He couldn't tell the difference between Coke and Diet Coke with the first sip?

I agree with you so far. When I was in college, I didn't want to pay for anything because I couldn't afford anything. Now I've had real income for a while, so I'm happy to pay for the IP I use. Generally, IP should be honored via copyright and patents.

Wait, why does it need to be so long? What you suggest is shorter than the current Infinity-1 the middle men are aiming for, but what was wrong with the original 14+14years on copyright? It's not like 99.999% of IP can be monetized past 5 years anyway.

I think that copyright can be owned by corporations in a problem. It should always be owned by the creator, and they can license it to corporations if they would like. Creators should never lose their copyright.

Okay, I wanted to preface my post by saying I pay (a lot) for IP, and I'm an honest guy. And honestly, what you say here is pure crap. I'm a developer, and I don't get to coast on the fruit of my "life's work" forever. You want to make more money, produce more IP. Like everyone. Music and video are not special.

By the way, it's because of the blood-sucking middle men that musicians can't make a decent buck from their recordings.

Creators get to participate in the conversation. The People get to say what happens. We had a reasonable deal at first: max 28 years of copyright. Then the lawmakers started listening to the IP holders instead of The People and we have the crap system that doesn't let anything ever go into Public Domain.

I don't know if you're from out of the country or haven't taken (or forgot) your 8th grade Constitution class. The reason the base document didn't contain the freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments) was because most of the founders of the country believed that those rights were Inalienable (or as the Declaration of Independence says, 'Unalienable'). In other words, they are already defined and naturally granted to each person, and defining your government didn't define them nor take them away.

The point of the Constitution was to draw a boundary for the government, and it was not supposed to ever exceed that boundary. Personal/Human rights were considered to be outside that boundary. The document was practically defining was how the government could supersede your rights (e.g. how imports and exports are handled), but that was all it could do. The Tenth Amendment articulates the thought the writers of the Constitution were assuming, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." If it's not in the Constitution, the federal government can't do it.

Some the founders worried that the government would start to invade the rights of its people if their rights were expressly enumerated. Hence we have the Bill of Rights that draws boundaries around particular rights that the government is not supposed to go inside (see the difference in perspective?). I happen to agree with the idea of the Constitution without the Bill of Rights in principle (government can't overstep its definitely), but look at how creative politicians have been bending, breaking and redefining the rules over the years. All three branches of government are guilty with this. So it turns out the proponents of the Bill of Rights were pretty forward thinking, because the federal government has expanded beyond its original scope, beyond its constitutional scope, and the Bill of Rights is the only thing that hasn't prevented the government from entirely consuming us. They fight and argue over those rights boundaries, but thankfully we have them.

Different scopes.

The old CEO wanted to enable developers in house. The new CEO seems to want to enable developers in the community.

I think they're just anti-semantic.Publishers probably think they have a superior knowledge base.

Hate to break it to you, but the ISPs who are most opposed to this regulation do not offer unlimited access. They have secret caps that will screw you over if you bump into them a couple of times.

I'm no fan of AT&T, and they haven't been doing the investments they should have over the years, but your statement isn't entirely true.

AT&T has been laying fiber for their U-Verse rollout. They dug up a whole bunch of land in town here a few years ago, and when they were done, the salesman came by to ask if we wanted to sign up for the newly available U-Verse.

Given that they have U-Verse in a lot of places, I believe they've actually been investing quite a bit.

What does the Democratic Front of Cabinda have to do with Bitcoin?

Let's say you've figured out pretty well how long something will take and you give your realistic estimate. The game from the managers then becomes, "That's too long, you need to give a more realistic deadline."

This pressure on the other side is often why developers set deadlines that are too short and then miss them. The penalties for that are less of a problem if you come off as sandbagging (even when you aren't). Managers who have no clue what the complexity of the problems trying to be solved not trusting developers are the real problem.

Just curious, if this is true, why are they paid 100x more than anyone else in the company?

The Anthropocene Epoch ended when the Bad Slashdot Style Epoch began after the following style code was introduced:

#comments { clear:both; display:block; position:relative; padding: 0; margin: 0 0 0 122px; padding-right: 1.5em;z-index:1;}

Get rid of the 122px left margin--it's wasting a lot of space.

Hang on a second. I understand why you're saying this; it's a common misconception.

The Bible teaches that the world--non-Christians--will mock Christ and his followers (1). That's the expectation, and in the face of this knowledge, the Christian is also called to turn the other cheek (2). Christianity is offensive to the world, but the response is not supposed to be in kind. The Christian is supposed to respond to violence with blessing (Romans 12:20). You may argue that you have not seen many Christian behave this way. I agree with that, and I think it's a very sorry thing when people who claim to be followers of Jesus don't really respect his teachings. I'm sure there are many who claim to be Christians who aren't really, but please also understand that no Christian is perfect either.

So, is Islam blasphemous to Christianity? Sure. But it's also exactly in line with the way the Bible describes non-Christians. Islam is not surprising to, or should not be surprising the Christian.

And no Christian would ever be justified in beating up anyone, including Muslims. The logic really doesn't follow, especially if you know what is in the Bible. I'm sorry the ignorance of many has led you to believe that violence is the logical conclusion, though.

(1) This is all over the New Testament. Like Matthew 24:9, "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake."
(2) Matthew 5:38-42: "You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you."

Does anyone remember this debacle? http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

Their anti piracy techniques included messing with your MBR. I was still doing my taxes by paper at the time, but I was sure to steer clear of TurboTax after that garbage.

Terrible company...

For me, at least, driving is exhausting. I'm driving a large kinetic weapon bent on self destruction, so I take the responsibility very seriously*. I find myself as tired at the end of a day of driving as if I had been working in the yard the whole time.

If I could instead relax and read a book like I were on a train, I'd take that in a heartbeat.

*I've never been in an accident in my 18 years of driving--excepting a fender bender in a parking lot as the other party decided to back into my stationary car out of their parking spot.

Thanks for playing along. I guess sarcasm isn't received too well around here...strange...