Make no mistake, I do not approve of the TSA's policies. I didn't approve of any of our recent wars either, but I did not start killing government employees in order to emphasize that point. A single man committing violent acts is not a patriot; he is a violent psychopath. Maybe a violent revolution is necessary. I am not convinced that it is, but IF it is, then I will fight. But I don't think that revolution is going to start in an airport terminal.

Duress would not be a valid legal defense here. Remember, duress only works as a defense when the defendant truly believed that they or someone else was being harmed or was under threat of harm. "My daughter was scared and unhappy about the screening procedure" does not equate to harm, and you would have a very hard time claiming that you thought a government employee was raping your daughter with hundreds of people watching nearby. I think the pat downs are insane and disrespectful and completely worthless, but no jury would accept that they are equivalent to rape or physical harm, nor would they accept it as an excuse for murdering a government employee.

Duress would not get you off the hook. At best you might get a reduced sentence. And if the prosecution caught wind that you posted on an internet forum bragging about how you would kill a TSA agent if he touched your daughter, you would be going down for premeditated murder.

Don't misunderstand what I'm saying here: the patdowns (and all of the TSA's theater bullshit) are wrong. They're morally wrong, they're politically wrong, and they're intellectually wrong. But under current law you would not get away with killing a TSA agent in the terminal, and, given how little the nation as a whole seems to care about the TSA's antics, don't expect that your sacrifice would raise any kind of revolution either (sadly enough).

As you yourself implied, there's a world of difference between participating in a revolution (which may be warranted) and randomly killing TSA agents. The former is an attempt to rebuild the system from the roots up, with violence as an unfortunate-but-necessary catalyst. The latter is uncontrolled aggression that harms individuals and provides no benefit to society. I could theoretically support the former; I cannot justify the latter.

The system is broken, but that doesn't allow the OP to abscond his responsibilities as a parent. When he's in jail and the mother has to work a triple shift to support their children, or they go into adoption system because the mother can't support them alone, the OP can't just sit back and say "Totally not my fault in any way! It's THE SYSTEM! There's nothing else I could have done, my hands are clean!" I agree, the system is broken and needs to be fixed (or completely rebuilt from scratch). However, until the system is fixed, when presented with two bad choices he still needs to pick the better of the two. He doesn't get a free pass to do whatever he wants just because he was dealt a shitty hand.

And after you were thrown in jail (assuming you weren't killed by police officers during your violent rampage), who would protect your 4 year old daughter then? Do you truly think her childhood would be better with you dead or in jail?

Yes, the situation you describe is a shitty one, but taking the short-sided approach of "kill the guy who's close by" is not the best way to protect your family. You are responsible for protecting your child her entire life, not just for that one instant. So grow the fuck up and learn how to control your primal instincts, or else you will indeed be letting your family down.

I used to wear glasses and even at 20' I can tell the difference between 1080p and 720p on my 37"!

No, you can't. Even with 20/20 vision your eyes can not see the difference between 1080p and 720p from 20' away on a 37" TV. It's physically impossible for normal human eyes to distinguish that amount of detail from that distance. You've only fooled yourself into thinking you could see the difference.

Look at the chart Moryath linked to and read the accompanying article.

The amount of available programming labor has increased in the market, thus the value of programming labor has decreased. This is no different than if a vein of platinum was discovered, causing the value of platinum to decrease.

Value is not inherent, it is relative.Value is defined by the buyer. If I have a chair that I made by hand that I'm trying to sell, it doesn't matter what I think it's worth. The potential buyer is the one who will ultimately decide its value. Similarly, it doesn't matter what Number6.2 thinks his labor is worth; all that matters is what the potential employer thinks he is worth. Right now the price he is asking for his labor is higher than the value perceived by employers, so if he wants to sell his labor then he needs to lower the asking price (or become a better salesman).

P.S. This is all coming from a low-salaried programmer.

...but it's profoundly ignorant to claim that had he not made it, no one else in the entire world would have.

By that logic, we should never give anyone credit for any innovation, ever. After all, if they didn't do it then someone else would have done it instead, right?

Linus stepped up to the plate before anyone else did. It doesn't make a bit of difference what anyone else might have done -- what matters is that Linus did it.

Apparently you haven't been studying Pastafarian gospel enough. The NUMBER ONE item on the list of the Eight "I'd Really Rather You Didn'ts":

I'd really rather you didn't act like a sanctimonious holier-than-thou BEEP when describing my noodly goodness. If some people don't believe in me, that's okay. Really, I'm not that vain. Besides, this isn't about them so don't change the subject.

How about in a place similar to where the military stores its nuclear warheads? We seem to be quite capable of protecting those things against environment impact, "terror attacks", and human failure. And if someone steals an ICBM, it's going to be a hell of a lot worse than if they stole some radioactive waste.

Phoronix released a followup article today. A driver supports X video acceleration, but no VAAPI yet. Like you said, these cards seem to be aimed at gamers, but with the prevalence of HD video content these days, I'd be surprised if VAAPI wasn't a high priority for this driver.

It's not about where the information comes from, it's about ensuring the defendant's right to examine the evidence against him. This is a critical part of due process, and if a juror brings outside information into the courtroom and bases their decision on it, the defendant will never have the chance to examine that information and respond to it.

Now, before you say, "But in this case, all the juror wanted was a definition of a word!", let me propose a hypothetical situation for you. Imagine that you are on trial for rape, and one of the jurors prints out the Wikipedia article on rape. It just so happens that the revision they've printed out contains an edit by some wacko that says "Any time a person has sex and then regrets it later, then the other person raped them." Now you have a juror circulating that bogus definition of rape around the other jurors, and you never get to know about it, so you never have the chance to tell the jury, "Whoa whoa, that isn't a legally accurate statement, and here's why." If the jurors had been forced to request such information from the judge, then even if the judge was stupid enough to print out a wikipedia article to define rape (which (s)he wouldn't), at least the defendant would know about it and could challenge it or bring it up to the jury.

Jesus, did you just read his first sentence and then stop? Here, let me repeat the GP's key point for you:

What the fuck does pregnancy have to do with this? asukasoryu's point was that if you cum in a girl without a condom, Kleenex can be used to clean up the mess. That's it.