Depending on the state, sentences can even be active (prison time), probation, and/or community service. They can also be commuted so that the record shows you're guilty and sentenced to X years, but you serve no actual time. North Carolina has a "Prayer for Judgement Continued" option for judges to basically accept a guilty plea for even some felonies, yet give no punishment or sentence, so the person is guilty, but not convicted because a conviction requires a sentence. (This works by pleading guilty, praying for the judge to continue the judgement/sentencing at a later time - say 2 or 3 years from that date... and then the judge decides after that time not to sentence you if you have obeyed the law within that time frame.) Then, there's also deferred prosecution for first time offenders which many states have -- this lets you plead guilty to a crime, abide by certain rules, and then the prosecutor agrees not to take the case to trial and simply drops the charges after you've completed all the requirements. They then tear up your guilty plea and let you seal and/or expunge the record of your arrest, too.

I had a big, long, TL;DR reply for this, but Slashdot killed it. lol. Probably for the best as I tend to ramble on long posts.

Basically, Intel is already feeling the effects of diminishing returns from Moore's Law. They hit the max of 4 GHz over 10 years ago and have switched to focusing on system-on-a-chip things and multicore to make up for it... but, not a lot of software uses multi-core very well. I recently recycled a 12 year old laptop with a single core Pentium 4 - not because of the CPU exactly, but because neither the CPU nor the integrated GPU which I could not upgrade supported H.264. I could play 1080p MPEG2 just fine, but it struggled with 720p H.264 video with 90%CPU. Modern CPUs have H.264 support. Most are APUs with some sort of 4K video support and early H.265 as well. I have a couple desktops, but I have 5 laptops - the latest, I think will last me at least 10 years. It's a Republic of Gamers ASUS. Even if I replace it within 10 years, that just means my slowest laptop will be handed down to someone else. lol. I use the laptops mostly as media PCs connected to HDTVs.

Intel can shrink another 3 or 4 times, but then they're done. 3D chips are great for lower power, but they won't increase speed much - they also will require innovative liquid cooling between layers as they'll be a ball of hot wires otherwise. Optical transistors currently max out at 10 Ghz, but that's just 2x or 3x the silicon speed, and INTEL doesn't see any reason to use the tech save for CPU to mobo connections.... because the fiber optics require power hungry lasers that have their own drawbacks.

I don't think Intel laments the end of Moore's Law. I think they look forward to not having to overhaul their foundries every couple years with expensive new equipment that always comes with yield issues. That would save them an immense expense on production costs. Also, they still own a ton of patents and a huge foundry they can leverage to maintain their leadership. With their R&D, they can continue to put more crypto, graphics, and components on the chips and re-design them for decades even if they don't get die shrinks. They aren't even using the die shrinks to get faster chips right now - just lower power as that's where the money is right now. They are killing the near-bankrupt AMD on all fronts, but ARM is still the leader in the mobile market which is hot right now.

Desktops have about an 8 to 10 year life cycle (used to be 3 years, then 5 years, then 7.. now approaching 10). Consoles have a forced 6 or 7 year life cycle (PlayStation release every 6 years, but it takes time... a year or more for people to buy in masse) Even Intel engineers see a future as early as 10 to 20 years from now where that life cycle extends to 15 or 20 years... and eventually even longer.

This is why most PC manufacturers are leaving the market as it's now a commodity - HP almost stopped making PCs a few years ago, but decided against it. IBM quit and sent their customers to Lenovo. Dell lost money for years and had its stock price fall until it went private (partly with MS loans) Now Dell has a huge pile of debt and may exit PCs for just corporate server and laptop contracts. HP, ACER, and Lenovo are most of what's left... and I bet MS would buy ACER in a heartbeat (likely after ACER trounces Lenovo or acquires it). HP, I dunno... I bet MS would let HP keep the server space if it gave MS the consumer space.

Why do I think this? Welll.... MS bought Nokia... and they make Surface and Surface Pros. They also make XBOX Ones -- which are modified low-end 8 core AMD DRM'd PCs with Radeon 7000 graphics that support 4K resolution. They also share a code base between Win 10, XBOX, and Windows Phone... and are giving away the phone OS while releasing Win 10 for free for users with Win 7 or higher. I can only guess that MS finally recognized that most people buy OSes with their new PCs and the OEMs and businesses pay for those licenses. It's pointless to fragment their user base over OS updates.

What does all this lead to? MS is determined to take on the Apple model. They have a phone, a tablet/laptop, a console/tv/desktop... and they now have a store where you can get the OS upgrades. They already sell you the XBox One at a loss b/c you buy the games. It would be trivial to make the XBOX successor in 2020 be a regular MS desktop with DRM sold at a loss b/c you'll buy apps and games. You can buy keyboards, controllers, monitors, etc separately and either use a long cable or wireless HDMI to connect to a TV. I currently use a laptop's HDMI output on a separate screen to stream 1080p content while using the laptop for games and web stuff... this XBOX Desktop would be no different.

Win 8 already makes it extremely difficult to install without setting up an MS account. Win 10, it may be mandatory... and MS says Win 10 will be its last OS ever - just lots of rapid updates from here on out.

I think you're forgetting that MS loves vender lock-in. They tried with IE, they tried with DirectX and ActiveX. Don't let their current warm 'n fuzzy attitude towards open source fool you - the EU mostly forced that upon them. Give them a decade, and they'll go full Apple. They've already said as much to reporters - they want more control over hardware, have windows as a service, and sell most software through their store - as it can be authorized, DRM'd, and a record of purchases backed up to restore if hardware dies. Most users would welcome it. Fewer choices, but less confusion, more security, better hardware support.

I think everyone's headed that way. Google has its nexus and chromebooks and chromecast, apple has its products, MS will have its own hardware... and then there will still be Roku, Steambox, etc. Even Ubuntu will likely have its own brand of hardware along with being licensed for various phones and devices.

By the time that happens, I'll be full Linux I hope :-) I prefer Linux Mint.... but... even they have their own Mint hardware! woot! Mintbox and Mintbox2!

http://www.linuxmint.com/store...

I wasn't aware SD had a lameness filter... In any case, I don't think your post was lame at all imho. :-) You make some very good points. I also have emulators on my PC and use a controller for them. Yay!

I didn't mean to imply that the PC was going away - simply that MS would prefer you buy their Surface line of products in conjunction with their Xbox and Windows Phone which they could lock down through DRM and tie to an online account they can control rather than have myriad hardware configurations of a PC to support - at least on the consumer side. Corporate users are a separate issue, but they also tend to purchase large numbers of fairly homogeneous boxen.

I don't see the benefit from MS's perspective of opening up their walled garden of game+Xbox to game+anyrandomWindowsBox. They can quickly modify an Xbox remotely to deal with bugs, hacks, or upgrades without worrying about interfering with any random windows setup (assuming a user would allow the update necessary to make that change on their PC.

Homogeneity is the key. Apple's hardware is largely homogeneous. Xbox hardware and software is homogeneous. PCs are anything but. It's hard to code for that, difficult to support, and even harder to push mandatory updates towards.

Also, game makers can enjoy making users pay for the same game TWICE if they want to play on Xbox and their Windows box. Ports between them aren't trivial, but not difficult either, so a thoughtful recode and recompile to make a port isn't expensive. Why would game makers (MS included ie HALO) want their games to be so portable? They'd also have to make sure the same portable game was coded to run on the slowest/weakest hardware, but possibly would ramp up to use the best hardware depending on the system... and deal with possible customer backlash over it running worse on one system or another.

Gah... I just see the whole idea as a bit of a nightmare until we reach the end of Moore's Law and can have fairly homogeneous hardware for coders to work with. There won't be much need for specialized cheap hardware for consoles when every PC and console has basically the same CPU/GPU/RAM/BUS configuration 30 or 40 years from now. Should be trivial to port games when hopefully every system is running some form of Linux on OpenGL graphics, too ;-) *fingers crossed for STEAMBOX*

I think there's more to it that you seem to be glossing over.

Console gameplay is inherently different than PC gameplay because of the standard inputs: keyboard + mouse vs controller. Games have been redesigned to suit those I/O methods so that the PC version of a game is very different than the console version. Even with network play, Xbox will separate PC gamers from console players so that the PC gamers don't have an unfair advantage. Specifically, some games, you can highlight multiple units with a mouse and save those units as a group on an F1 key, then toggle between multiple groups of units from F1 to F12, but on the console, you cannot.

Xbox games are very easy to port to PC and vice versa, but there's some tweaking for the user experience done as well.

You also gloss over the hardware issue. Historically, many console games were designed specifically for the hardware they ran on - even taking advantage of CPU errata and other bugs as well as race conditions and timing issues which would not exist on any other configuration. Switching from Xbox to PC may not be as simple as switching out a driver or two - you may have to emulate other hardware nuances, too.

Not saying it can't be done. Emulators for consoles are easy to find for the PC. DirectX, x86 or AMD64 architecture, and similar code base in Xbox and Windows should make it much simpler to port, but games would have to be aware of whether they have keyboard + mouse or joystick to provide the proper interface options for the game and match people online fairly - and take into account any nuances between the Xbox and the PC setup with drivers and/or emulation.

Frankly, I think Microsoft has no interest in opening up their Xbox platform to other devices. They can DRM the heck out of the box and give homogeneous specs to publishers to code for. Game companies can already port their games to PCs if they wish. There's no reason for MS to bother.

MS sees the XBox as an entertainment portal - a Windows Media Center of sorts that can play Netflix and other content as well as games. If anything, I think they'd prefer your PC die by the wayside and everyone own an XBox, a Windows Phone, and a Surface instead -- all DRM locked down, controlled by MS and sync'ed to your Microsoft Account online.

I think jellomizer was referring to the fact that hormonal adolescents who do not yet have a fully formed prefrontal cortex have a much higher incidence of indulging in risky, violent, and/or unwise behavior as compared to fully grown adults due to the fact that they lack both the experience and the actual brain grey matter to fully think things through which would help inhibit such adolescent behavior. That does not excuse such behavior, but it does not mean we should treat children as if they were adults who generally have a better ability to control and channel their emotions.

I'm unsure why you believe "adult behavior" is on par with teenage adolescent behavior simply because adults can and do engage in similar behaviors (though it is worth noting that often when adults do this sort of thing, their judgement is impaired by alcohol or drugs which puts them into a more uninhibited mental state similar to juveniles). Psychologists would strongly disagree with you if you're making the case that adults and teenagers have the same incidence of such behavior.

You don't treat a 5 year old like you would a 12 year old... nor a 12 year old like a 16 year old. Even still, one should not treat a 15 year old like an 18 or 21 year old.

Personally, I say send the boy to counseling and to juvenile detention, make the family pay restitution. Wipe his record and seal it when he turns 18 so he can have a normal life. Maybe he'll make better decisions when his brain is fully formed and learn from his mistakes. Maybe not. Giving him a felony record and shoving him in a state prison with hardened felons is not great way to reform this child. It may just turn him into a lifetime criminal with new criminal connections and no job prospects due to his record.

Wow, that was a lot of hogwash. lol.

When you are born into a country, you must obey that country's laws. Welcome to the planet Earth. I didn't choose to have the legal drinking age set for me at 21 in SC... but it is... and it was when I was born. Not just myself, but EVERYONE's right to self-determination is removed when you live in a country with laws - you are restricted by those laws, right or wrong. The Hawaiians born today are Americans by birth - and if they're of Hawaiian ancestry, they have additional rights to live on the Hawaiian Homelands if they choose. They even get minority status grants and such.

The ancient Hawaiian society is a myth - by the time the USA took over, the islands were heavily populated by foreigners and even the kingdom which was only around for a short time was built by subjugating tribes itself!

As for your hilarious argument about stealing from families generations ago, MY FAMILY had its houses BURNED during the Civil War - because we helped slaves escape to the north. Exactly whom should I call to get the large plantation houses rebuilt that society apparently OWES me?!?! No one! But then, I didn't buy those lands or build those houses in the first place, so who is anyone to say that simply because my ancestors owned something that was taken away from them that I am somehow the grieved party?

Also, take note that while you seem to imply that Americans are proud of our rebellion, yet deny others the same rebellion -- we also put down our own rebellious states in our Civil War. Personally, I believe the USA should have some legislative process for succession - not because I necessarily support any particular succession, but because there should at least be a process for it. Say if Hawaii were to decide to succeed and become an independent country or join the British Commonwealth. There should be a process of ratifying that succession peacefully.

I would never imply that the USA is perfect - or even that it is right in many of the international politics it plays. I'm just a realist. We can't turn back the clock and we can't bow to pressure from "natives" just because their ancestors were there first. If two people are born in Hawaii - one of European descent and another of native descent, why should the one of native descent have any greater say in such issues? They're both Americans! You know, democracy is one person, one vote -- we don't weight the votes by ancestry.

I have no idea what Pa'i'ai is, but I shall have to put it on my list of things to try next! :-)

I hear spam is much more popular than the poi there, but It could be a myth as I haven't seen any polling data to back it up - just anecdotal evidence. haha.

I have no issues with people protesting. I've had friends that got extra credit in their humanities studies for protesting, though so I find such uninformed student protests dubious.

I don't mean to imply that there is no sense of injustice with the US occupation of the island, but I see it as historical fact, not something we can turn back the clock on. Same with the Native Americans - terrible track record with wars (including biological warfare) and breaking peace treaties, trail of tears, etc. etc. But, their small consolation is the reservations and today, many of my friends are 1/4 or 1/8th of Native American descent. "Pure" native american populations have been declining for a long time and more of them identify as Americans rather than members of their native tribes. What's done is done, and it's too late for the Natives to have a say in who builds what on what mountaintop that someone else owns.

That's why I say the religious route is a good argument. The mountain should have been protected as part of the agreement to make the Hawaiian Homelands if it's sacred... but still, no one would stand for someone destroying Jerusalem or Mecca - even if the destroyers rightfully owned the land. I'm sure there's a way to lobby for protected status if it's that important.

Heck, I think Hawaii is gorgeous and maybe we shouldn't built giant telescopes on pretty mountains anyway ;-) I'm sure the locals could make a zoning ordinance to scrap the construction easily.

I just don't think the simple fact that they're of native descent should hold much weight in the decision. I mean, who cares who their parents and grandparents were - they're Americans living in Hawaii now and if they choose to live a traditional Hawaiian lifestyle, they can live on the reservations... er... "homelands."

The Hawaiian Kingdom folks in particular are a bit nutty and want to "end the US occupation" of Hawaii.
http://www.hawaiiankingdom.org... I have a hard time taking them seriously - especially since they're hypocritical in thinking that because the kingdom usurped other tribal lands and conquered the islands that they're the true stewards of Hawaii and not the USA which, in turn, usurped them.

Actually, I've known about the "reservations" on Hawaii for decades. Interesting how you're an anonymous coward that presumes to know me and what I know.

The luau wasn't a hotel one... geez... I don't think the hotel had the space for it anyway. Never claimed to be an expert on Hawaii btw - but at least I've visited and taken an interest unlike most armchair pundits.

1893 was 122 years ago. I sympathize with the actual natives living at the time, but they aren't alive anymore. Six "generations" later, I don't think anyone is entitled to reparations. There is an unspoken statute of limitations on this sort of thing. Not a single disgruntled Hawaiian today was born knowing anything other than living with the reality of the rule of the USA - same as any other citizen born in the USA. Why should their ancestry or DNA give them any privilege?

Did you know that my native South Carolina was once a British colony? Seems the demographics shifted a bit over time and the rebels stole her away to form the USA.... then she broke off that yoke to form a Confederacy with many other states... and was attacked by the USA and again re-absorbed into the union.

Should I as a native South Carolinian get reparations for not being part of the British Commonwealth? or the Confederacy? Nonsense.

I believe the Hawaiian Homelands is sufficient restitution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

Let's not forget that the Kingdom of Hawaii was forged from bloodshed, war, and usurping land itself from OTHER natives on various islands -- and it was a rather short-lived kingdom that lasted less than 100 years. Seems odd to opine for the bad old days of bloody island warfare and subjugation that spanned less time than the state of Hawaii has existed. Throughout the history of the world, countries have come and go. Hawaii was taken over by an internal rebellion - granted, mostly consisting of settled foreigners... but, still -- they lived there, so I can't fault them for fighting to become a state.

I've visited the lovely land of Hawaii. Beautiful place... the luau I attended was fantastic. I was served poi. Disgusting stuff that makes paper mache paste sound delicious (though the other food was quite good). The native serving the poi said "yeah, this is the nasty stuff we used to eat before foreigners visited the island. POI -- I assume it was named for the sound you make when you spit it out of your mouth.. poi poi poi."

But, I digress. I see all this Kingdom of Hawaii stuff as merely delusional fantasies of people's ancestral rights to govern themselves rather than appease the country they actually live within. I think the religious desecration angle is a more convincing argument if they truly believe the land is sacred.

Ah, I should clarify - I did not mean to imply most of the budget isspent on the military, but most of the DEBT Americans owe went towards the military - specifically IRAQ and Afghanistan wars alone are estimated to be around 3 or 4 trillion... plus the interest on that debt, and of course, yearly military spending (not that I don't think our military is important, but we do spend more than all other nations on Earth combined... and our Navy alone is larger than the next 7 largest Naval fleets combined.)

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/27/...

um... no.

You are ALREADY paying for everyone using health care that cannot pay for it themselves. Most ERs cannot refuse anyone - even if they just have the sniffles. Hospitals have gone bankrupt because of this. You are paying through medicare/medicaid and through higher insurance premiums and medical fees... because so many never pay, but do recehive service. People who even have insurance have gone bankrupt because of medical fees - it's the leading cause of bankruptcy in the USA!

Different systems for different situations. I don't know about where you live, but many places have non-profit, government utilities that generate electricity. It's not single-payer because people pay what they use. Insurance does not and has never worked that way. Everyone pays in and it pays out only to those that need it when they need it in the amount they need it. Obviously it would be regulated to avoid abuse, but no one is going to break their bones just because - hey, they can get them re-set and in a cast for free! Woot!

Your comparison of government run electricity single payer and government run health insurance single payer makes zero sense.

You also fail to take into account that because we don't subsidize basic health care, people who have no insurance tend to have conditions that could have been treatable with a simple cheap checkup, but due to neglect their conditions festered and became expensive to treat -- ended up in the Emergency room and boom -- their huge bill became your bill b/c they can't pay. I'd rather our tax dollars pay for everyone to have regular teeth cleaning than to use them to pay for expensive oral surgeries and teeth removal, for instance.

Please work on your logic skills - they are lacking, you coward

FedEX and UPS have zero desire to take over the envelope business. You're clueless as to how inexpensive it is to send a letter from Hawaii to Florida via US Mail. Try that via FedEx - even put it in a box first...

The US Mail has a duty to deliver to each and every address for the cost of a stamp - and visit each and every address multiple times per week to not only deliver, but pick up mail. Good luck convincing any corporation that it would be a profitable business plan to compete in that market even if it were allowed.

I won't argue with you on the Medicaid/Medicare issue - my uncle tells me all the time the grief the govt gives him - but, his issue isn't the dollar amount so much as the regulations for the coding and paperwork. They have very specific forms that do not correspond well to usual medical coding and billing, and if not completed perfectly, they don't get paid at ALL.

There can NEVER be a FREE market for health care... it's inherently impossible. If you have a life-threatening situation like a heart attack, you must be sent by ambulance to usually the nearest facility and be worked on by the available physician and surgeon. You are in one physical location, and your health care options are tied to that location/region. Each region can only operate so many full health service options like hospitals. This inherently lends itself to a monopoly or oligopoly situation. Insurance COULD, in theory, be a free market, but it is not currently. There are laws preventing the insurance companies from selling nation-wide insurance plans and compete with one another more directly. I am not opposed to that idea, but why bother? We could simply have a federal insurance that says basic care is covered by taxes (who cares if you pay insurers directly or through your taxes? It's still money paid from tax payers to health care workers - and you pay anyway for basic health care for uninsured as most hospitals MUST treat all emergency medical issues whether people can pay or not. That comes out of your pocket from govt subsidies and higher insurance premiums and medical costs anyway)

Everything else in your post regarding good doctors is a fearmongering myth. The doctors I know are good doctors because they love helping people and saving lives, not because of the income. Some even work for doctors without borders and do charity mission work. If you want to help doctors out, help them refinance their student loans - or better yet, subsidize them!

I have lived in multiple states - NC, SC, and TN. I was in and out of the DMV in no time flat each time I moved. Don't know where you live, but maybe your state should invest more in their DMV if you have issues.

I've found TN to be particularly efficient. They have an electronic queue in Knoxville, TN branches, full staff, and no wait times.