"If that's the case, prove it's not a divinely created quantum vacuum. "

I don't need to prove it is not a divinely created quantum vacuum because that is not my assertion, that is yours, so why don't YOU prove it?

What *I* need to do is:
1) Work towards defining the source of that vacuum by forming a hypothesis, seeking evidence, distilling that into a theory, testing that theory in a way that can falsify it and making predictions, test those predictions in a way that can be falsified, have other scientists do the same, and when new evidence shows my theory to be inaccurate I have to think about why that is, come up with an explanation, and start testing all over again.
2) I need to NOT make up a source of the quantum vacuum and then stop all rational thought because well, "a supernatural being did it so why bother asking any more questions or seeking any more answers."

"If I'm wrong, I loose nothing. If I'm right, you lose everything."

Actually that is not true, Descartes was wrong. As another great philosopher said:

"And what if we picked the wrong religion? Every week, we're just making God madder and madder!" --Homer (aka Simpson)

You see, easy as it might be to dismiss my comment because of the source quote, that fact is Homer's logic is 100% just as valid as Descartes'

OH and you DO lose something if you believe and you are wrong ... you lose your entire life living by someone else's mandates, possibly eschewing relationships with an out-group, possibly hating yourself if you are not like the in-group, wasting time (church and prayer) and money (tithe), and pretty much avoiding a whole lot of fun based on things called "sin".

If there is a god I still don't lose anything because I believe that if there actually is a supernatural being that created everything we know, that being 1) doesn't give a crap about me, what I think, or what I do. I also don't think that being will judge me for using my free will and critical thinking to demand evidence before blindly following what another human tells me. Because like it or not, there is no actual evidence that any religious texts were anything more than the result of human thought and action.

While trolling around my Galaxy Nexus I found the ability to encrypt it (not using it though). At the least that should protect data on the phone, surely you can find more details about that feature on the intertubes.

Calls are already "secure" to a point but if you need even more security then perhaps Skype?

text ... I'll leave that to others

No, you look at the 30 day and One Child policy and ask if the outcome of those are good not to mention constitutional. My point is you don't act like the rest of the world does not exist. You don't simply dismiss something because it is Not Invented Here(tm)

No he uses his unique interpretation of the Constitution. As for referencing the laws of foreign countries ... so what? So long as those laws would be considered constitutional within 2 stddev of the accepted definition then what is the problem? Yes, the subtext here is that I do not think Scalia is often within 2 stddevs of the accepted defintion of constituational.

Beyond that, referencing foreign laws can also be reworded as, referenced laws already contemplated by other learned legislators and legal scholars with similar world views (ie individual liberty, freedom from oppression etc). Unless of course she is referencing Syrian Law or other similar locale; I don't think she is. It is called Jurisprudence and she is casting a wider net than simply the 50 states as any worthy legal scholar should. Without doing so you risk the opposite problem you are impliying ... that is ... failure to look at laws in other countries that have gone bad means you risk making the same mistake. Of course my implication is that a failure to look at laws that have worked out means you are blind to solutions and denying yourself evidence withwhich to make a decision.

yes the "rub" as in rubs me the wrong way. I'm very much aware of the facts you state, hence my comment about donating a gonad to break out of that RICO circle.

If I am strange because I still have Dish Network despite being able to get everything else online, then yes I agree. I still haven't made the mental leap to cut that cord. Even though I almost exclusively watch DVR'ed shows, I still like the idea of having a single place to get on-demand background noise.

If I am strange for not watching sports [shrug] don't know what to tell you. I grew up playing soccer, baseball and lacrosse, and now as an adult I play soccer 4-5 times a week. But I can't be bothered to watch any sports, no not even soccer. The World Cup and the Super Bowl serve mearly as excuses to have / go to a party and I'm the guy chatting up the girls in the room with my back to the TV. I derive no enjoyment from watching other people play for whom I have zero connection (read: I don't have kids to watch).

Also I guess I just don't pay THAT much for Dish and I consider it my "nod" to paying for content that I'm might, in theory, also be torrenting because I don't have enough DVR's or because I hate edited/censored TV (I'm looking at you BBC-America). Oh and aren't there still commericals on the likes of Hulu that I can't skip? Even one is annoying, and with my DVR I can skip them really quickly.

My left nut if I could stop paying for sports channels. All of them, gone from my line-up and from my bill!!!

Sincerly ... Thank you for pointing out the difference between an excuse and an explanation which can lead to solutions. So often I deal with people who look at any level of critical thought and explanation as just "so much bitching and whining and making excuses". I'll call someone out for making an excuse in a heartbeat, but a good explanation of cause and effect is critical to understanding and solving problems.

Right, but until DRM is gone (I agree it is the larger problem) if you buy a kindle you can then only buy DRM books from Amazon and like it or not, many of the authors i want to read are published by DRM publishers. But with my Nook I can buy a DRM book from any ePub retailer and put it on my Nook without converting or stripping.

Of course until the DOJ court cases there wasn't much competition in pricing regardless, but we are at least just starting to see some movement.

Sooo what you are describing is ... um ... the ... ah ... Android Ecosystem. And that has clearly failed. Oh wait it hasn't.

You know why it hasn't ... because phone users don't want a multi-step process to install an app. And by "want" I mean aren't even capable for most techno-deficients.

So for the vast majority, they buy in the app store and google gets whatever cut they get. For a smaller percent of users, lets say a lot of /. readers, they will read about an app on XDA or Rootzwiki, or Androidforums etc etc etc where the dev might offer them a free download of the apk and maybe they take donations. In some ways that might be a loss leader, in others it might be a "thank you" for helping with development via participation in the forums.

Then as far as offering to put it on the market for free and then collect payment out-of-band .... I have yet to see it. the only thing I've seen so far, for anything remotly popular, is a dev who offered a paid app market version and a paid non-app market version (paid OOB and slightly cheaper). The non-app market version has a few extra features as a "thank you" iirc but it also had a limitation ... it could not easily be xfered to replacement device nor used in multiple devices. A feature you get with the app market version. The reason clearly stated it had to do with preventing piracy because the app market ensures the app is only installed contingent on your google account. The non-app version had no such way to limit installs of the APK without a unque key likely tied to the phone hardware ID.

To top off that entire discussion, don't forget that devs would rather code than deal with, hopefully, tens of thousands of $1-$5 transactions (and some number of refunds). Then there is the money collection system. That costs money FYI. Collecting money isn't free unless paypal has changed its policy recently. There is the key gen system (manual or automated, both take time). Orrrrr they can pay google to take care of all of that for them, for what seems to be a reasonable fee.

But the long and short is ... you are wrong. Because the open system you describe is the Android ecosystem, and the dystopian result you envision has not come to pass.