Yes... I'm very cynical about human nature; I think it's unfortunately very likely some impaired person will be taken advantage of by some scumbag.

The scientific community has Kevin Warwick to do that for you.

Nothing. If someone gets fined or jailed for libelous or dangerous speech, do you still consider it "free?"

No... it just means you're not free from repercussions from damage you do.

Does it also mean free from any repercussions whatsoever?

Like, I was over in England. You ever been to England, anyone, been to England? No one has handguns in England, not even the cops. True or false? True. Now-in England last year, they had fourteen deaths from handguns. FFFFFourteen. Now-the United States, and I think you know how we feel about handguns-woooo, I'm getting a warm tingly feeling just saying the fucking word, to be honest with you. I swear to you, I am hard. Twenty-three thousand deaths from handguns. Now let's go through those numbers again, because they're a little baffling at first glance. England, where no one has guns, fffffffourteen deaths. United States, and I think you know how we feel about guns-woooo, I'm getting a stiffy-twenty-three thousand deaths from handguns. But there's no connection, and you'd be a fool and a Communist to make one. There's no connection between having a gun and shooting someone with it, and not having a gun and not shooting someone. There have been studies made and there is no connection at all there. Yes. That's absolute proof. You know, fourteen deaths from handguns. Probably American tourists, too.

But we're talking about the here and now, and here's the difference: someone like Eric Robert Rudolf kills in the name of Christianity, is summarily denounced by 99% of Christians, and is hunted, caught, and convicted - largely by Christians. Something like what happened today happens, and some fraction of Muslims cheer it on, a large chunk of Muslims say nothing about it (split between quietly agreeing and approval of what happened and people fearing for their own life should they speak out against it), and a tiny fraction that speak out against it... and placating denoucnements like "we denounce the killing of innocents." Of course, to radical Muslims, non-Muslims are not "innocent."

I'm not particularly religious myself, and I find a lot of preachy Christians pretty damn annoying, and they have little problem trying to control how I live my life... but at least I'm not in fear for it.

Yes to TGA... I work in television graphics, and we targas far too often (not by my choice).

In this industry, there's no such thing as a "replacement," it's "just another competing format." None of the old formats ever dies, all we ever get is more new formats, all of which need to be supported, ultimately making everything more complicated. I'm not saying we shouldn't advance... but the belief that some new format you create will replace something instead of muddying the existing pool of formats is laughable. related xdcd. (yes, I know it's "standards" and not "formats," but the result is the same)

Right... we should have instant run off so people can actually vote for who they want without "throwing away" their votes. Since the two parties are so firmly entrenched, and the last thing they want is more competition (especially given they are both two sides of the same coin - very minor differences if you actually look at it), instant run off will never be allowed. And since neither party will ever give up power, you will NEVER see fair redistricting.

Personally it seems more like a liberal media is more likely to point out when republicans do it, ultimately giving the impression that you seem to have.

The both do it wherever and whenever possible. Under current laws, they'd actually be stupid not to.

However, what I'd like to see is a computer algortihm based redistricting that is approved by all parties. The rule of thumb when you cut a cake is that the person who cuts it chooses last... that ensures they make the fairest cuts. Unfortunately you can't apply the same logic here, but you can make it so everyone has to agree... the only way they'd agree is if it were fair.

Then again, I'd like to see instant run off implemented at all levels, including choosing electors in presidential elections... and I'll never see that, either.

I don't have it, but my parents have year round hot water from their solar water heating on their roof - but then they live in "The Sunshine State." I'd say that's a pretty good deal.

I applied this back in the early days of Java development, when the giant list of terms and conditions for the SDK download was displayed in a text field.

An editable text field.

This has two main effects that I can see:

1. I, unlike most people, am allowed to use old versions of Java to run nuclear power stations.
2. Sun owes me $1m for each JDK I downloaded back in the day.

To date I haven't received payment.

That may be, but I agree with the GP... what you've described is already a problem, where you need to competing services to get all of the content, despite the fact that 90% of it overlaps. Now imagine Sony content (including TV shows and several motion picture companies they own as well as libraries of content from studios like MGM, which they acquired a while back) only being available from Sony.

Apparently some mod can't handle the truth.