news for the 18.5 million dollar penalty) was Mormon, and the Troop was a ward (church area, for you non-LDS-jargon-speakers) Troop. He confessed the abuse to his bishop.. The mormon church settled quietly out of court, the Boy Scouts decided to roll the dice.

China, is that you?

* Making code run faster
Every fucking day. If you don't do this then you're a dweeb who might as well be coding in php.
Your php comparison is broken. I specialize in writing (or, more often, re-writing) PHP, Perl, Python, Java, and Ruby web-application 'code' for scalability. The language used isn't the problem, people who don't care to write fast code is the problem. They will write shit code, regardless of the language.
In short, your comparison is also true for the following statements: "you're a dweeb who might as well be coding in C++", or "you're a dweeb who might as well be coding in Java", as both are equally true, but equally meaningless.

Does access to the books require a cart, driven by a buggy whip, as well?