To me it completely misses the point of shooting, whether target shooting or hunting (and for hunting it completely removes the sport aspect).

For some hunters, the point is to get food.

You missed three very important points that the global warming denialists have made over the last decade or two:

* Global warming isn't real.
* Global warming *is* real, but it's completely natural and not at all man-made.
* Global warming is real and man-made, but it's good.

[citation needed]

I've been a programmer for 15 years now, and the absolute worst people to work with are the ones who know just enough about programming that they vastly overestimate their knowledge. I don't want to work with a bunch of people who are on top of Mt. Stupid, least of all some exec who thinks a tiny bit of coding knowledge will help you make estimates about how long a bit project will take.

Let programmers program. Be serious about it, or don't do it.

...to become a bit more ubiquitous before we start alarming politicians into making it illegal by using it to manufacture weapons?

We don't want 3D printing to become "isn't that how people make plastic guns?" to the lay public. It's too important of a technology, and given how potentially disruptive it is to the business models of a lot of large companies with a shit ton of money, you can bet that people are already talking about how to get rid of it.

So please, if you must design guns for 3D printers, keep the designs private until the public is familiar enough with the technology that they won't buy the alarmist "O NOES, GUNS" excuse that politicians will invariably use to keep people from buying 3D printers.

Interestingly, it's also good for women if men get equal paternity leave, because having to give more leave to women makes companies less likely to hire women and less likely to pay them equally.

So not only would equal leave be good for men who want to spend time with their newborns, it would be good for women who want to avoid being discriminated against when applying for jobs and getting raises.

Here's another question for you: How can we vote away from DRM with our wallets?

For example, say EA puts out some big SimNOUN game that everybody wants to play. However, it's encumbered with DRM and there are no viable alternatives. If enough consumers opt to vote with their wallets, the C-men of EA will chalk it up to lack of interest, which means no new SimNOUN in the future.

You kind of answered your own question, unfortunately. To vote with our wallets, we need to vote with our wallets, and that means giving up some of the entertainment that we like. I wanted to buy Mass Effect 3 and Sim City, but I haven't done so since I take issue with the DRM (I also, for the record, have not pirated either). It's unfortunate that EA ate Bioware and Maxis, but what you need to bear in mind is that the developers of those franchises are still around. Bioware and Maxis are just names that EA bought. The people who develop those games aren't the property of EA, and can form their own studios.

Apparently I had the wrong idea about what a charter school is. I retract what I said earlier.

So, how do we compensate artist without DRM?

Well, in order to answer this question, you have to consider the fact that the DRM is broken on literally every big name movie in existence. Anyone who wants to pirate their movies already can. So in answer to your question, we compensate artists without DRM the same way we do right now -- we pay them. The lack of DRM doesn't make it legal to distribute copies, and it doesn't make it particularly easier (since DRM-free copies of movies already exist and are easily available).

DRM doesn't give the publisher any additional rights -- it only takes away the rights of paying customers, specifically:

• The right to make backup copies
• The right of first sale
• Fair use

Those are the only rights truly being "managed" by DRM, and they're being "managed" away so that legitimate consumers have to pay for the same media multiple times, or (in some cases) pay more for existing media since they can't purchase it used.

That sounds like a highly unusual situation. Most public schools pay jack squat.

That being said, there are a couple of things to consider:

First off, you may live in an area with a high consumer price index. I'm sure people can get by just fine on $80k, but it may not be as much as it sounds like to someone from, say, the midwest (my understanding is that most of California is this way, but feel free to link your actual county if you want to prove me wrong about your specific situation). Most likely the teachers at your charter school are underpaid and not living particularly comfortably.

With respect to your charter schools getting slightly better results, it's important to consider the fact that it's generally more affluent families that can afford to pay extra to send their children to a non-public school. Affluent parents tend to have more free time to spend with their children, and can afford to be more involved in their kids' lives, which means they can push them to study, do their homework, etc. On average, kids at public schools have parents who make less money, and are more likely to be raised by single parents. Blaming the difference in performance between public and private schools on public school teachers is problematic unless you're also correcting for socioeconomic factors.

Sounds like someone's view of teachers is being heavily colored by their political beliefs.

Unfortunately, this is one of those instances where capitalism is not the best solution for everyone. There's no incentive for drug companies to spend large amounts of money researching drugs that won't see a lot of use, such as new antibiotics for fighting superbugs, or ways of actually curing chronic conditions such as diabetes. On the other hand, there would be a massive amount of benefit to actually *having* these things.

Additionally, in a purely capitalist society, the people who bear the cost for drug research are people who are already sick, and thus less able to work. Paying for drug research is more like "insurance", because it protects you from illnesses in the future. Even if I'm not sick, drug research benefits me because (on average) it increases the quality and duration of my life. On the other hand, since there's no immediate benefit, people don't want to pay for that out of pocket. Massively expanding government drug research would be a very good thing in the long run, not to mention that it would create jobs right now.

Absent some meaningful campaign finance reform, I don't expect state and federal politicians to stand up to the telcos any more than local ones do -- in fact, I'd honestly expect less. When municipalities try to set up their own (cheaper, faster, self-funded) broadband networks, the telcos go to the state government and try to get them shut down, because apparently the fact that they aren't trying to make a profit gives them a big advantage against for profit companies, which, interestingly, is the precise opposite of the usual argument given in favor of free market capitalism.

That being said, if Google manages to push this out into the news and people start exerting sufficient pressure on their state lawmakers, it's possible that something positive might come of it. It's amazing how much flooding congressional offices with calls and letters and accomplish.

No one. But then, you don't exactly have to be a model citizen to be a better one than Apple.

The defendant points out that Google promised not to, essentially giving the defendant permission to use the patents. As a juror, how would YOU decide the case?

I suppose that depends on how smart I am and how well each side presented their case. :)

Me, personally, knowing what I know about this right now, I'd find against Google.