Straight from venture capitalists mouths to Google's ears... http://www.canrockventures.com/fail-often-fail-fast-fail-cheap/

Mama Bear: To those parents that are completely anti-spanking... hey, good luck with that. Technically, a timeout is a short period of solitary confinement, which itself deemed torture, cruel, and unusual... So before you go overboard and compare a measured spanking to beating a child... just remember, you still torture them with solitary confinement, so what makes you parent of the year, eh? ;) I'm sure a few of these velvet glovers will turn out wonderful kids. I'm also sure they will put their child so high on a pedestal to scar their unique little snowflakes in worse ways.

Papa Bear: On the other hand, if a parent ever has to hit, leave a mark, turn something red, or use something other than the palm of their own hand, they're going to far. To that kind of parent: You are bigger, stronger, and in control. For you to use a hanger, belt, stick, wooden spoon, knuckes or other hard part of the body, or anything else on a child is abuse! You're beating your child to quench your anger, not teach a lesson.

Baby Bear: Appropriate measure and balance. My son will be 4 this summer. I'm adamant about teaching him not to grab from the counter, but let's say he goes to grab a knife. I will slap the back of his hand or his bottom (after taking the knife from him calmly, of course). This isn't time to "negotiate". My son permanently injuring himself will receive a swift sting somewhere. He's a small child. He's smart, but appealing to his intellect is completely wrong when it comes to immediate danger. He doesn't run into traffic in a parking lot. He doesn't grab at the stove. He doesn't put coins in his mouth. The key is being consistent, and rare. I think the more you spank, and the harder you spank, work against you. I don't want my child resenting me, or thinking I'm out to hurt him. If he does, then I've failed. But if he gets hit by a car, I've definitely failed!

Very rarely do I ever have to spank for another reason, and that's usually if he refuses to stand in timeout. It's measured, not harsh (I am rougher when he and I are rough housing and playing... so its more embarrassing than anything), and I give him lots of warnings. If I say what the consequence will be, I always follow up. Parents that threaten punishment, and don't follow through do their kids a huge injustice just as if they continually promised ice cream for dessert, and never deliver on that either. Parents that punish without explanation are causing more problems than if they did nothing.

Any form of punishment is followed by having him explain what he did that caused the punishment ("I got a time out because I didn't listen when you told me to put up my toys."), followed by me adding explanations for why what he did was wrong, followed by a big hug, wiping of any tears, a kiss on the cheek, and telling him to go up to anyone he was bad to and apologize.

My son, is healthy, happy, knows he's loved, and is a very sweet and polite boy. He's not mean to animals or other kids. Most of the time, I've found talking quietly and firmly to my son ends all that tantrum business while shopping.

But apparently looking at them lustfully won't get them removed from a Catholic church.

Couldn't the same technology be said to either prevent or cause the relationship problems in the first place?

$50K in California, but less than $9K spent on college students. :(

Prisons are fine... IF we reduce the current population by 75% by tossing out minor drug convictions and eliminating privately owned prisons.

The problem with the death penalty is that the cost of housing and fighting appeals skyrockets. It actually is cheaper to just go with a life sentence in most cases.

Kid dies... prison as go-to solution?

You know, I get your argument, I really do. But if your actions cause the death of your child... janitor doesn't quite make it on the list of punishments. Causing any person's death for any reason doesn't really need to be punished like a child that refused to eat their carrots.

I'll stick to prison, and consider it fortunate I didn't say death penalty. :)

Does he also think we need more dead children?

And what they should get is prison if their child dies as a result.

A US Judge telling two US companies what they can do, afaik. Seems legit to me. Just because I take you to another country to beat you with a stick, doesn't mean you can't sue me in US court when we return.

You make great points, but you have one thing backwards.

Would it creep a female out to see an ad that apparently knows they are female?

Who knows you're femail? Google or the ad? The answer you seem to have is the ad. The real answer is Google.

It's like ads for the GAP. GAP doesn't know who a douche is. They just market to the douche segment. If they place such ads at douchy concerts, it's not because they had to survey the crowd. They just know where the big douche congregations are.

Same difference if you go on Google and search "vaginal cream". You're probably not a guy with that search.

The other way they know is informations you A) give to them or B) is found on the web. Can Rick Santorum scrub his results? No. Is this a privacy issue? For him, maybe. Problem is, if its online, it's public knowledge.

The EU would like to change that. Force companies to scrub the web. And frankly, that's just horseshit. That's modern day book burning and heretic scourging.

Except that I'd add that Google+ pushes "Hey, why not make this public?" while still defaulting to private, for instant uploads for instance.

I'll be honest, this discussion is far better than listening people bitch about the privacy implications of instant upload, which is private and will always be private, unless you specifically set an upload to public.

Why do they bitch? ZOMG, It "Asked permission to upload!" FREAK OUT, RUN AWAY! HOW DARE THEY ASK! UNINSTALL!

Yeah. I can only take so much stupid before I bail out of such conversations.

And when it doesn't change? You'll... use Bing? Use Facebook? Use Facebook enabled Bing? Use Siri?

Google really isn't in a position of worrying about "Are they now evil?" pundits. Because, quite bluntly, they're still least evil. And so long as that is true, there is no re-evaluation necessary.

Yes. And I got far more excited than I should admit without ticking "Post Anonymously".

And Dropbox allows public file sharing and backup... so... is anything with any public facing share folder now file sharing, not backup?

It's easy to talk about MegaUpload, but it was by far not unique and its offerings also come from legitimate services.

Except that we wouldn't be offended by that... we purposefully created all of those stereotypes ourselves. We are PR masters.

The most major media to distribute out of Australia remains to be Crocodile this and Crocodile that, whether it's a movie or an Australian guy dangling his kid over a croc's mouth.

Sounds like AU needs a better PR rep. Want to hire one of ours from Hollywood?