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Comment Re:Demographic (Score 5, Interesting) 533

You'll notice that whenever companies engage in discussions about this sort of thing, they seem to be talking about households of one person. I have no idea how 10MBPS would suffice in a house of, say, four people. If two people are watching HQ videos (netflix, youtube, etc), that's easily 8-10mbps *minimum*. Figure the other two are listening to music and playing online games and maybe you have a guest who is using skype or something... bandwidth just doesn't go very far in today's world, unless you're living like it's still the late 90s as far as your entertainment consumption and communication.

Comment Re:Bah humbug censorship (Score 2) 307

No, it's the same argument as telling people that if you want something to remain private and within your control, don't stick it on the internet. Believe it or not, you can be *both* the victim of something *and* an idiot for not taking better precautions to protect yourself from being the victim of it.

Comment Re:Bah humbug censorship (Score 2) 307

Unfortunately, you live in the real world where your laptop is going to be stolen out of your car if you leave it visible on the front passenger seat while you go shopping in the mall. The thief is responsible for committing the crime and you didn't deserve to be the victim of that crime, but you *are* responsible for the circumstances which made it possible by not taking reasonable precautions like keeping your laptop out of site (or out of your car entirely).

Passwords, door locks, security systems, and safes exist for a reason.

Comment Re:It's amazing (Score 5, Insightful) 199

Which is why any discussion or legislation of it is pointless.

All of these agencies have been doing what they want, with complete disregard for the Constitution. As a result, they have paid . . . absolutely no price. How would enacting legislation that says "no, really, you totally have to be bound by the Constitution like fucking everyone else" change anything? They've always disregarded it, so why would they change? If anything were to happen, it would simply be to drive them to further clandestine levels to cover up the shit they're doing.

Besides, it's all over anyway, come the next 9/11. All America needs is a second significant terrorist attack on its soil and the population will fold like a deck chair. Once was scary. We caved into a lot as it was. One more time, it'll be a pattern and we'll always just be waiting for the next attack to come. To avoid that, we'll let you install video cameras in our home and inject us with transponders, for all we care.

Our destination is sadly inevitable. It's only a question of how quickly we arrive there.

Comment Re:Are you Kidding Me (Score 3, Interesting) 71

I agree that Chrome browser has a generally pleasant interface (to the point that other browsers feel cluttered, to me). However, look at everything else Google touches. It's always cluttered, clunky, and misleading. G+, youtube, youtube mobile clients, youtube clients on consoles and roku and other devices. Google Docs. Even Gmail to a degree. Google has two things that are pleasing as interfaces: Chrome and Google.com's main page. Everything else feels like an engineer tossed it together in a day after working on the backend for two years.

Granted, this is but one man's opinion. Maybe everyone else loves these interfaces...?

Comment Re:The subscription cancer spreads (Score 1) 71

I'm fine with subscriptions. I would rather pay $5/mo to RDIO for access to their massive library than buy music. What could that $60/yr get me? Four CDs? No thanks.

On the other hand, they're all missing a lot of content, too. It's frustrating to really want one chunk of music and simply not be able to get it. And, of course, no subscription service gives you Led Zep or Beatles and AC/DC and so on, it seems.

I just don't know that I'd give Youtube $10/mo. Double the price.. for what is probably a weaker selection (and one that is probably geared more toward Gaga, Bieber, PewDiePie fans).

Plus, Youtube means Youtube/Google interface. Fuck that. RDIO isn't great, but at least it wasn't designed by Google's interface guys. *shudder*

Comment Re:Gettin All Up In Yo Biznis (Score 4, Insightful) 419

Would you do it if they were reading comic books about war? Watching movies? Watching 50s movies with John Wayne about war? Reading novels about war? Playing war in the yard? If they started playing cops and robbers in the back yard with the neighbor kids, is it time to haul them off to a Scared Straight session at a prison, to impress upon them the harsh realities of a life of crime?

This whole story is a tale of over-reaction that only seemed to have occurred, because "oh my god, video games!".

Wanting to expose your children to realities beyond those as depicted by popular media is a thoughtful thing to do. Not so much when it's a swift over-reaction to "OMG VIDEO GAMES!".

And, really, the truth seems more to be "freelance journalist does a freelance journalist thing and uses his kids as fodder for more freelance journalism". What do you figure the odds are he'd be doing this and documenting it if, say, he were a flight mechanic or a plumber and there weren't some other benefit besides that to his children?

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