In general, you shouldn't try to solve social non-problems with technical solutions.

Conclusion: You should't stop it, so don't even try.

Guess what?

Reading article helps:

"prosecution recommended a six-month sentence in a minimal security prison, instead of 35 years suggested by the US law, and the judge could have reduced this term even further."

If Swartz suicided because of six months in jail, he gets no sympathy however prosecutors definitelly get mine for being basically victims of his worthless and pointless "martyrdom".

Wow, you have been fed incredible amounts of FUD. Where did you get this "information"?

None of the things you are scared of are true. All the "i would like it to work this way" are correct.

Most succesfull criminals generally have:

  * Honest looking face, do not avert eye contant and have firm grip
  * Dress the same or a bit better than their marks.
  * Are happy and unconcerned when doing their work.
  * Bathed and groomed.
  * Get a bit of charisma.
  * Are not dumb.

This is incredibly important for pickpockets - if you are in suit and looking like you are just comming from business meeting, people will not suspect a thing. And if you get caught, you can talk your way out because it can be played as misunderstanding.

Compare this to badly dressed, tatooed, nervous member of differently colored minory which causes people put their hands on their valuables immediatelly. (Those are good to detecting where people have their valuable stuff so that their coworker has much easier time)

Any system that judges people on looks is going to be way too stupid to know this. Most people are too scared to notice real dangers. And now they made software that mimicks this stupidity.

Bravo.

And we are not event getting to how evil this thing is because of basically labeling people randomly as criminals.

Married child-bearing people pay less taxes, because they provide important thing that you are likely not:

Future taxpayers.

You know, people who will in 20 years start paying for your roads and public infrastructure and all those nifty things that goverment provides you. And most likely for your retirement home or some other shit that you will eventually need.

So fuck you, in eyes of goverment (and in mine) you are dead-end and freeloader. Paying full amount of taxes and chipping in is least you can do to offset that.

So shut up about how unfairly you are taxed because in the end, those married people are subsiding you.

This is selfishness of stunning degree. Guess comes with your lifestyle.

Well, I certainly hope authors can do it.

Many such projects died - which is usually great shame if is episodic sci-fi like L5

50 - 100 years is about time to:

  * forget fads and kitch no-one will remember
  * filter out crap and crud withing medium or genre
  * discover enough nuances and develop artisty to level where we can appreciate works for what they are

This is all very necessary.

Take a look at any "popular" lists like "10 best movies of century" or "20 best book authors" - they will nearly always contain disproportionate amount of recent stuff which is worthless and only got there because it is still fresh in memory and talked about, but which will be completelly forgotten and left out of those lists ten years later.

There are always idiots who think that recent pop and kitch is unrecognized art. Time needs to test the art.

And you want cake (watch movie) and eat it too (not pay a cent).

What about everyone having their cake?

You download stuff that people want to share - you get free stuff and can consume it, but refrain from touching other stuff.

You know, pay respect to authors or works you enjoy.

Are you arguing against yourself?

> If I go pick up all the trash along a road, should I have the right to sue the city for the work I did without compensation? When did they get the right to have a clean street without contributing anything to me or society for having made it happen?

Except that city can not prevents itself from volunteer helping out.

Leech has distinct option of not having chain of actions that lead to him having downloaded and enjoyed something.

You example would have been right city forced you to pick up trash, torrent node would have been okay if he only distributed work which someone volunteered for distribution (gpl, creative commons...)

I would like to word this bluntly:

(Sweedish) Pirate party is founded to get good publicity for business and to ensure it stays profitable and unhindered.

That business is basically making money of displaying advertizements (along with doing things like attempting users to download browser toolbar and other things that freedom loving geeks shound not event consider) when people are searching its index which is nearly 100% composed of pirated material. Should have there been "no more downloads of pirated content", it would go bankrupt and its owners would likely have to find real work other than being just middlemen.

Add to that arrogant behavior that would end up with them being punched in face, this does not make good image of them for me.

They are getting votes of:

a) FUD Populism - various privacy e-scares and first world problems.
b) Giving people free shit and promise that it will still be free. Good old bread & games.
c) Exploting underdog effect of brave folks fighting evil big bads and rebeling against authority.

Which sums to getting votes from naive and/or young.

They are exactly same as all politicians: using political capital to enable them to get money.

Turns out that I can not be bought for few free mp3s, avis and promises that are impossible to keep. What about you?

And where did you get right to make use of his work without giving something in return to either him or society?

Breathing and being alive does not count.

While this is just a joke, one thing is dead wrong:

In any case of big emergency, you should not head to common stores or malls, but to big warehouses that are usually outside towns/cities.

Shopping malls have low supplies and require to be restocked fairly frequenctly. Most of food is low duration or requires refrigeration and you will run out of anything that can be reliably stored in few weeks (depending on amount of people who get same idea - and that amount is going to be very high).

Big warehouses will have supplies that can last you years, fairly defensibe position and loading ports for moving food to location that is even more defensible. And only people who know something about logistic of food will be going there.

Insert coin to continue in 3.. 2.. 1..

By commiting suicide, he chose to punish his family and friends instead of him.

That is terrible, monstrous and unredeemable alternative.

His choice of actions all the way from begining. Goverment court documents? Of course he was going to be showtrialed and handled as harshly as possible.

People do not bother wil programing clocks for one reason: It is pointless - if you have tons and tons of clocks elsewhere and most likely some wall mounted right in the living room, reading manual and figuring out VCRs unique (and often stupid, lazy-dev) way of setting up when is it not necessary or even helpfull.

I'd say that is pretty smart from dev pov: avoid unnecessary complexity, focus on solution (playing media), not bloat. In fact, when I think about it many thinks geeks tend to decry as stupid are actually very pragmatic and thus pretty smart.

Normal people can code, but they need to need it. They need motivation. Not pointless "set up vcr clock".