That's what Poe's Law is

"Poe's law, named after its author Nathan Poe, is an Internet adage reflecting the fact that without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between sincere extremism and an exaggerated parody of extremism." -- Wikipedia

Uh... yes? Considering that the entire purpose of these lawsuits is to keep the competition off the fucking market in the first place, I'd say that's a pretty sane conclusion to reach.

If only that were true.

You need to remember that it's the fanboys that defended Apple's idiotic "look and feel" patent based on rounded fucking corners and square icons. They'll defend this just as insipidly.

They wouldn't see Apple for what they are if Zombie Steve Jobs came back to fuck them in the eye.

So do Santorum and all of his empty headed little followers. You think that makes a difference to them?

Not sure it counts as a whoosh since Poe's Law is definitely in effect in this subthread.

He may simply have guessed wrong.

42, 28...

You can bet it was a middle-aged man who came up with this function...

(NB: That's actually a joke. I'm well aware that it's widely attributed to Aristotle)

Just a minor point here: if no one truly wanted to see it, it wouldn't be effective marketing, and they'd stop doing it.

Marketers might compete with politicians and MAFIAA lawyers for the lowest rung of the scumbag ladder, but they're generally not stupid in the general case.

That was my first thought. Most fathers I know (and one doting uncle I can speak authoritatively for) would probably react the same way whether their "little girl" was 17 or 37.

GP's example was probably not the best to use

Maybe that was the rationale of their inception, but this is Clearly not the case today.

Might admittedly be possible. OTOH, I've seen no evidence of this since, to date, every instance I've seen of someone agreeing with Stallman on this matter has had no problem with name-dropping him within two posts on the subject.