If you don't like it, seek out politicians that are taking MPAA money and get them out of office. Then it's less likely lawmakers will turn a blind eye toward them when they go nuts.

It's neither here nor there, but I recently switched away from Time Warner in Austin. My cancellation call included the sales speech that they didn't cap usage like some other plans. I resisted the urge to tell her that Time Warner would be soon, because they're following the trends.

They do. Obviously nonprofits including, presumably, newspapers that go this route if it's approved can editorialize about what the city/state/country needs most and be ok. But naming a specific candidate is a violation of IRS rules.

I'm afraid if you're not ultraviolet, you can't ask that question. Can you tell me if the chainsaw looks like it's going fast enough, look closer.

I loved that game.

Assuming for a minute that it's because the youth feel the government has no control over them that they're stabbing people, why wouldn't they just steal the games and/or music that causes they're behavior?

They certainly don't represent the majority, or as near as I can tell any, of the writers I commonly read. My best guess is that they're making a lot of noise trying to scare writers into thinking their guild is necessary to protect them from the eeebil copyright infringement, all the in hopes of annual dues. That is only a guess, though.

You are seriously trying to tell me that out of the many thousands of people who tested the Beta, these were the only real problems that they encountered that MS has bothered to fix for the RC?

I'm not a big fan of MS...but no. What they're seriously trying to get you to believe is that on top of the fixes that are going into the RC, they added a lot of simple fixes and posted about them to attempt to maintain buzz about their new OS.

The biggest down side for me, as I understand it, isn't so much having different pricing schemes for different traffic. It's the ability to re-direct or block traffic the ISP doesn't like. Let's say that Time Warner and Yahoo! enter a deal. Suddenly people who have Time Warner as an ISP can't go to Google. Or any other "competing" web-site. Or even if you can get to the competition site, it's 5x-10x or more slower than the preferred engine.

Carried out to extremes, it could mean that you could only visit Turner broadcasting (subsidiary of Time-Warner) sites in a reasonable manner, because they're the preferred sites. And they could block any content that might be seen as infringing on any of their corporate copyrights, regardless of whether it does or not (no DMCA counter-notices when the DMCA wasn't involved in blocking the material).

At its worst, it gives the ISPs the ultimate control over the content their users see, and how they see it. Would it get that bad? Honestly, I don't think so. But knowing that nowadays a lot of people get service from a single provider (cable, Internet, phone), a significant number of people might find the idea of switching providers tougher because of all the other changes...if they even have another option (besides dial-up or doing without).

A Congresswoman from California that received huge campaign contributions from people in the entertainment industry trying to back-door language to "protect" her primary contributors from the eebbils of copyright infringement? No way! And throwing in the "protect the children!" language. Next you'll tell me that she wants to force content on radio stations.

I went and looked at the member website list of the Authors Guild, and on a quick inspection it looks like I'd have to go out of my way to actually be infringing one of their books. Obviously people with different tastes in books might run into them more often, but this seems like even more of a bad idea on their part than normal.

Not to mention that the money has already been spent for R&D. Spending the money for R&D, then sitting on it because the time isn't perfect is, as you mentioned, the best way to increase the gap. And have the added bonus of being out cash on something that won't sell.

Vanguard has always been aimed at a select "hardcore" group of people who feel that any MMO you can play without it being a full time job is for noobs.

Actually, when I tried it real recently (when the new newbie island was in beta), I was shocked at how noob friendly the game really is. Soloing content was doable, maps were pretty straight forward. The things that got to me were the bugs (couldn't complete goblin starting quests without at least two GM petitions), and the sheer repetition. I remembered again the glory days of watching TV while playing Everquest, and how long it took me to realize that if I'm doing something to keep from being too bored in a game, it's probably not a good game for me.

The same people that are likely to be counting the number of mouse-clicks it takes to perform a default install.

My understanding, and I'm not law degreed so it probably doesn't carry much weight, is that the 5th basically frees you from having to give damning testimony against yourself in a trial. Witnessing against yourself when you know your guilty puts you in a bit of a bind...it's perjury if you lie and are caught, and pretty much throws out the "proven" part of being proven guilty.

The police are allowed to use evidence that could constitute witnessing against yourself (teeth impressions, finding the bloody knife in your hand at the murder scene), assuming they meet the criteria for a reasonable search and seizure. Getting DNA off everybody as a matter of course has a better shot of getting thrown out because it's unreasonable seizure under the circumstances than because of any 5th amendment concerns.

Heck, the feds have my DNA because of military service. I'm sure those weren't destroyed when I got out.

With RFID you need a lot more than a photocopier and laminator to make a fake drivers license.

Yeah, you also apparently need a couple of hundred bucks worth of stuff. And the added "advantage" to RFID is that most people will probably actually believe it's secure and take the scan at face value, making it easier than ever to pass off fake ID most places.