People unable to get coverage for cancer they developed through no fault of their own will be interested in your opinion.

At least Obamacare benefits Americans.

I guess the contents of the report show that their drone programs impacts privacy in ways that violate the law. So their drone program needs to be stopped.

What's that, FBI? It doesn't? Well then why don't you release the report, without any omitted material or redacting.
I mean, you say the program is working within the correct boundaries. You should have nothing to hide if you're not doing anything wrong.

His sister is still dumb because she's letting her old iPhone sit in a desk drawer and lose value every time a new generation comes out. If Verizon was really going to give her a new iPhone for nothing (but a contract extension), she should have still paid Apple the $100 to fix the screen on the old one, and then sold it immediately. Working iPhone with brand new screen -- wonder how much that would have fetched on the market.

LOL. If we fired every person on Capitol Hill who wasted taxpayer money we'd have no legislative branch.

National parks aren't corporations, and national parks and operating systems on computers aren't the least bit related so you're not going to have a trademark collision.

And this is assuming I'm entertaining the notion the national park has any exclusive ownership to the name to start with.

When I stick a disc in my player it normally will just start up to the movie for me. I've heard this problem before, part of that is player features, part of it is the specific title you're playing. Unskippable content is lame, I agree, but if I get a disc like that I can just do a direct copy of the disc contents with the protections removed and re-burn to a dual-layer blank. Now I can play it back on the player and skip content, no change in quality. Still cheaper and quieter than a second PC in the living room.

My Sony DVD upconverting player had a feature like that. Actually it might have been a 30 second forward-back skip, but they were one-touch buttons on the remote.

If you'll read back what you're replying to, you'll see the topic was blu-ray playback, commercial discs in particular, not DVD playback. For DVD playback on a monitor with a computer attached, yeah I would just use the PC, too. Because then I can have MadVR doing chroma upscaling. DVD playback on a PC just works thanks to DVDJon. It is the particular issues that software blu-ray players have verses standard stand-alone players I was talking about..

Do you play commercial blu-rays, direct-from-the-disc on your PC? Because if you don't then I don't know why you are replying to this, since it sounds like you have no experience in what we're discussing.

I've tried it and play with it in virtual machines often. Have also been checking out the new KDE 5 on a USB stick. I could switch over but there are a few pieces of software I like that are Windows only. Last weekend I built a newer machine for my mom, who I've had using Linux for months now... I was forced to give her one of my own N wireless cards as the wi-fi card she had been using in Mint 16 with no issues (a Belkin 802.11g card) wont stay connected to the wireless network in Mint 17. I tried swapping in a different 802.11g card and had the same issue. It just drops after a few minutes for no reason. My D-Link N-card seems to not be effected. Since I have the old computer and her card in my possession at this point I want to try and figure out the problem, but right now I don't want to spend any more of my free time in a terminal on a PC that sounds like a hair dryer when it gets revved up.

I want to buy the movie legally in HD and be able to watch it in full quality and without an Internet connection. I'm perfectly within the rights I purchased. I don't watch videos on portable devices and even if I did I have the know-how to rip the disc and make my own encoding. Even if I want to do something outside the rights I've been granted doesn't mean I need to resort to some self-imposed boycott of the approved equipment.

You should have waited is all I can say. Reviews for blu-ray players always mention how long it takes to load discs for a model, and those times get shorter with each generation. Panasonics used to be the fastest, but I think we might be reaching a point where everyone is starting to even out. Just like how picture quality is generally the same on all players now. You can tell when the tech started to reach maturity because suddenly blu-ray players got a lot smaller front to back (this was when the BDP-S350 or maybe 360 came out for Sony). The groundwork was laid and thermal issues were worked out, and equipment makers could focus on miniaturization and competing on features.

A modern blu-ray player isn't just about disc playback now, it's about streaming services available on it, PC file compatibility, and possibly DLNA client usage.

I suppose you never owned a DVD player for your TV because it forced you to sit through ads at times?

How many devices have been blacklisted in the last 10 years. And I mean blacklisted as in "too bad, you can't update the firmware on your source or display device to fix this, you have to buy new hardware, and you have no legal recourse". How many times?

Tell me about the audit you did of the code that ran the recording abilities on your last VCR.
[crickets]

Why use a regular player? Because it "just works". Blu-ray players need to have their firmware updated [i]occasionally[/i], but they don't require anywhere close to the constant stream of little patches blu-ray playback software for PCs does (or blu-ray ripping software). Sometimes it's just to get a single disc to play back properly. Keep in mind that patch had to be written by the developers. What if the disc that doesn't work isn't a popular movie? Well, they may not bother fixing the issue. Or maybe they'll only make the patches available for the latest version of their software, forcing you to upgrade. You can argue that the same thing could happen on stand-alone player -- but it doesn't. I still get a firmware update every once in awhile and my player is over three years old.

The experience is overall smoother. I don't have software incompatibilities or system resource issues effecting my playback like can happen on a PC, plus a stand-alone player is quieter than a computer. It's really the same arguments as to the ways game consoles can be better than PC gaming -- dedicated hardware and software for a consistent, assured compatibility experience.

Verizon: "You can't hear us, and we don't listen to you."

FTFY.

A black hat presentation was cancelled for legal considerations? Am I reading that right?

What is the purpose of having a "minimum wage" to begin with then?

If the jobs that pay this are only supposed to be for people who are co-dependant on others to meet their living expenses (especially shelter and utilities), what is the goal this "minimum" is supposed to be enabling in the people getting paid it?

They'll only use that argument when dealing with regular citizens. That issue will simply not be mentioned when a congressman is involved. Just like how courts rarely entertain the possibility a policeman can be lying, like any other human.

He did something he knew would raise the ire of the government to the point they would want to capture him and torture him, dooming himself to a life on the run for the rest of his days. Yeah, he's a real yellow-belly.