Sorry, but if the only way you can monetize whatever you are doing is by placing ads for other people / organizations on your page, then maybe what you're doing isn't worth much. Everyone wants to think that whatever they have is worth something, and unfortunately for them that's usually not the case. That aside, I appreciate Slashdot's optional ads and I don't use Adblock on their site, but I leave it on for basically everyone else.

What happens if you spend all that money now and a perfect cure is found in 10 years for whatever condition you have? Where would that leave you?

I think too many aren't aware of any "market rate". And they also don't truly appreciate having a talented developer on their payroll, which is why they would rather get one of few barely qualified employees and hope the dev does something right while getting paid 20% below market (or worse) than have to sift through a stack of resumes, pick out the most qualified applicants, take time to properly interview them, and make decisions that to them all seem like expenses with no return. And if not to whoever is doing the hiring, then to that person's superior.

tl;dr: it's my opinion that so many companies don't appreciate paying for or retaining a great development team.

Where on earth do you live? Our office in the Detroit area pays about $180/mo for 100Mbit down/10Mbit up (cable modem), with a static IP, and we can run pretty much whatever we want on it (I say pretty much because if we started e-mail spamming, for example, I'm sure they'd cut us off). My residential service costs $75/mo for 30Mbit down/3Mbit up (also cable), and I have never once been scolded for running any kind of server.

I believe the point is that Google is now publically arguing against net neutrality after championing it for so many years. It's not about their customers, it's about their lobbying power and money and how it could adversely affect us in the not-so-distant future.

I have never heard of "intolerance of intolerance" being described as bigotry before. Card is actively campaigning against (i.e. spending money to oppress or support the oppression of) a whole group of people. h4rr4r's MetaIntolerance (if you want to call it that) is simply choosing not to support someone he/she sees as a bigot. There is a big difference there.

I imagine a little (ok, maybe a lot of) plastic surgery will keep the head looking ok. =)

I wonder how long it will be before we can clone our own body, grow it in a vat, and get our head strapped to it in order to beat old age. Disposable designer bodies, anyone?

How about you record... nothing? My privacy is worth more to me than some insurance company's agenda. Of course they want to have all the best data, it makes their actuarial tables that much more precise. Then they'll know *exactly* who to insure and who not to insure (or do so at a predatory rate). And it wouldn't be an issue at all if the insurance companies weren't so damned greedy that they thought they could get away with this. (though frankly one of the few reasons the politicians are trying to block it is probably because they wouldn't have a way around the cameras)

My guess would be the waves on the lake are too choppy to keep the magnet ring level. The waves are far choppier (higher frequency) on the Great Lakes than they are in the ocean.

Didn't work so well for East Germany for 40ish years or so, though.

I agree very much.

Except CD's are drastically overpriced. Also, you have to deal with purchasing an entire disc for maybe only two songs you actually want to listen to. No, don't buy the CD if it isn't what you really want, because then you're supporting the mediocrity of the artists and the overpowered corporations behind them.

It's like Cory Doctorow said in When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth:

Ok, this is the last response I'm making, because arguing on the internet is retarded. You don't know me, so you have no idea what my idea of "normal" is; you don't have superpowers, so you can't infer my thoughts from a discussion on Slashdot. I'm not giving up anything. Class action lawsuits against video game companies, in my opinion, only happen because of a false sense of entitlement that so many people seem to have these days. As an individual, you stand to gain very little from a class action suit. The lawyers, oh, they'll clean up, but you'll get nothing in comparison. And you'll have temporarily hurt the company you sued, sure. But in the end, all you did was flick them in the nose and get nothing in return, which is funny because you (as an end user) don't have to do shit in a class action lawsuit. So be happy knowing you follow the pattern of a bully, and that I dislike you for it.

Speaking of fallacy, you just took my words to the other extreme. Class action lawsuits HAVE been hurting Valve, and have been doing so even when they're not in the wrong. If you want to sue them as an individual, go ahead. If you don't want to deal with them, don't use their service. If you are angry because you have invested money into their company by buying games through them and feel that this one issue is too much to bear, I'm sorry you feel that way. I felt that way at first when I read the TOS changes. I was pissed about it for a week - I didn't accept the agreement and didn't play anything on Steam. Then I realized that I'd rather play my games than stay angry over this whole issue.

tl;dr: you still have plenty of remedies, just not the ability to bully them via class action suit. If they do something truly worthy of class action, then I suppose I'll have to eat my words. I'm comfortable with that.