I get to take a piss in city hall, though. And if I'm waiting for my SO to take a piss, I can grab a drink of water. These things are as open as this outlet. The school could have easily blocked it with a simple lock to make the "don't plug in here!" absolutely clear. They could have even wrapped a goddamn paperclip around a flimsy hinge and I bet this dude would not have plugged in for it.

There is a fair question of ownership here. This was a public school, not a private random stranger's house. Public schools are supported by taxes. The guy arrested was local, and has certainly paid more than a nickel in taxes to support the school. Some of his taxes might have gone to pay the school's electric bill.

Shouldn't the public be able to make use of something they have paid for?

I'm sure that approach will continue to work for a long time, but I think the big players have learned to be a bit more subtle about it by now. Match certainly uses the model you describe (or had last time I bothered to look), but I don't believe they've brought that approach to OKC since the buyout. I think instead that they've found value in offering premium services (pay to subscribe and you can browse anonymously, get better details about who is looking for you, increase the frequency your profile is suggested as a match), and permitting purchasing these for others.

It appeals to both natural human insecurity (scoping people out anonymously) and power dynamics (sad hopeless match buying a month's account for hopeless crush in hopes of currying favor.)

This indicates that you probably didn't listen objectively to your partisan opponent... like most of us do (I don't wish to single you out.) A similar comment I've heard from many, many self identified GOP supporters would be something to the effect of how bitterly disappointed Obama supporters must be that we're still in Afghanistan, for example. And I have heard it even from a few self-identified liberals. The problem is, Candidate Obama's position was to wind down *Iraq* so we could focus on Afghanistan.

Similarly, Candidate Obama's position on the Patriot Act was certainly not that he'd 'get rid of the damn thing.' So what you are doing here is creating a false expectation of action, then blaming partisan opposition for "failing" to meet that expectation. Had you actually *listened* to Candidate Obama, you would not have been surprised. There are broken campaign promises you can point to (such as enemy noncombatant policy), but the Patriot Act sure ain't one of 'em.

If you are thinking hemorrhoids, I think your more likely shape is a dildo, rather than a long waterslide. Not sure if it'll work, but you can probably easily sell the test footage.

Good point, skin would have massive peaks and valleys to scale. Perhaps a fluid medium then, streamed over a sufficiently long, inclined surface.

Very low level abrasive... I wonder if and how that might serve as a soap.

Well that just seems like it would shut the warehouse down in a hurry.

First, one guy talks. "Man my legs are killing me!"
"You're fired!" says his supervisor... who is now going to get fired for talking on the job.
"You there, talking supervisor, you're fired for talking when you fired that guy!" And now *that* guy is next, and up it goes until Jeff Bezos finds himself out of a job.

I'm surprised it hasn't happened already.

Interesting, I'd never even heard of the 3DO before.

but it seems to have reached a nice, rich environment by now. Handheld gaming platforms seem to cycle a lot more slowly than other handheld devices.

When it comes to transactions of currency, it seems like one never has to look too far back to find some egregious level of fraud. I'm still convinced that the essential reason that gold is worth so much, and probably will as long as humans exist within proximity to gold, is because gold is shiny.

Purchasing $150,000 for $400 (vary currency as necessary) would seem to be a loophole that would quickly undermine the world economy. Perhaps "price" of a stolen identity isn't a proper measure of "value".

You must realize that these things you've listed are also Obama's fault.

That's a very interesting and selfless approach. I did not mean to suggest that commercial development of space be halted until we figure out some utopian approach to justice and equality. Rather, I hope that the idea of lunar real estate heralds a broader reexamination of the its own underlying, bizarre assumptions, assumptions that are usually just taken for granted.

If we ever do get off earth in a sustainable manner, I suppose a lot of the problems with an arbitrary systems of property rights will naturally disappear -- after all, for-profit enterprise seems like it would make little sense to explorers whose intention is to venture only further outwards.

I'm afraid you're taking my position to an extreme I did not intend. I'm not proposing that homesteading is a bad idea, rather that it is a arbitrary one. We seem to agree on this point. I also agree that space *development* is in the best interest of humanity, and possibly all other forms of life on earth.

Where we part ways, I think, is on our opinions of the desirability of the *commercial* development of space --that is, profit-generating activities. I will gladly grant you that, in practical terms, that is how things work right now, it's how things have worked for quite a long time now, it probably won't dramatically change any time soon, and it is probably one of the more realistic approaches we can take to actually get humans off of this one rock and out into the rest of the universe.

What I am unwilling to grant you is the idea that applying concepts of property rights, as we have come to understand them, is the right approach simply because it will spur a certain type of development. There are other reasons for extraterrestrial human development besides turning a profit: survival of the species, expanding our knowledge, that sort of thing.

My concern is that if we just unthinkingly apply an arbitrary system as we expand, we will also expand the injustices and inequalities that this arbitrary system brings us. If commercial activities indeed turn out to be the primary motivation behind developments on the moon and elsewhere, it will simply serve to increase the unequal distribution of wealth and power that we're currently facing, and the myriad injustices that come about because of it.