Must be good, it has ubiquitous hardware support. ;)

If an obsession does not "fuck up your life", it's just a hobby.

When will the US learn that capitalism doesn't work on things like health, education, and justice?

Standardised tests are an essential tool used to monitor and compare the progress of different student populations. Making a huge deal about them is not essential, in fact it is detrimental. Stress severely impairs the brain's ability to lay down memories, people simply don't learn well when stressed (eg: cramming for a test). This is not just my opinion, it is what neuroscience has been telling us for a couple of decades now.

- Did any of his victims (or customers) remedy their "social inconvenience" via suicide? - What is a "killer", do spiders count?

Using the phrase "social inconvenience" to describe extortion via sexual humiliation shows that you don't even recognise sexual abuse when it's right under your nose, let alone begin to understand it. Educate yourself on the human mind, you have one of your own, right? I suggest starting with some of the talks from Ruby Wax on YT

Their business model is to profit from revenge, it is implemented via sexual humiliation (abuse). Personally I don't think 20yrs is long enough to rehabilitate such a badly broken moral compass. The customer may also have psychological problems or may suffer psychological problems associated with the guilt and shame of what they did on the internet at a drunken pity party. The people who run the business have no feelings of guilt or shame, let's all hope they find some in the next 20yrs.

To anyone who has ever had anything to do with industrial strength desktop support, that post is a giant neon sign that your haven't got a clue.

The AC (not me) is giving solid advice on the subject at hand - for free - when know-it-all's such as yourself empty their bile on them, it discourages that educational charity.

Disclaimer: Degree qualified computer scientist working as C/C++ software engineer for the last 25yrs.

Ignoramus, most Hollywood films are not made in Hollywood studios, they're not even made in the US.

Downloading is legal in most places, if you think about for a bit the internet simply wouldn't work if it was illegal. The catch is that most torrent clients upload by default, not a problem here in Oz because nobody has ever been sued for "illegal downloading". The MAFIAA have said they will start the US system threatening letters here but they haven't because they know it would be seen by Aussie courts as extortion, which is a 'real' crime. The current communications minister has basically said that if they want legislative help with piracy then they will need to get rid of regional locking and stop price gouging Aussies on content.

The thing about uploading in Oz is that the copyright holder can only sue for REAL damages, the imagined "lost sales" does not come into the equation. If the real damages do not exceed $100 there's nothing the Aussie MAFIAA can do but cry.

All IPCC group reports are finalised via political negotiation except for one group. WG1 is the scientific group, all the others refer back to the WG1 report for factual information, the other groups argue about how to present those facts in their own working group(WG). In 25yrs of incredibly intense scrutiny, nobody has ever found a factual error in the final versions of a WG1 report. That really is a very robust outcome and a credit to the scientists involved.

Only nations that donate to the IPCC budget get a vote on the other reports, last I checked there were ~135 nations who together represent pretty much every political view in the rainbow, it takes a long time for them to agree. The IPCC budget is $5-6M/yr, nobody who actually works on the reports is paid a dime by the IPCC, all of the scientists involved DONATE their time. Their financial accounts are on their web site. Try finding the accounts for an anti-science no-think-tank such Senator Inhofe's barking dog - the heartland institute.

What's at risk is often forgotten, every web site wants you to register just to post a fucking one line comment on a story. I use a junk email and a fixed password for all of them. Even if someone cracks it, all I have lost is a registration I didn't want in the first place.

If you really believe there's no difference between left and right in Oz, you're simply not paying attention.

I am an Aussie ;)

Other countries don't have that problem because we don't send a swat team to investigate a routine 911 call, we send a patrol car and knock on the fucking door. Sure we have swat teams, we send them in to end confirmed sieges because that is what a swat team is trained for. Also the knowledge that everyone and his dog is armed to the teeth in the US encourages the cops shoot first and make up excuses later. If you ask me the cop who shot the kid in Ferguson was a coward, he panicked because he was alone and and could not control a black kid who was bigger than him. The last people you want waving a gun around like John Wayne, are fucking cowards.

Why do Americans automatically accept that kicking the door down and holding everyone at gunpoint is a reasonable response to an anonymous 911 call?

Off course, but that doesn't mean a regulation telling fridge manufacturers and importers to stop using incandescents is a bad idea. The US is the largest market in the world, California is the 5th largest all by itself. Efficiency regulations for manufactured goods in the US, and in particular California, can and do have a significant impact on the world market.