But will you be able to buy a new 486 in 2050?

Basically, abso-damn-lutely. However, the last PDP-11 model was introduced in 1990. I'm not sure when production ceased,but this hardware has to be pretty long in the tooth by now. How long do you reckon the hardware will keep running? How long will repair parts, even down to the IC level, be available? How long will peripherals be available? A PDP-11 still running in 2050 would be like a 1953 computer still running today.

So? A "generation" is commonly held to be 30 years; the average child (note: not first-born) being born when the parents are approximately 30. Secondly, TFA specifies two generations "coming and going", which means two ENTIRE generations pass; not just one passing and the second one beginning.

That is 60 years, not 37 years. TFS, if not TFA, which I didn't read, is officially stupid.

Do you really think you'd notice a pattern of extra trailing spaces behind the last words of certain paragraphs of certain chapters?

Replying to them and making it twice as visible that the word was used, does not further your cause. It does, however, let you show us that you're so much better and holier than them.

I don't like or agree with every term that everyone uses all the time myself. I just don't bitch about it. I don't tell others how they should express themselves because that's worse than any word they could use, and because I am not their lord and master. The only person I want to control is myself.

That this particular term "sheeple" gets so deeply and visibly under the skin of so many tells me something. It tells me that this word has power, that it's significant, that it must in fact do a very good job of connecting an ugly tendency with an ugly word. "Follower", "lemming", "droid", "trendy", "mindless automaton" etc. all describe the same thing, but for some reason it is the word "sheeple" that so many I'm-better-than-you types fixate on. That's all the more reason to use it.

If you believe that censorship is fundamentally wrong then you have two choices: 1) Be a hypocrite and pretend it's different when you do it, or 2) don't censor content on your own Web site either. This KWin maintainer is choosing the first option. What he doesn't seem to appreciate is easy enough to understand: if the trolls can cause him to abandon one of his core beliefs and make a hypocrite of himself, then that's a victory for the trolls and a defeat for himself. It reminds me of how certain nations respond to terrorism by eliminating freedoms -- if the terrorists want to do as much lasting harm as possible, then they must be delighted by that.

This near-obsession with treating government as a special case even when the discussion is about abstract principles is why you were confused. Government is only a special case when the discussion is about censorship via the legal system, because government is the only entity legally allowed to use force or threat of force to achieve its goals. A Web site operator isn't going to arrest a troll and throw him in jail so that just doesn't apply here. Said operator might, however, delete certain posts or ban certain users to effect censorship.

I think our society in general is losing the ability to think in terms of abstract principles (part of why privacy is eroding). This is why we have to rehash the same old "but but .. government!" discussion every single time censorship is mentioned regardless of context. It's a nearly indestructible meme it would seem. You will probably be fired if you tell your boss to go fuck himself and that, too, is a form of censorship. Anyway, this is like a GPL vs. BSD license discussion -- check the Slashdot archives and you'll find that every conceivable point and counterpoint has already been debated ad nauseum.

Looks like someone didn't understand something...

I don't care what most people do. I was explicit in talking about how this "service" would interact with what I do.

Until it lands on top of one of the two channels I'm using and then there will be a conflict. A conflict I won't be able to prevent them from creating and will have to spend my time solving. And then solve again the next time it happens. And then when my neighbor gets his Comcast "free" wifi box and either one of his lands on top of mine.

At that point I go to HSMM and don't care about the low power interference.

I wouldn't think so. That feels more like a promotional discount (like a coupon). You can't sell them, transfer them, or even use unless you're spending even more money through eBay. Taxing eBay bucks would be like taxing the use of the coupons they print out for you at the grocery store register - those are only "worth" something if you're in the store buying more goods later, at a slightly lower promotional rate.

Can we just agree to end the conservative/liberal horse shit when talking about the supreme court (and pretty much everything else)? It's a false polarization meant to suppress individual thought on important matters.

In cases like this it's individual rights vs statism. Simple as that. So-called "conservatives" are big on certain elements of statism, and so-called "liberals" are also big on certain elements of statism (sometimes, but mostly not, the same elements). If the five who formed the majority court opinion happen to be commonly labeled "conservative", that is of no interest to me whatsoever. If they are statist tools, you can bet your ass I am damned interested in that.

In the end, too many of the SC justices are assholes selected by assholes who are elected by slack-jawed morons.

Er, that is the exact purpose of the reading of the "Miranda" rights. It is to ensure that the defendant knows he does not have to confess, so that if he then confesses he is doing so deliberately. Assuming he wasn't tortured and undue coercion was not applied, of course his confession will be accepted, because no rights were denied to him. Obviously, the case must still be properly investigated, because simply accepting the first confession received at face value without any supporting evidence whatsoever is considered faulty detective work.

It is called the right not to incriminate oneself, not the prohibition against incriminating oneself.

Now, if you can show that he is brain damaged or profoundly incompetent/stupid, or perhaps temporarily deranged by circumstances, you then still have a case to throw out the confession.

one can wave certain rights

You keep using that word. I do not believe it means what you think it means.

I understand that it is fun and convenient to ignore some of the words when you want to make a good rant, but you should please note that I was explicit in saying what the purpose of the photos I did not find invasive was. You might as well come up with some fanciful use like editing random people's heads onto other people's bodies in sex tapes as another use for DMV photos and then rant at me about how I said that such a use wouldn't be invasive or unacceptable. You'd be just as accurate and just as honest.

I was pretty explicit in saying that I did not find invasive the ability of police to verify an identity using stored DMV photos. The person to whom I replied, which wasn't you, claimed that such use was outside the scope of the original photo, and I responded to that specific claim.

Right. Now you're trying the decrepit "if only you was as smart as me you'd know I was right" argument. This is your idea of trying to have "a dialogue"?

Yes, my response to you was a complete waste of time. You neither care that you misread what was said nor that you were being much more invasive in your questioning than any DMV photo would be, and yet I should object to one and freely participate in the other. The fact that you asked is the problem, my having a choice or not.

You think that keeping the DMV photo online so the actual identity of someone can be verified is invasive, I do not. I think the ability of law enforcement to double check an identity using information that is relatively hard to forge is well worth the non-invasive nature of the process.

I find your attempted interrogation as to political/etc affiliations to be much more invasive than simply having my driver's license photo in the DMV database. I'm supposed to object to the latter but go along happily with the former?

That's the problem. It very well may be using the channel I'm already using. (Actually, two that I'm already using when I turn on my second AP.) Since I can't control which one it uses, it may very well bounce around as Comcast sees fit to bounce their digital channels around. What's to stop it from landing smack on top of the wireless channel(s) I'm already using?

I'm not sure I would want any enticement for people to stand around outside my house browsing the web. Move along, people. Nothing to see here.