So wait... it's OK if it blows up in Phoenix, but not in San Diego? Not sure I understand the logic of rerouting the flight.

That's only part of the story. The forum is where all the real action was/is. There was/is a religion of sorts. Complete with popes, prophets and pilgrimages. And lingo. (Chirping mustard! The OTT is seaish. and cancercoffeesemenbabies). I assume it is still going, but I refuse to check. I lost a lot of time in that forum, and I had to make a clean break. There were many people whose RL relationships were strained because of this. People were up every hour checking the latest ONG. For those of you willing to go down the rabbit hole, you will want to read the thread from the beginning. That is called blizting. You will be encouraged along your way, and encounter many strange and wonderful things. Randallspeed.

Maybe not?

I'm not entirely sure how this got modded insightful. The patent system is certainly not built upon owning an idea. They cover a particular implementation, a certain solution to a problem, not just an idea. If you invent a machine that makes unicorn farts, you can patent that machine. If I make a unicorn fart machine that operates in a different way, I am free to do so. Now the market has two different unicorn fart machine styles, and we are arguably better off as a society.

As an engineer with some hands on experience filing and working around patents, I can honestly say that a large part of the patent system still works as intended. I believe inventors should be protected, especially when it's a David and Goliath situation, and patents still offer some of that protection. I also believe that the patent system encourages inventors in at least two ways. It lets you know that there is at least one solution to your problem, and that somebody thought it was worthwhile enough to patent it. It also forces an inventor to be more creative and come up with different solutions to the problem than what has already been done. Sometimes when you have to think of a different solution, you end up with a better solution.

That being said, I think business method patents are stupid, and that software patents are evil. And if you're going to file a patent on something, you sure as shit better not try to sue me on "trade secret" grounds. (yes, that actually happens)

What about when the press uses a quad copter with a camera to go behind the gates of a company doing something nasty, or a wealthy politician's compound where something illegal is going on? Seems like this would make it harder for whistle-blowers to do their thing.

The more prescient (or paranoid) among us have been nursing alternative "real-name" identities on-line for a while now. I started one of mine about 4 years ago; he uses Google+ and posts the odd comment to online forums (not this one). I had another one about a decade ago, but I lost the password to it's keystone account. I think the key is going to be having enough dummy accounts, that I can have them be in each others' circles. But I really don't know if it will be worth it to go to that much trouble.

"minimize liability" = "If I have to hit a human, make sure I kill him instead of maim him."

I think porn is the obvious solution here. Just get the major porn sites to require IPv6, and the problem will solve itself.

This is a fair point. The traditional meaning of "may" involves some permission being granted by one party to one party ("May I?" = "Will you allow me to?"). Since they obviously aren't telling you that you give them permission, the only possible meaning would be that they are giving you permission to make a recording. Never thought of it like that before, but that's literally what they're saying.

That is so wrong on so many levels.

Looks like they added some stealth technology to that "L"

Apple did the same thing with their upgrade to iOS. If you had iOS6 and an older Mac, you could connect through iTunes and everything worked fine. Then they "upgraded" to iOS7, and without warning you had to have a more recent version of iTunes, which in turn requires Mac OS 10.6.8 or newer. So don't think this is some Microsoft conspiracy. It's just typical thoughtless programmers not giving a shit about reverse compatibility.

It's surprising that people are raising a fuss about this, when they didn't say peep about the iPhone thing. Hell, on the Apple Discussions board if you try to bring up something like this, you are ridiculed for having a computer more than three years old.

I think you misunderstand what things can link you to a terrorist. If you are the dry cleaner for a terrorist's dog walker, then you have a link to a terrorist. You are being watched. What I find so amazing is that even with such feeble all-encompassing definitions, they couldn't find a way to "link" these other 280k people.

The hell they don't. The problem is, when I'm done opening it, it can't close. Bwahahaha. *goes to look for hammer*

Wait... is that a metric fucking disaster or imperial?