Yeah, local area wages hit my workplace hard when a new owner came in. 3-21% paycuts once the owners realized they had recieved two thousand applications for forty job positions.

One of my jobs is a photographer. I make videos too. I generally see copyright as a good thing. However, I'm also a realist. Piracy is bad, m'kay. However, at this point fighting piracy like this is going to do as much if not more harm to our economy and/or culture.

Maybe race wasn't intended. Construction and landscaping is stereotypical illegal immigrant work, and when people think illegal immigrants they think Latinos. It still raises eyebrows when you talk about dropping off orange soda and KFC to an inner-city homeless shelter even if you have a ton of soda and KFC left over from your nephew's birthday party. It wasn't your fault if they ate all the pizza and drank all the Coca-cola, right?

I won't deny you don't raise some relevant points. It is going to be an up hill battle unless he starts learning Mandarin. Even if he telecommutes or freelances online to English speaking areas he'll be isolated locally.

Well, it isn't just a TV show. It is one you are engaged in enough to want to see what happens. I know what I did with the one season of Doctor Who that got delayed a week because in the states BBC America didn't want to air a new episode on Memorial Day.

I had two options:
1) Stay a week perpetually behind for the rest of the season. Avoiding sites I enjoy like a lepper because of where I lived. After all, the net isn't local, it was filled with people who didn't get delayed due to a holiday. Avoid talking with other friends who enjoyed the show that weren't bound by this limitation about this mutual interest.

2) Pirate the bloody episode and watch it so I was in sync with the rest of the fandom.

You might not care about this television show, true. But television of largely digital these days. A week made more sense back in the day when things had to be shipped. A week for a book, a movie, a cd (cassette, 8-track, record, whatever)? Yes, acceptable. A week for a eBook to come out just to fit out dated norms? A week for a digital downloaded song because of where you live? Or any other such good?

The exact topic, a television show, is a bit laughable I suppose. The important thing this is a symptom, and one that helps triangulate the real disease. Sometimes a sneeze is just a lil' pepper, and sometimes a sneeze is something worse. The specific is relevant to /, and what is going on in the world. What is going on with piracy when anti-piracy measures are driving so much law creation lately.

People don't want to be pirates. They just see a stupid road block and know a way around it. Gabe of Valve called this a service problem. If this were a government act, not a corporate one, we'd be calling it a stupid regulation, a hindrance that should be stricken from the books. This is one more piece of evidence that a chunk of piracy could be fought by offering what services and goods the people want.

Maybe the poor guy or gal takes the "Leader of the Free World" thing too literally?

Grandparents will tell tales of the great scourging. The day the net erupted into flames as two forces collided. Children will think it nothing but tall tales, but those who lived it will know better. We know, we remember the day that Anonymous launched their DDOS attack against /. and the day they were slashdotted by curious nerds wanting to see what was going on The day the pipes burst open.

Maybe they are looking at what Microsoft is capable of vs their leader. RIM at times sounds like a complete implosion. Microsoft produces outbursts of good ideas inspite of their leadership implying some good thinkers/workers are left.

I would argue that if we follow his reasoning why stop at icons? Let's apply his logic to a word since he brings up "radio" buttons.

Everyone knows how confused people are with the term computer. How can anyone use computers with such a confusing and contradictory term. Computers are humans capable of performing above average mental mathematical calculations using their minds alone without the aid of machines. Calling a machine a computer may have been tongue-in-cheek for a time, but now it is just a ticking time bomb of confusion that needs updated. We need to fix and rename digital machines that we currently call computers.

In short, yes, the guy is an idiot. He fails to realize words change meaning and thus images can. There is no difference between a 3.25 disk for a save image and some committee designed image as long as we are taught it means that. After all, how many people care that the power button on computers, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_symbol , has a meaning in binary? How many care?

There is nothing wrong with being carbon neutral in theory. If every country were carbon neutral the economic benefits would go to those who do it most efficiency without simply resetting your economy to pre-Industrial.

One of the problems is how to implement it. It is almost like arguing over flat, progressive, or recessive taxes*. Make it perfectly neutral between all countries and you hinder the development of... well... developing countries. The developed have a huge advantage and they can keep it. Have a progressive and it puts a larger burden on the developed countries and the developing get economic advantages. Unlike taxes where the stratification between rich, upper-class, middle-class and lower class, we have a developing country as the second largest economy in the world. Another sixth in GDP (Brazil). Two developing countries above Russia and the United Kingdom.

Considering he seems to be acting like a cranky old man, and considering where we stick our cranky elderly relatives? Sounds like he is a bit better ahead.