Qualcomm invented the cell phone.

I would go too google.com and enter '-slashdot Mouse/Pointer For a Person With Poor Motor Control.'

I want to interject that "My Sweet Lord" and "He's So Fine" are the EXACT SAME FUCKING SONG. Same melody, structure, and everything. Basically a cover, except you take out the cool girl group singing "sha la la" and add in some Hare Krishnas singing the Hare Krishna mantra.

If this had been made in Brazil, Chinese companies would still have copied the basic design. You can also get fake rolexes in China, and those are made in Switzerland (according to 3 seconds of Googling).

They didn't use the same factory, so the country of the original is a basically irrelevant point.

You could easily spend more than $5000 getting braces or plastic surgery.

It would still be worth mining bitcoins, if somebody else was paying for the electricity.

For all the hate the US gets on Slashdot, it's still the country of record. It's hitting the big time. Top finance jobs are centered in the US. Top technology jobs are centered in the US. The movie and TV industries are largest in the US. 9 of the world's 10 best universities are in the US. Sure, such jobs are available in Nigeria, but the best most and the most talented tend to work in the US, and you're limiting your kid's future by not allowing it.

I know so, so, so many Chinese people (both PRC and Taiwan, Malaysia, etc.) killing themselves to get their kids in the US because it has the best school and the top jobs. Not to mention, my wife's parents, several of my best friend's parents, etc. NOT doing it, when it would be easy to fill out paperwork, just seems like irresponsible parenting.

Well, the software was sold in the US. And, charges against the dude were dropped. And it was 14 years ago. So I think it's understandable that it's no longer a burning issue.

But what you're saying would be equivalent to somebody else making their own show where kids turn into ninjas and attack warriors, not just somebody making their own Power Rangers mini-movie.

Similarly, there's a difference between being inspired by a band, and just re-doing their song without permission.

It is protected by copyright, and calling it satire is obviously bullshit.

Usually companies let fan-works slide, and as long as your fan-film or fan-fiction or geeky video is just done for fun, why shouldn't the company allow it? It's just building good will and it's a super-fan only thing that doesn't really change what most people think of the brand. They still have legal rights to disallow it, but they choose not to.

This video, with recognizable stars and lots of money put into it and professional purposes (it seems to be a kind of work to put on the director's resume) went too far. I'm not at all surprised they aren't happy with it, and legally and ethically they have every right to get it off of the youtubes.

Did you read the Wikipedia article? "It is estimated that there are 300,000 pieces of space junk ranging from 1cm to 25cm, and on average one satellite is destroyed each year." I'm not sure why 23 more pieces would cause us to lose space.

7 updates to a franchise in 14 years is anemic compared to other game franchises.

Does this guy read Slashdot? How does he know that people who are good with software could have such poorly informed and ridiculous opinions on matters of scientific interest? Makes me want to give the guy a high five!

If one person's personal bad experience with T-Mobile is news, than perhaps it's newsworthy that I use T-Mobile and am completely happy with it. Recently I switched to the two lines unlimited data with Hotspot for $100, it's great. My wife and I use a lot of data and there's no throttling or any problems at all, and the hotspot works well (we both have problems with internet sometimes not being available at work).

It works great in other countries, it's free to use data in Mexico (but with 3g) and in Asia (or anywhere, really) you could call people over wifi just like a normal phone.

The only problem is that reception in hilly forest areas of the Bay Area is sometimes spotty, often with no data. AT&T is better at that.

Speaking Empirically:

1) People thought bitcoin was anonymous, and therefore a good way to buy drugs/steroids. If people didn't believe this, other people wouldn't have to constantly be pointing out that Bitcoin isn't anoynmous. Nobody points out that American Express isn't anonymous, because it's COMPLETELY FUCKING OBVIOUS. Even Ross Ulbricht apparently didn't think through how traceable bitcoin is.

2) There isn't a company that is able to block/refund payment to drug dealers/steroid users. Once the money is transferred, it's as good as cash.

3) There is a fair amount of self-sustaining hype about bitcoin, where people just get one or two as a fun investment, or they're curious to check out what all the talk is about.

Give me a fucking break. You really list "17 year olds can use it!" as your first reason why it's popular? Children are not the driving force behind crypto-currencies.