They really do, though. It's only a matter of time before governments start paying out these randoms using taxpayer funds to cover up the cost of IT staff incompetence. If it were illegal to pay them out then we'd see more idiots get fired and more competent people hired to clean up the mess instead of paying randsom money to shady criminals.

WRITE TO YOUR GOVERNOR! Explain the situation and how you've found a way to save thousands of taxpayer dollars, they'll be eager to hear about that.

Unfortunately, the people that most school districts can afford don't know what any of the stuff you just mentioned actually is. Most of the people willing to do IT for $15/hr. are the kind of people who list "good with computers" on their resume and think that tinkering with AD makes them qualified to work as a system administrator.

People are going to disagree with you, but this is true. Universities employ some good people, but K-12 education is the absolute bottom of the barrel for IT staff. The schools that buck this trend are few and very far between.

This is nothing more than a press release for some software. It's literally an ad for something made by Pixar published on Pixar's website.

Right, but most republicans are too damn stupid to realize that the republican candidates are the very ones trying to cut their social security benefits and allow Comcast to charge more for terrible internet access. They completely buy into the right-wind propaganda that the "evil liberals" are the ones trying to do that.

I also don't remember a blood testing stick either. And what the hell does the stick or collar actually test for? The Tricorder could measure a crapload of medical conditions, but something tells me that this device won't even be capable of measuring someone's blood pressure.

They have no direct repercussions on you, me, or the guy next door. But what about the politician running for public office? How do you know that he hasn't received threats of blackmail? What about the rich person or celebrity who has the power to sway politicians through campaign donations? What about the heads of large corporations who routinely lobby?

It's also not actually legal. They claim its legal, but whatever laws that they claim allow them to do it are blatant violations of the constitution, at least it is here in the US. Not sure about the UK.

Of course, you're right, that doesn't matter because they break the law on a daily basis anyway.

>If they were interested, they'd have voted without it being mandatory

Nope. A lot of those people would have voted were it not for voter disenfranchisement, having to work (yeah, your employer has to let you vote, but they don't have to pay you while you're gone, and they don't have to give you any extra hours to make up the time missed while voting), not having an address (you didn't forget about the homeless who can't vote absentee and usually can't even register because they don't have an address, did you?).

Exactly, which is why they patch non-genuine versions. If there were a large number of compromised systems out there then legitimate users would suffer as well.

Given the choice between a video game corporation executive determined to rubber-stamp violent games a religious zealot hell-bent on pushing their version of "morality", I'll take the former. At least it results in more content being released rather than less.

Not to mention that the ESRB doesn't have any real authority. This isn't like the FCC where media CEOs have the power to dictate real law that actually affects people.

Yep. Many companies have gone bankrupt because some new executive decides to outsource production to China. The new executive is naive enough to believe that a Chinese company will honor the non-disclosure agreement and won't sell critical trade secrets to everyone else. Manufacturing is moved overseas, stateside employees are laid off, the business suffers initial losses because the Chinese company hasn't figured out how to actually perform the process correctly yet, and then a few months later the company goes entirely bankrupt because their trade secrets are now suddenly common knowledge in the entire industry.

The executive then gets another bright idea: they'll sue the Chinese company to recover damages! If the Chinese company still exists by this point (unlikely), they'll win in court because, to no one's surprise, the Chinese government doesn't give a fuck about protecting American IP rights. Much money is burned, legal fees are collected, the executive staff gets a golden parachute, and all the hard working American employees are shit out of luck and scrambling to find jobs at another American company that will make the same fucking mistakes as their previous employer.

Why are you blaming people who responded to your invitation for anyone to join? You can't advertise an open bar and then be surprised when a few angry alcoholics show up.

How about you make a product that I want to buy and then I'll give you money for it. There's no "patience" involved here, it's just the free market working like it should for once. Whoever releases a product that doesn't make users sick first will probably get a crapload of money.