> I am not going to take a real loss for a theoretical one no matter how bad the theoretical loss might be. And that is why nuclear power plants can't be run by for profit companies.

Wow, you must hate your job.

But isn't that true for any large, dangerous machine? And doesn't making government responsible trade one problem (deliberately cutting corners for profit) for another (stifling, inattentive bureaucracy, undermotivated employees)?

Or perhaps people are buying copies of Windows 7 because it's better on PCs than Windows 8 and because Windows 10 is still an untested commodity? The article seems to take for granted that "everyone knows" the larger the number, the better the product. That's not necessarily the case.

A wholesaler with whom I do business still has a few copies of Win 7 Pro. I picked up another one recently for a system I might build in the fall. I didn't do it because I'm salivating over Windows 10, or because I'm trying to Beat The System by buying the cheaper OS that can be upgraded, but simply because Windows 7 meets my needs, Windows 8 doesn't, and Windows 10 hasn't been proven either way, yet.

And please, I know we can download and evaluate the Windows 10 test builds. I make a living off the things I do using a computer. I don't make a living testing operating systems.

The article seems designed to stir up Windows 10 buzz. I'm not buying it.

> it was a 'figurative $1" not a "literal $1"

Yes, I realize that. I wasn't just playing with words. Just pointing out that as the reward decreases and/or the total cost to pursue increases, somewhere the lines cross.

> Sometimes fighting for small amounts is to prevent that precedent from being used again for larger amounts as well.

Yes, very true. And one of the factors that may make it worth the cost of pursuing.

I'm not sure that's true (I didn't look at his psych report) but that wasn't really the point I was making.

More like, say, (for an extreme example) three intruders break into your house with the intent of doing serious bodily harm to your wife and daughter. You successfully defend your family with that cricket bat you keep leaned up against the corner of your bedroom.

Now, in some places that would be a righteous defense, they take your statement and drag out the bodies. In others, you might be looking at some jail time. In still others, you'd be on trial for murder. In some places, just having a cricket bat in your bedroom is a sign you were "spoiling for a fight". And of course, there are some places where the response would be "what the hell is a cricket bat?"

...but I submit that to most any reasonable husband and father, the act of defending a loved one is the moral decision, despite what the law happens to say.

Entirely off topic, regarding Bundy and his ilk, it occurs to me that there are three possibilities: (a) The perp has no idea what he's doing is wrong, (b) the perp knows it's wrong and does it anyway (for some other reason), and (c) the perp does it *because* it's wrong. Whether there should be separate penalties for each might make for a lively discussion.

Enh, to a certain extent true, but there is a cost associated with fighting for that extra $1. At some point it stops being cost-effective. There has to be some reason to fight for the dollar, not just that you smell like sulfur and your part is played by Ray Wise.

Enh... ok.... the pedantic in me is speaking up. Apologies in advance.

Although it may not apply in this case, I feel compelled to point out that "doing nothing wrong" and "not being criminally liable" are two entirely different things. The first is a moral judgement, and the second is decided by law, which may or may not be related to anything moral.

Conversely "doing something that any reasonable person would know is wrong" and "being criminally liable for such action" are two entirely different things as well. You could probably think of several recent examples in the news.

Ok, and with annual sales revenue of 180 Billion (with a B) or thereabouts, $450 Million amounts to the change you'd find under the couch cushions.

At first I wondered why they bothered to even fight it, but then I realized, with that kind of sales revenue, the cost of keeping lawyers on the case is pocket change.

> I don't know how you function in what I presume is USA but here in Poland in small to mid sized companies nobody would even consider buying general purpose office printer without knowing that there are cheap substitute toners aviable for that model.

Yeeeeaaahhhh........ so,... the way it works in the USA is that toner cartridges have encrypted DRM chips and when you put in an aftermarket cartridge, or refilled cartridge, your printer shows it as empty or invalid. So if you'd just pony up for those proprietary name brand cartridges, thaaaat'd be great.

Sorry, but if society wanted you to recycle toner cartridges, it'd be easy, or at least take a reasonable effort, to do so. When it takes more than a reasonable effort to recycle, it's trash. (With a caveat, enumerated below.)

I still change my own oil. And I take the old oil to any Autozone (there's one only a few blocks away) and they recycle for free. The same for car batteries. That's the way it should work.

One question, though: If you did not expect remuneration, that is, if you just took a bunch of toner cartridges to them and said "please take them", would they? If so, then do that and stop complaining about it. There's no way brick-and-mortar stores can compete with online, so any reasonable discount they give for a returned cartridge (which doesn't have a lot of value) will still not compete with online. That's a fact of life. To me, it'd be enough just to get the cartridges out of my life.

Here in Oregon, we have a thing that's still known as "the bottle bill" (although it's long since been law). Great idea, STUPID implementation. The machines have to read the bar code in order to give you your deposit back, which means you can't crush them ahead of time to save space, and you have to feed them into the stupid machine one........ at....... a........ time..... (There is usually one "bin" sorter but it's big and complicated and usually out of order.)

And so, it being a time consuming hassle to return the empties, for a long while I just accepted deposit as an additional tax and threw them away. Screw you Bottle Bill.

But later, I came up with a better solution. I bag them and when I have three or four 55 gallon trash bags full, I go by the local grocery on the way to work, find someone obediently putting their cans in one at a time, and say hey... would you like these? No, thank you! And they're Out Of My House, which (this is the important part) is the whole point. And who knows, I might have made some homeless person's day.

So, if it's too far away or if they make you jump through too many hoops to get rid of your toner cartridges, consider the trash can. But if you're holding out for a better discount, you're kinda missing the point. Man up and donate the damned things and be done with them.

Sorry, it just had to be said.

....I understand what you're saying and agree somewhat with the thrust of your argument, but I observe that TV series that run the full 24 or whatever episodes often have filler episodes that only serve to keep the actors employed. More and more, it seems like 13 well-written, concise episodes are a better way to keep quality, and therefore interest, high.

> "The fundamental recipe for media success, in other words, is the same as it used to be," concludes Wolff, "a premium product that people pay attention to and pay money for."

True as far as it goes, but not long ago when television was the only game in town, "premium" only referred to cost, not content. I think what we're seeing is the television industry re-discovering something they had forgotten since the early days when TV first had to fight for new eyeballs. That you can't just put any stupid formula thing out there, you had to provide content that people actually wanted to watch.

But I think the article (or at least, the summary) got one thing incorrect -- TV's true competition isn't ad-driven "free" content on the internet, it's paid content on the internet that's superior in both price and quality.

I think the TV business model -- that we're going to show you what we want you to watch when we want you to watch it (and sandwich some stinkers in between to get eyes on them) -- is still dead. But it's good to see that they're trying something besides litigation.

"Hi. You haven't acknowledged my findings yet. I think I have demonstrated that I've met the requirements of your "bounty". You can of course disagree, and that's fine. There are others who want to buy my work. Should I not hear back from you in the next 14 days, I will do business with them."

> Beer! hell you used to get a 6pack for a $1.

Yeah, but that was Buckhorn or some other off-brand. Good enough perhaps for high school drinking parties, especially since you were probably going to throw it up anyway.

> 3. Allowing aircraft to shoot at each other is a non-trivial legal and ethical problem. What happens if your stray rounds hit some kids playing in a park? Bullets can fly for miles and miles.

I'm not qualified to address the other points, but would like to point out that bird shot, which I believe would be much more effective than bullets against drones, has an effective range in tens of yards. Much further than that and the shot has lost the great majority of it's horizontal velocity and becomes tiny balls of copper or lead falling from the sky. Moreover, in this scenario we're assuming manned vehicles shooting at unmanned drones, not (hopefully) the other way around.

That said, I seem to recall reading somewhere that there is a legal prohibition for non-military personnel firing from a flying vehicle, so you could be right about legal issues.