He's entitled to his opinion and he's entitled to spend the money he has earned as he sees fit.
And everyone else is entitled to their opinion that he's a hateful asshole. What you're saying is, "he's entitled to his opinion, but no one else is entitled to a contrary opinion."
Our corrupt government allows corporations to poison our food in order to poison the bugs that eat it.
The bugs evolve to resist the poison, making the poison pointless.
Our government allows corporations to continue poisoning our food because the corporations have become dependent on the income the poisoning provides.
We are still being poisoned, and will continue to be poisoned.
Yet genetically altering our food is somehow still considered a good thing by the clueless. Sadly, the clueless are the ones making the decisions and supporting those making the decisions.
Oh that not so bright kid that can run and catch really good? he is a superstar!
You've really only touched upon the disfunction in American society. I could write a Ph.d thesis on how the United States is breeding itself into obsolecense. We are a country that is more obsessed with brawny men in tight pants moving a ball from one end of a large field to another than we are with keeping our country educated and competitive.
When I was getting my degree, our school would close off parking for academic purposes so the football spectators could park. Nevermind that we had group assignments to complete; there be a bunch of young boys moving their balls across the field!
Our society is slitting its own throat.
Billionaires tend to be far more critical of what their money finances than government granting authorities.
True, but the outcome is not usually what you are implying. Billionaires tend to put their money where there is the most to gain for themselves, while governments have a stronger motivation to fund important fundamental discoveries that do not provide an immediate return on investment.
Consider all of the scandals involving made up data.
Both privately and publicly funded entities do this. At least publicly funded entities can be cross-checked. Privately funded entities are under no pressure to disclose all their sources, and will be even less so as private funding of science becomes more socially acceptable.
A billionaire who discovers shenanigans certainly won't fund that researcher again, a government agency probably will.
To a billionaire, "shenanigans" means that the "researcher" didn't arrive at the results the billionaire paid for. So yes, the billionaire will not fund that researcher again.
...it's pretty obvious that private donors are more likely to scrutinize than public sector donors.
Yes, but only to make sure that the private donors' political biases take precedence over the truth.
Billionaires have the luxury of blowing their money however they see fit.
And they will only "blow" their money on endeavors that make them more money. How do you think they became billionaires to begin with?
This is how science got funded during its first centuries as a discipline when many of the giants of science did their work.
Lots and lots and lots of good science had to fight and uphill battle against the political desires of private patrons back then, which held back scientific progress rather than promoted it.
No, private funding of the sciences was, is, and will be a disaster.
It doesn't surprise me that Bill Gates would identify with the megomaniacal dictatorship mentality that permeates our Federal Government. He was the megomanical dictator of a multinational corporation for so many years, that he can't understand an organization working in any other manner.
Instead of monitoring their ranks to punish people who are actually serving the public interest, maybe our Federal government could stop doing illegal stuff that needs to be covered up and swept under the rug.
Naw, let's just persecute the messengers instead.
Seriously is there anyone that would actually believe such a statement?
Yes, they are called "Cloud Users". These people are as dumb as dumb gets.
This effectively removes the fourth amendment prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure: Just keep arresting and hauling away occupants until one of the remaining occupants gets too scared to invoke his Constitutional right.
All six Justices who voted for this need to be impeached for treason.
With the current wording GEMA looks like the bad guy.
Hmmm...let's see:
1) GEMA (presumably) has the legal right to license the music.
2) GEMA has not licensed the music, and ordered Google to remove it.
3) Google removed it, and explained that it has been removed due to 1 and 2 above.
So what part of that is Google's fault? Google explained very factually that the rights owner has not granted Google a license to exhibit the music, and GEMA has a hissy fit. Seems like GEMA is the bad guy. Or at the very least, it seems like GEMA is run by a bunch of emotionally stunted 12 year-olds.
I just got my hands on a leaked copy of the cirriculum, and I'm posting it here in its entirety:
Chapter 1: In The Beginning
God did it.
Chapter 2: Your Responsibilities
God did it.
Chapter 3: Your Future
God did it.
Please pick up your State of Oklahoma diploma on your way out into the real world.
Seen the Snowden character assassination even here on Slashdot.
And they're still trying to assassinate Julian Assange's character (see yesterday's Slashdot stories) in a transparent attempt to divert attention away from their highly illegal/unconstitional behavior.
Remember, the NSA's stated M.O. is to publicly smear Julian Assange in order to get people to divert focus away from the crimes commited by the U.S. Federal Government.
Julian's character is an irrelevant distraction, so don't get drawn into a debate over the messenger. Stay on message: The U.S. Federal Government has committed crimes against its people, and will do anything to cover it up.
He also often uses linguistic terms for Perl language constructs, so instead of traditional terms such as "variable", "function", and "accessor" he sometimes says "noun", "verb", and "topicalizer".
That would explain why, as a programming language, Perl is so damned inpenetrable. Hint to Larry: Vogon poetry is not a programming language.
Military intelligence has always been an oxymoron, so this shouldn't surprise anyone.
We are using the best interface that exists and that is unlikely to change.
At least not until we get the Do What I Want, Not What I Say language.
Happiness is twin floppies.
