It's exactly the same thing as when one of my neighbors has a TV they want to sell for $10, and I buy it and sell it to a friend across the river for $11. Without my knowledge the neighbor might not have sold it at all.

No, it's not the same, because with HFT the buyer is not across the river, he's in the very same stock exchange. He will see the TV set for sale, whether you meddle in the affair or not. Thus all you've done is made your "friend" pay a dollar more than he otherwise would have to, pocketing said dollar yourself.

There are ways within this system to cheat, but arbitrage per se is not cheating, it's implementing the system of equilibrating the markets.

But we aren't talking about arbitraging between markets. We're talking about a single market, a single stock exchange. And while there's value in arbitraging between points of time - essentially storing resources when they're plentiful and releasing them when they're scarce - we're talking about microseconds here.

As for von Rothschild, you do realize that that was basically insider trading? As is HFT. They're both based on some market participants having information that has not yet have had a chance to become public knowledge. That is the problem with HFT: someone is using their special position in the market to do trades Joe Average possibly couldn't. That's cheating, so why shouldn't Joe use his special position of sheer numbers to have his representatives shut it off?

The simplest means would be to charge big fees for cancellations.

Or, better yet, don't allow cancellations. Instead, put expiration times to buy and sell orders with a minimum of, say, 1 day. Or perhaps simply delay all orders for a week or so before attempting to execute them, during which they are completely unprocessed but may be canceled, therefore simultaneously removing HFT and giving people doing stupid things in panic or mania time to calm down.

Given that the PS3 was the least pirated console of this generation by a large margin I would suggest that Sony got something right even if they angered some people in the process.

Actually, by that criteria, wouldn't the most succesful console be Phantom, which didn't see a single pirated copy of any game whatsoever?

The UK already operates 85 Sharia courts. They have limited power, for now. When more riots happen they'll probably get more power to placate the 'cultural' demands of the 'spontaneous protestors'. Now pictures of women are slowly getting banned. Political Correctness (the tool of the political Left) and Sharia go together. Perhaps that is conflating them too much, but it is worth considering the forces that are aligning to censor the liberties we once had and progressively control our lives (I use the word "progressively" deliberately - it is not garden-variety caring leftists that are into this censorship, but the further Left progressives who have successfully got Cultural Marxism in the universities and now spilling out into the general culture)..

So basically, your theory is that religious fanatics trying to set up a theocracy have allied with the hardcore supporters of an explicitly atheistic ideology that thinks religion is a drug?

Some might say that because we are animals, we are slaves to our basic instincts, but we disagree; we believe that we have the ability to transcend our desires and instincts. Given how much porn is out there, can you honestly say that people are in control of themselves?

And so they need someone else to control them. Some higher power to help them tell their right hand from their left. Namely, Christian moral busybodies who in their zeal to stamp out violations of the Sixth Commandment trample the First.

You are not fit to wield any kind of authority derived from God over other people, no matter how much better than them you might think you are. Such delusions make you far more a slave than even the most obsessive whoremonger.

what people don't understand is that porn is a bad thing when there is too much exposure, so it does a lot of good for people to block their access or at least make it harder to access...

That is an extraordinary claim and thus requires extraordinary evidence, yet you've not provided any, or even described the nature of the alleged harm.

Because some day Mother is going to come round to visit, and just to test if you are being a good little boy quickly check if she can see sex.com. Then you have to endure an hour-long lecture about how the 'didn't raise you this way.'

"Have to"? Really? Adults in the UK are legally still under their parents supervision?

I'd say the same applies to girlfriends, but... slashdot.

Maybe it has less to do with the web forums you visit and more to do with you apparently needing your mothers approval for your sexuality?

This is impossible, no private enterprise builds infrastructure, works on long term projects, etc. Only governments do that.

That's not the problem. The problem is, as the summary said: "Now Ellison is attempting to win over the island's small, but wary, local population, one whose economic future is heavily dependent on his decisions."

In other words, the local population now pretty much lives at Ellison's mercy, and once he dies at the mercy of whoever inherits him. A privately owned society is a nightmare where you depend on the benevolence of your local feudal lord. And perhaps Ellison is benevolent and smart enough to think long-term; that doesn't change the fact that these people now depend on his whims. And that's a terrible way to live.

Pure capitalism/libertarianism is the dictatorship of whoever has the most money. This is a perfect example of that. And that's why privatizing vital infrastructure is a bad idea.

So we should continue to spend time and money indefinitely until every single possible outlier case in every system of categorisation can be accounted for rigorously and completely?

Who is "we" and why do you want to make a database recording my gender?

I really don't see how adding "other" as an option requires infinite time or money. However, in general, if you insist on categorizing people they'll insist on you doing so correctly (from their point of view). This is entirely reasonable, and that it makes it harder to construct huge databases of people's personal information is hardly a bad thing.

On the other hand, if I walk up and grab your crotch and suck on my lip, you're not going to file for sexual harassment, you're going to follow me to the bathroom and fuck me silly.

Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. I'd consider it an attack and react accordingly.

That's the problem with talking about "men" and "women": you are talking about 3 billion people like they were a single person. That's an absurd premise.

Yeah! Nothing wrong with using women for the sole purpose of being stared at like the objects they're showing off. ... really?

Is it wrong to have the rest of the booth personnel there? After all, they are simply objects with the sole purpose of showing off corporate propaganda? Or barristas, living coffee machines? Or any other employee?

In fact, that's pretty much the definition of business - a setting where other people are primarily valued based on what you can get from them. "Nothing personal, just business." Why does this suddenly stop being okay when "what you can get" is sex appeal? Sure, it means that their abilities are likely under-utilized, but so are burger flipper's. Is this simply a continuation of the general "sex is sinful" -meme that still plagues the US?

But, in general as a society, we can respect women enough that we don't have to use them as sex objects and walking billboards.

We obviously do, as plenty of women are employed outside these professions. The issue is whether any can be hired for them.

As a man, you should hold yourself to a better standard of creature than one driven by his carnal instincts.

All beings are driven by their instincts, that's their purpose. Why single out "carnal" instincts? Because sex is a sin?

Nobody likes being leered at, so why would you condone it anywhere?

That is obviously untrue, as people of either gender often go out of their way to appear attractive.

Yeah right, it is soo typical of this entitlement generation to find excuses like that.

It's not a matter of entitlement, it's a matter of freedom. I am, by default, free to do anything I want - in this case look at what I want and tell other people about it. It's those who want to limit this default freedom in a particular case who need to come up with a reason. It is they who are claiming an entitlement for wielding power over me, not me.

If you accept that the material itself can be illegally acquired by simply clicking the links, what is the issue with taking the site down?

The issue is that exercising power over the site owners and users needs a better justification than helping media company profits.

Unless he got into office and realized he security is lot trickier than he thought.

And how would he realize that? Does the President also manage the details of three-letter agencies? Or does his new position simply mean those who do have an incentive to change his mind?

It's wise to change your position as new information arrives, but it's also wise to take into account the motives of those delivering it to you.

Bah, traditional Daleks have been done to death. Someone needs to take them in a new direction.

Like porn?

There is only so much you can do with make-up and FX.

But why would you need to do anything? A terminator has a fleshy shell; why wouldn't it get fat and wrinkly? Heck, having a Geriator that's been around for a long time and seen it all could even allow a new take on the character.

Say, the Terminator from Judgement Day survived. A century has passed and Skynet has retreated off-planet to outer Solar System. The T is sent for one last mission to a military space station where the local AI has gone rogue and threatens to rain apocalypse down on Earth... Terminator 5: System Shock :).