Corps throw their "IP" wads of shit against the USPTO dartboard and sees what sticks.

Some shit ALWAYS sticks.

What is speech? I think that's making any argument you'd like for or against something, the establishment, other ideas, the man, etc.

I think requiring the sign-off of all parties for pornographic videos (or any any other really where privacy is a reasonable expectation) might not be a bad idea.

But maybe it can be generalized. Say video of a person is captured in a changing room at some dept. store, the security guard takes it to try to sell it to a magazine because he thinks it's a famous person, it gets printed/put on the web. Should that be allowed? Now, think, that perhaps even if it was a celeb, they should be afforded the same protection as well?

I think perhaps it can be generalized to situations where the person expects privacy, video should not be released unless it's in the public interest (you catch the President discussing how the NSA can break into private homes to get documents) or for other criminal matters (politician taking bribes, adult trying to lure kids in a van, whatever).

Isn't there a line that protects both free speech and human dignity?

Given how small cameras and microphones have come, our freedom of speech has slammed into our rights to be safe and secure in our own homes, and lastly our own persons, our bodies.

Just like disallowing someone to yell fire in a theater, you are not actually imposing on free speech in a significant way, (I can still argue that it can be allowed, or that fires in theaters are a problem, etc), I don't see how allowing for human dignity will impose on free speech here.

I can see how a law will do that, but only if we try to be staunch and try to resist at all costs. This debate has been long in coming. We should participate and be instrumental in crafting something reasonable instead of letting a draconian law pass that merely uses a legitimate issue for the legislators' and their handlers' own ends.

What do we have to lose out on? A quick laugh at Star Wars kid where we got a few seconds of enjoyment at the cost of years of this kid's life and psyche, and other misfortunates like him? Where's the free speech in that?

From what I have seen on the cheaper android stuff, it's like Microsoft vs Apple all over again from the 90s.

Just from the POV of cheaper hardware but at the tradeoff of bloatware/computer monitoring/antivirus and the like vs a walled garden.

I would say it's a variety of factors. I got relatives this $99 Aldi tablet because they are almost completely computer illiterate so anything beyond email was a bonus. I'm not that near and dear to them as to afford them ipads.

I expected the hardware to be completely half-assed, but for the price it was surprisingly good, to the point that I could put Netflix on it and it would play videos. The problem was not the hardware. Granted, the screen was anything close to beautiful unlike recent iPads (or even old ones), the battery wasn't huge, but sufficient for 90 minutes of netflix. The CPU was okay.

The problem was the experience was abysmal. Had some anti-virus preinstalled that slowed shit down. Skype kept forgetting it's password. A ton of apps listed in searches in the Google Play store weren't compatible with my device despite being for a tablet (don't know why). My relative came back to me with their tablets nearly unusuable, one had a browser with over 50 tabs open. It became no longer a matter of just closing the app, or closing tabs (more and more would spawn, wasn't malware or bad websites, just previous tabs and the close button became unresponsive on them). A lot of the built-in apps were always on and sucking the life out of its battery. Apple got a lot of bitching for it's limitations but they got a lot of it right. (Still, I think some limitations should only be defaults able to be turned off by the power user).

I didn't give them a Google Store name/password simply out of their own protection. So they can never buy an app and have to come to me, but they honestly are just happy with what they have so it's unlikely.

So it's not just a money factor. I think anyone can afford .99 apps and the like. When you have people who don't know what computers do, they are likely to hunt down the cheapest options (or be given the cheapest options by others) and buy them and never go past that.

I'm from an era when computers cost $3k for a POS that got obsolete within 18 months.

Anyway, I was talking relatively.

The historical reason to max ram within 18 month of purchase is that's when it's easiest and cheapest to do, at least retail. A few years back, was looking for ram for a 6 year old system (not that I bought a cpu/motherboard type that just came out either, mind you, so add 2 years to that for model age) and it was pretty much impossible. Places that had it charged way more per/gb than ram for recent systems. Could either waste time on craigslist salvaging old computers or take chances on buying used on the shitbay.

Though I agree, now max ram on many systems are passing actual need. Something that started around mid-00s for some low-end users and is spreading upward.

Unless you're rendering or the like, the bottleneck now is internet connection.

1TB for $500? Remember when the 16gb ones were expensive as hell just a few years back?

I guess they're bound to replace platter based drives even for storage by the end of the decade, since that just really budged in capacity significantly in years.

Right now doing fine with a 256gb one. 128gb ended up cramped far too often with os/apps and normal downloads.

Back when the aptera was a possibility, they removed the mirrors in favor of camera for the aerodynamic gains. (Aptera was a very aerodynamic car so the gains were real). Unfortunately, state laws didn't allow it everywhere, so they had to put them back on.

Also, mirrors aren't that simple. Even in many low end cars, they have electronics to move them around in the meantime for the driver and I'm it can break. Mirror themselves often are poorly made and lose their finish (see this on vans and the like).

So I think a nonmoveable camera might actually work better if it has a wide angle.

Right now, someone designed a mirror without blindspots that wouldn't cost much to implement, but current law doesn't allow for that either.

https://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/...

So I would be pleased if the law does change to allow both/more flexibility.

Sounds a bit like Enterprise's In a Mirror, Darkly eps (and yeah, that TOS ep with goateed spock which I forgot the name of too). Excellent eps by the way.

Not quite Captain material, but perhaps a less sleazy Riker. Or more sleazy, depending on how he wants to play it. But unlike the 90s-early00s Star Trek, this one needs more humor in it (understated, mind you, like TOS), and a bit more world building. No longer hitting the reset button at the end of every show.

Hell, if it's better than the braindead JJ Abrams stuff, I'd be happy.

It's called the Apt Tax and could replace many of our existing taxes and severely reduce the IRS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
http://www.apttax.com/

The guy who quoted 2% is much too expensive though. It should be less than 1%.

I suspect a kill switch may hurt or help handset makers another way. The loads of people who thought they lost/had their phone stolen but find it shortly after again.

Will they demand free replacements and the manufacturers bow to their demands or will they just go out and buy a new one?

A little more than 1/100. The weight of water in such a pool is 2,500 tons. The weight of the peanut butter is 25 tons. Water density is 1 g/cc. Unsalted peanut butter is 1.09 g/cc.

Every time I see new construction around here, they put dig some ridiculous pond/hole-in-the-ground for water to go. Except it's way out of proportion to what they're are builing (like 1/5 the constuction size in my area). So lots of still standing ponds and swampy areas. And people wonder why the area has a mosquito problem and then spray poisons to reduce them. Which probably lead to something else.

I don't even know the point of the ponds, don't see them in Europe at all. Probably something civil engineers instructed townships to do to justify their existence, and it's spreading as township tend to just copy each other.

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