Google knows people dislike being nagged or guilt-tripped. this is an attempt simply to reduce the volume of comment idiocy by making it less convenient. my guess is, it'll not make the idiocy or hatefulness vanish entirely, but will reduce easy throwaway comments a fair bit.

check out "Walmart: the High Cost of Low Price", parts of which were filmed at such a Chinese factory. interviewed workers said they pay a utilities fee regardless, but if they choose other housing they don't get charged rent. wages identical either case.

apparently it's not so much the minimal labor wages that make China attractive to manufacturing, but the supply of trained engineers to manage the operation. Apple alone needs hundreds of engineers to supervise the thousands of workers.

http://www.tuaw.com/2012/01/22/why-apples-products-are-designed-in-california-but-assembled/

i know a couple of people who use 3d printers. when they want to make parts that need to be stronger than the PLA/ABS raw material, they "simply" print the model, use it to make a mold and cast the mold with bronze or copper or what have you.
it stops being an all-in-one solution but still allows detailed custom shapes with good strength and appearance.

same here. since OTA died it's just Netflix. no significant loss.

You are describing a co-op, not a government. Governments are distinguished by the fact that they employ force against non-aggressors, people who didn't choose to join. Give up that claim to "legitimate" aggression and I promise we will have no further objection to any kind of mutual defense or common-interest work you may choose to pursue with other like-minded, voluntary participants.

P.S. Those third-world countries you mention have governments, typically ones which are corrupt, highly authoritarian, and often based on unworkable and unjust principles; that's generally the main source of their poverty. (That includes places like Somalia; their government is highly decentralized, distributed among their tribal elders, but it definitely exists. The unstable proto-governments set up by Western nations from time to time also contribute to the problem.) Little or no government can work out just fine, but intrusive and disruptive governments are killers.

It's actually not a new program - the Navy's had marine mammal units for many years now. Long before "terrorism" was ever a buzzword. Of particular interest is the Mark-6 unit (MK-6 MMS) which is an antipersonnel unit. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it - a suicide diver with the right explosives could probably take out a small naval vessel. A ship's sonar probably can't distinguish a diver from any other underwater mammal. And even if it could, bullets are ineffective in the water. It's a significant vulnerability if you think about it.

It used to be an important/useful feature of the web/html -- until "website designers" decided that they didn't like the look and started making certain that all links looked the same, and other things that also made it stop working.

I have a question - why the ****** does a website need to have/see/retreive the list of URLs I've been at in order to do this - coloring links is a browser side feature! The only thing a website needs to do is suggest which colors to use for said links.

This was grossly unintentional right? Someone didn't choose to implement this specific behaviour, right?

>>>(Score:1, Flamebait)

Somebody lacks a sense of humor. The previous two posts were both JOKES. Duh.