I'd lean towards agreeing with you if only it worked that way. Unfortunately most private industry bows to the almighty buck, and security is usually seen as an impediment to maximum profits. It's not until they've been exploited and had their backside handed to them that they finally see security as a worthwhile investment. Even then some still don't get the point. I'm wondering why as a taxpayer we put substandard crap in there in the first place. It's not like we don't know who are enemies are.

And just how much do you suppose it would cost to regulate THAT??? Cost is not borne by the company it's borne by the consumer. As you increase their costs they in turn increase yours.

Sometimes that's intentional. If you're the only one who can read it, understand it, and maintain it you might continue to have a job. Of course if you feel the need to do that you may have to question why you're working where you are in the first place. Another posiblility is that in all of his genius he may write it just as it comes out of his mind. It is not unheard of to have a collection of ideas that morph into a working application. But usually one would go back and collectively organize it afterwords for the sanity of all possible maintainers (including the original programmer). If he's not receptive there really isn't much you can do.

lol, my parents also owned a video store from 1984-1992 and you are spot on. After a time it's like watching reruns of the same tired plot regurgitated with a new set of players. To this day I don't watch a lot of movies. After it's been a job it takes some of the fun out of it. I haven't seen The Hobbit yet, but it's one of the few I will go see in the theaters simply because I grew up reading the book multiple times, as well as having the 4 record audio dramatization. I still listen to it frequently. It's a great story and I hope Peter did it justice. Length doesn't necessarily mean quality story line though. I felt the LOTR battle scenes were about twice as long as necessary, and some of the embelishments changed the mood of the moment taking something away from the original authors intention IMHO. I'm still glad he made them, and enjoyed watching them. It's just a different story than you get reading the books.

Oh, I'm going to go ahead and call BS here. There is a culture on Slashdot that tends to punish those who deviate from the herd.

Global warming is a hoax because temperature fluctuations have been cyclical for 100s of years, and durring that time the polar caps have expanded as well as contracted. Ever wonder why we are using computer based models to simulate the change when real imperical data exists?

Based on what? Carbon dating is severely flawed. You can run the same artifact through the process and get results that vary by billions of years. It's a method that's practically useless. Those numbers are based on what someone with an agenda wants people to think. No one really knows for sure. Science has not been science for a very long time. The idea of testing a theory using a rational methodology to arrive at an accurate conclusion and accepting the resulting data used to be the way we got to specific conclusion. Now it's more like who's providing your funding, what is their political / financial motivation, and what results would they like you to produce. See dissenting scientists who have been blackballed for supporting conflicting ideas about MMGW, or ID for evidence. From what I could tell they had better and more accurate research, but were shut down because they went against the mainstream ideaology. Now ACE using Nessie to support creationism is absurd, but it's equally absurd to espouse macro evolution as fact in a scientific environment. The evidence is pretty flimsy, and mired in overtly manipulated scientific results.

As much as I fear you're right this really really irritates me. Hardware should be independent from software. If I buy a device it's mine. It does not belong to Apple, Microsoft, Google, or any other corporate entity. Even if Microsoft sells at a loss to generate market share they still get the sale, they still get to count that device, so why should they care what I run on it?

How often has a hospital become "collateral damage" is a real war? I'll take my chances with Stuxnet if it's all the same to you.

I'm no fan of Obama, but I think Stuxnet was a good move. It set Iran back years without having to take military action. That's awesome. To say that it's going to start a period of escalation is a bit naive. It has already been moving in that direction for years. China, N. Korea, Russia just to name a few all have departments in their military devoted to cyberwarfare. That cat was out of the bag long before Stuxnet came along. Honestly I'd rather fight with computers than nukes any day.

They are supposedly an ally in the war on terror. But if you pay attention you'll find that they are not exactly our friends. They have been very difficult in allowing us to pursue terrorists that like to hop between their border and Afghanistan. They say they are our friends, but everytime we need something from them they throw obsticles in our way. Did you happen to see what happened to the doctor from there that helped us track down BinLaden? They expediciously put him in jail on charges of treason. Not exactly an indication of friendship. Additionally, they have blocked our supply routes and are charging us $5k per truck to let supplies through, or forcing us to circumnavigate their country. No Pakistan is not our friend.

I'd like to think that as a country we've come to the point where racisim is far less of a factor than things like policy position, character, and record. Based on those things (in my opinion) Obama should have never been elected to office. It seemed like around the time of the election most of the people throwing race around were those for Obama essentially saying that if you disagree with his politics that you must be a racist. To me it's highly dishonest and indicative of the fact that Obama more likely won precisesly because of racism and "white guilt" than because of his merrits as a potential presidential candidate.

That's actually a really good idea.

That should be encouraging. In another 100 years of no women the problem should naturally fix itself.

Yeah, beat 'em over the head with the LAW that'll show 'em.