To be fair, many probes have done this type of thing.

The Voyager probes had software updates regularly in their prime, and it frequently made news back in the day. When approaching a planet or interesting object they would upload imaging software, when finished they would upload different sensor programs. About a decade ago (2003?) there were news stories about how they reprogrammed one of the probes to help detect the crossover to deep space.

It is certainly interesting and poses some risk of breaking the probe, but it is standard procedure and something the probes are designed for.

Usually when you "win" a case through that kind of settlement they don't pay your legal fees, just the one lump sum. In fact, I'm a little surprised the number was released, usually the whole thing is private. It is possible that somebody leaking the dollar value may have automatically ruined the settlement, but I hope not. This has been two years in the making, so I'm pretty sure those legal bills are going to be rather substantial.

You might be right, maybe it was $70K plus all costs, we don't have the terms of the settlement.

As for the cost of schooling, I would look at the cost of private schools to see an equivalency rather than home schooling. A few minutes on Google shows that around here the going rate is about $18,000 for grades 5-7, and about $21,000 for 8-12, so about $141K for tuition alone. Maybe schools are cheaper in their area.

No, she refused. Then they called the cops. The police officer and administrator together threatened her, and eventually (in tears) she gave in. Note the age of the child.

As she was not even a teenager at the time, that looks to me like very strong compulsion from authority figures. A normal pre-teen is not going to say "you cannot do this, it violates my rights, let me talk to my parents and a lawyer." Under this kind of pressure they'll believe the officer will throw her in jail forever, and break down.

For the measly $70K, I think I might have continued fighting it through to an actual judgement. That won't even begin to cover their costs to date, nor will it cover the costs of home-schooling for six years. In addition to suing the district, I'd be suing the school administrator personally, and be suing the officer personally for criminal acts done under color of law.

Probably something like "These administrators are total fascists."

Look at the districts reply: We searched her cell phone without permission. We won't do that again. Now we have a standard form requiring permission that all students must sign. WTF?! The problem was not a lack of parental signature. The problem was a flagrant abuse of rights, which apparently they are happy to continue.

The system is not about cheating. The system is primarily about profanity and abuse.

They have been tinkering with it since it came out.

Also they haven't released what specific metrics they are using, but they have already mentioned factors: account playing statistics, complaints per hour played, positive feedback messages, friend requests, negative feedback messages, "Avoid This Player" marks, gamercard mutes, gamercard blocked communications, and filed complaints and reports. Couple all of them together and you will likely see some patterns quickly. They also mention that it will have human involvement and you will not be dinged for being skilled, nor will you be dinged for people targeting you. The last two seem to imply some human involvement.

My guess is that they start with simple statistical analysis to identify players trending downward with a steady stream of "block communications", "avoid this player", and "mute" flags. All of these are specifically mentioned on their site. After algorithmic identification, I'm guessing one of their army of community managers (real live human beings who are employed to listen to the vitriol and enforce the rules) would probably get a notice to monitor the chat when the player starts play. If they hear a profanity stream click the check box marked "profanity". If they hear taunting, harassment, or other abuse, pick the check box that corresponds. With a real live human involved they can nicely handle people who were wrongly accused.

Stockpiling a prescription anti-anxiety drug?

Unless he is planning on some massive illegal drug parties or become a dealer of some sort I don't see how that would be a good investment.

Not really news.

When Eris, MakeMake and Sedna were accepted in the IAU's list they already had about 50 more 'probable dwarf planets' inside the Kuiper belt. The following year the list of 'probable dwarf planets' grew to nearly 400.

The estimated number is about 10,000 dwarf planets in our solar system. Hopefully we won't have big news announcements for each one. But hey, slow news days need something...

The problem is you need an organization that will care for the stuff for longer than than the recorded history of humanity.

We keep creating all this waste that we have no way to actually dispose of.

We can treat it, put it in a concrete cask, and store the casks somewhere, but we have no ways to actually dispose of it other than to wait for millions of years.

Nuclear waste is the most immediately dangerous after we create it. Highly toxic, easily misused, easily stolen and repurposed. (Not all nuclear waste is equal, most of it is fairly benign such as medical and industrial waste. Those little green "exit" signs will eventually classify as nuclear waste.) The really dangerous stuff, like the spent nuclear reactor fuel, we have no way to deal with. But as bad as it is, at least the planet can probably eventually filter through the stuff.

Plastic is less immediately toxic but we also have no way to realistically dispose of it. It doesn't biodegrade. We are ending up with sites like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that continue to grow.

Sadly we keep making more and more trash that we cannot dispose of. Like most of humanity's history we care more about our immediate survival and our immediate convenience than the long-term survival and long-term convenience.

Desert? yes. Worthless? No.

Deserts are usually less exploitable by humans, but they are extremely valuable to the planet. Through sorry experience we have learned that desert ecosystems are easily damaged. Vehicles driving across the surface can crack and break the crust of micro-organisms ("desert pavement") where the damage can last for centuries.

The thought process of "Humans cannot immediately exploit the resources, therefore it is worthless" is extremely foolish.

Just look at what humans have done to resources we consider valuable. Deforestation of entire contents, fishing out oceans to possibly the point of exhaustion. Desert regions are one of the few resources left mostly intact from human destruction.

Several countries have attempted to ban YouTube, Twitter, and similar sites. Most end up removing the ban within days. Some remove it within months.

Turkey is one of the countries that maintained a ban longer than most countries, with the YouTube ban lasting about 29 months. Wikipedia says that even with the ban, it was reported as Turkey's 8th most popular web site while DNS blocks were in place and government officials (including the prime minister and president, both the same people in power today) publicly discussed that they continued to use the banned site. Quite a few other web sites are banned as well, yet they still have a strong Turkish user base.

Turkey has a history of banning the interwebz through DNS blocks, and the people know how to get around it easily.

Also, adding up the years, seems like the OP might be approaching the magical years of age discrimination in software development. Five years here, three there, two years at several places... puts the OP at around age 35-40.

So the solution: Be younger.

To be fair, they were 'compulsory legal process', and almost certainly were accompanied by gag orders that have not been rescinded.

There are many kinds of domestic spying, referred to by their section of law. You've got 501, 1806, 1825, and 1845. All four can be used with gag orders. The ISP is basically forced to install hardware. They can chose to let the government do everything (and get paid for resources used), or install a tap themselves so the government can use it (and charge for resources used), or fight it (the tap still gets installed, but they don't get paid for resources used.)

Most of these come with gag orders: If you say anything, even hint that you might have known was was going on, and you risk violating the gag order.

There are very few business owners who have said anything about the process. Everyone should read Pete Ashdown's account. (He founded a major ISP in 1993, has run for senate, etc.) He describes receiving a FISA order, not being allowed to take notes or other details. Unlike most companies, he decided to isolate the customer's virtual machine to a single dedicated box, and then put the court-ordered recording box on that one specific box.

In the article he spends three paragraphs describing what the did, ending with "I can’t tell you all the details about it. I would love to tell you all the details, but I did get the gag order. I have probably told people too much. That was two years ago. If they want to come back and haunt me, fine.

When these executives are getting potentially a few dozen to a few hundred of these requests that include a gag order. None have revealed as much as Ashdown did in those few paragraphs, other than to say in corporate reports that they have received 0-999 such orders.

In this case, some of the conspiracy questions are also due to sampling methods and poor questions.

In the publicly viewable section of the report, they use an "online survey sample of 1351 adults ... The survey results were then weighted to provide a representative sample of the population".

Consider who is most likely to click on the "Take online surveys now!" button. We should all know about the problems with self-selected participants.

If the participant selection method isn't bad enough, look at the questions:

"Health officials know that cell phones cause cancer but are doing nothing to stop it because large corporations won't let them". I immediately see three critical flaws with that one. Do I vote "Disagree" because it doesn't cause cancer? Or maybe they used to cause cancer but have done something? Or maybe it isn't being withheld because of large corporations?

Or another one, "Doctors and the government still want to vaccinate children even though they known these vaccines cause autism and other psychological disorders." What if it is just doctors, not government? What does the "other psychological disorders" include? Can't we all just get along?

As for the results, just look at things Jimmy Kimmel's 'Lie Witness News" where they ask people about made-up things and people proudly state that they know the things for truth. I'd put most of those people firmly into the category who would click the "Take online surveys now!" buttons.

This, a thousand times.

When you discover a vulnerability:
* Do not go to the vendor. They will often ignore it or sue.
* Do not go to the school or business. They will ignore it, sue, fire, and expel.
* Do not go to the government. They will imprison.
* Do not go to the Interwebz at large. You get everything above.

Take the exploit and related proof to a trusted, large, well-established security company that accepts anonymous submissions and will publicly disclose the exploit if not addressed within a specific number of days.

So basically you take the classic evidence of age discrimination. You assumed they will demand more money.

If the person has the skills you want, REGARDLESS OF AGE, you make an offer you think is fair.

Applicants usually do not say, "I require $145,000 per year". They instead say, "I'm looking for a job".

If they apply and you think they want lots of money, you can tell them "I'm not sure this is a match with your experience, we are paying around $50,000". If they say "That is wonderful, let's have some interviews", then congratulations on getting experience for cheap.