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Golem? You're the one who doesn't understand that I'm laughing at the crazy old woman. Oh well - try to keep up next time around.

This. Ten times over. A company I did some work for in 2001 had some reasonable technology for a mobile payment system (as did many others - back then people in Italy were apparently using a different system to pay for fuel at the pump with their phones) but with the banks as stakeholders you find they are not going to change anything unless there is obvious short term profit. As nearly 15 years has passed they are getting a few more senior people that are starting to see obvious gains from those new fangled mobile telephone thingies and other devices.

In some places even a cartoon of an imaginary person counts as child porn and people have been jailed for such images.
Personally I think that's going too far and we should be worrying about crimes committed against children instead of being thought police. Go after child molesters first - there's been more effort going after Kim Dotcom by playing the child porn hosting card than going after a convicted child rapist like Polanski.

Substitute "not available at Walmart yet" for "bleeding edge". Make more sense now with a new context?
It takes a while to go from lab to cheap commodity - far less time from lab to niche product.

You seem to think I "wasted" my time

Since I'd already addressed it before your post - most definitely.
All that time wasted on a throwaway aside that had already been pointed out as such AND SETTING ME UP AS A STRAWMAN instead of a productive discussion. A complete and utter waste of time that just makes you look like a vindictive child instead of whatever you really are. Let's just put that behind us and take what you've written about trains as read.

It should be noted that our electric light rail are almost all modern

Sorry to point this out again - but mass transit is an example of an industry that the USA just is not interested in dealing with apart from buying stuff from elsewhere (eg. importing German trams/light rail for that modern stuff) and my point was that many others are heading that way unless there is a focus on quality and/or technological progress instead of mere hope and greed. That's the only reason why I mentioned trains as an example. Can we get back to that point or do you want to continue going off on a tangent and pretending that I'm leading you there?

Yet again, some punk tells me how happy he is that I'm mortal.

It isn't government's job to regulate marriage. That is society's job. Society has repeatedly rejected homosexual marriages - time and time again. Remember Prop 8 in California?

But, the homos can't accept society's rule, so they get these activist judges to pretend that homo's rights are being violated. It's pretty sick. Which part of "democracy" do all the homos fail to understand? Societal norms are societal norms.

BTW - to into any chat room, anywhere. "Gay" is still a derogatory term, no matter how young the speakers.

Yes - and THAT is what is wrong with the cloud. Unless you are encrypting it independently before uploading, your stuff is going to be scanned for various purposes. All of those purposes are detrimental to your privacy. It's great that they took down a pedo ring - IF they really took down a pedo ring. But, they are going to use this as an excuse or reason to continue spying on all honest citizens.

Objective-C++!

(Yes, there is such a thing. And yes, I'm being facetious.)

Yaz

Your first point is laughable. Yes - insurers raised rates, every year that they could get away with it. Various groups, including the government, fought them tooth and nail over those rates. Obamacare? Who, precisely, do you think put that whole package together? Obama GAVE THE INSURANCE COMPANIES everything they wanted, on a silver platter. Obama mandates that EVERYONE MUST BUY the insurance company's products. Obama mandates that everyone must purchase packages that meet certain criteria. The mandate penalizes you if you aren't doing business with the companies that have been preying on you.

And, you don't recognize that Obama acted the willing pawn of the insurance companies?

Health insurance. I'm paying considerably MORE for my health insurance than I did in years past. All the suckers who THINK that they are paying for their new health insurance are deluded - they can only get that insurance with the aid of SUBSIDIES. How long do you think the subsidies are going to last?

Read Pieroxy's comment below. France's version of Obolacare is bankrupt - and so are all the other versions of Obolacare around the world.

Queer people marry? Nope. It doesn't happen. You can have a legal fiction built in the image of marriage, but queers can't marry. And - you're going to give CREDIT TO OBAMA FOR THAT???? Utter nonsense. Activist judges around the nation deserve the blame for that. They have been moving forward with this agenda for the past twenty years.

Which party do I prefer? I PREFER conservatism. Neither party offers that though. I've become more and more libertarian over the years, largely because both major parties are utter failures, and both have betrayed the American people.

Yes, they are identical.

Oh - you believe that ages old tripe about Republicans being warmongers, while Dems avoid wars? That nonsense was laid to rest long ago. Remember Johnson? That rat bastard set up a false flag operation and got some Americans killed to make propaganda to get us into VietNam.

Lay aside your worn out stereotypes about the parties. Your democrats promote that nonsense, and laugh at you for believing it!

I would really like to have that demonstrated to me. My telephone cares little which way I point it. Nor does my telephone much care which side of the tower I am on. Maybe the donut is flattened on one axis, but we all know that there aren't tens of thousands of antenna on the tower, each one mounted on independent gimbals, tracking each user.

Really, people - the admission that stingray "might" interfere with other user's telephone service is a no-brainer. Radio waves are generally transmitted in a spherical - or, more accurately, a donut shaped - direction. There ARE beam antenna, but who is going to attach a honking huge beam to a pocket sized transmitter? So - wherever this thing is turned on, it is GUARANTEED to interfere with normal usage, in all directions, out to the maximum range of the transmitter. In effect, they're hoping to shoot one fish in a barrel, but they're actually dragging a mile's long net through the ocean. Idiots.

You gotta understand that I met this crazy woman in Manhattan one night. She needed me to "help" her. It was the Jews. They played loud music when she tried to sleep. She heard demon voices on the telephone. Her stuff was stolen all the time. I gotta tell you, I listened, fascinated, for half an hour, as she described all the evil that the Jews committed against her. Utterly crazy.

So - demonic sounding voices on your telephone? IT'S THE JEWS!!! ROFLMAO, IT'S THE JEWS!!!!

Disclaimer: I've not worked with a lot of Jews, but I've liked all but one of those with whom I've worked.

Better? How, exactly?

When do we, the peasants, begin to understand that we serve two masters. One master offers us a shit sandwich, so we turn to the other in hopes of a better shit sandwich. At the end of the day, the smartest among the peasants figure out that both masters are shoveling shit from the same damned pile.

Tell me more about this republican misrule. Perhaps you refer to DHS, and TSA? Or, do you refer to totally meaningless immigration policies that no one enforces? Maybe you're concerned with NSA and it's siblings from the Five Eyes spying on everyone? Maybe you're upset about the totally screwed up tax structure? Go ahead - tell us exactly WHAT the republicans were doing wrong.

Once you've done that - tell me how we are one iota better off today with the democrat in the White House.

Only chumps and fools defend either party. Republicans and Democrats are an inbred family, sleeping together for the past three generations.

"infinitely better", huh? Go ahead, and tell us HOW it is better.

I usually compare my computer desktop to my physical desktop.

In this instance, I think it's quite close to compare my smartphone to my pocket.

Sure, if I was walking along and someone handed me a free album, I'd take it. I'd probably put it in my pocket if there was room. But I would also reserve the right to say "No thanks".

What Apple/U2 did is tantamount to chasing you down the street trying to shove their product into your pocket. Sorry, you have no right to do that and it's damn rude, free or not.

People don't have free downloads everywhere, and those that do may not want this crap - whether through playlist OCD of just not wanting to see something they have no interest in or, more likely, BECAUSE it was shoved into their pockets without any option.

If free stuff's so good, I'll ship you a bunch of "free" cardboard box to your house and fill it up (removing it is another issue entirely if we follow the Apple/U2 thing too closely!). Hey, it's free! Why don't you want it? You might like it. You might be a cardboard fanatic. If I offered you a bunch of free cardboard at some points in the year you might tear my arms off to get at it (e.g. moving house). If you'd asked for it, it'd be great. But instead some guy showed up, shoved a bunch of cardboard through your door and said "Hey, it's free, don't complain!".

It's not WHAT was done, it's HOW it was done.