The Brazilian government has released a statement about the ACTA giving four reasons of concern to the country.

1. - The agreement would shift the balance between right holders and consumers.
2. - Brazil prefer these negotiations to happen in either the WTO or WIPO. Both seem a lot more open and transparent.
3. - The agreement proposes only one remedy to the situation, repression.
4. - The agreement encompasses more than just an understanding between a few nations and creates a whole structure that extends to other countries.

Source: Brazilian intervention at TRIPS Council: ACTA

Just because my parents paid for my car doesn't mean that I don't value it and treat it with respect.

If you haven't worked for it, chances are your understanding of respect are quite different from those that have.

The military isn't perfect but to claim that it's only made up of "inbred hicks" is absurd. I'd like to see you have the balls to make that statement on the street anywhere in the United States as opposed to making it as an anonymous coward on /.

You confuse bravery with stupidity. That is why you defend the military so ardently.

I'm one of these types of people myself. If there is a software product that I'm personally very fond of and I feel that more folks might benefit from it than do, I'll actively attempt to support the product through this type of forum activity, giving advice, tutorial writing and generally ranting about it on my travels around the web.

I ran two Linux Install Fest at my university. I built a web site, got several people to help me set up the room, clean up afterwards, got someone to give and introductory speech on Linux, and helped install the distros on the computers.

I did because I really like Linux, and I think a lot of other people would like it, if they could've been exposed to it.

What I did find out was that most people take everything for granted. They will complain about what they get for free, and if you ever think about asking for money to pay for anything (like paying for the disks you burned) they will point out how they could get it free somewhere else in front of everyone and make you feel like an idiot for even helping them.

I quit doing after the second time. I got nothing out of it but headaches.

I talked to my manager today, he said we were going to use Postgres instead of MySQL for out next web project.

In his opinion, the latest stable release had poor support for stored procedures and now this acquisition puts further development into question. He wants to move everything out of MySQL at some point.

Since I have never used Postgres before, I couldn't comment on anything, but from my perspective, MySQL had been moving forward with their database. Even if the stored procedures were not on par with the other DB's out there, they would mature in time.

I was ready to speak up, until I thought about MySQL passing hands for the second time, talks about forks, and finally the developers leaving the company. All those things cannot be good short term, and long term will depend a lot on the parent company.

So for the time being, I think my manager is correct and I did not protest his decision.

I second your comment. Savage Worlds is a great system.

I started using it after my group complained of the unnecessary complexity of the D20 system. At first, I was going to try the 4th edition of D&D, but once I saw their new and updated license, I looked elsewhere.

I was during that time that I heard about Savage Worlds from the Fear the Boot podcast. They talked about it at length, touting it's easy of use and malleability.

Once I read it for myself, it became clear they were not exaggerating.

I remember reading this article "80% of accidents caused by distracted motorists - 04/21/06 - The Detroit News". That research cited on that article had concluded that some people were so used to the cell phone, they showed little to no difference driving while talking on it. But they said almost all crashes had occurred because motorists simple failed to pay attention while driving.

They had cameras in a few places on the vehicle for that research. One of places was in the face of the driver and another right in front of the vehicle plus on the back (I am not sure if that was any cameras on the side of the vehicle). They said that a motorist had driven her car right into a tree during the day, they said that the only reason that did occur was because she was not paying attention, she wasn't talking on the cell, nobody on her car with her, it was during the day in a low traffic road. She was just day dreaming.

Another research that I remember reading said that Brain Immaturity Could Explain Teen Crash Rate. In it, the researchers talked about teens showing off while driving with their friends and also about the fact that they are more easily distracted than an adult (over 25) due to their brain growth until they reach 25.

Would a cell phone ban in the cars help anything in these two cases? In my opinion they would do little to nothing.