Yea, by fucking J.D. Salinger himself (or did mentioning that little tidbit weaken your argument too much to make it worthy of a mention?)

So sad that this is where you've invested your moral outrage, that one of the century's most noted author's sued because he didn't want some talentless ass hat publishing fan fiction (a.k.a. unoriginal self-indulgent feculence) to muddy his genuine, original and critically acclaimed novel.

Hammer on Disney and the other greedycorps all you want, but when a living author wants to protect his own work/invention/legacy, he has every right to do so and piss on every self-righteous dick (including the comparatively talentless hacks of the world) who tells him otherwise.

Wow, that was like a triple-negative sentence ... absolutely no idea if you are for or against being a slacker and fair pay for laziness ... and don't think you didn't break my brain with that ... er, in the least.

The Devil's greatest trick is convincing you he doesn't exist. Now, while I'm loathe to use a religious maxim to point out the error in your thinking, it seemed apt.

If you looked behind the curtain of freedom and democracy you are pointing your finger at, you'd see self-interest groups (corporations, the very rich) applying lobbyists and likely more nefarious means of manipulation/regulation/control on their local/state/federal politicians, those very politicians whose only real motivation is to win the next election, and the media manipulating the population's fear/greed/loneliness to keep them tuned into their 'message' and keep them consuming (to appease their corporate owners and financial sponsors respectively). All backed up by a failed education system and two-parents-working economy that produces nothing but mindless minions who almost universally ignore and accept as required (or forget/abandon their occasional outrage so fast the separation from outright indifference is negligible).

But hey, if you are comfortable with the illusion of freedom and control over your future, more power to you.

So just to be clear, Mr. ordinary self-interested citizen of the USA, as long as your criminal Stasi organizations and the douche politicians that enable them are only spying on the ordinary, law-abiding people outside your borders, you're good to go?

I can't help but think you'd be pissing furious if you found out the GCHQ had recorded all of your conversations for the last few years, and would be first to whine about the illegality of it all. And at how hard I'll laugh when it turns out to be true.

<sarcasm>Yes, because that's exactly what happened with movies and music.</sarcasm>

And what the hell are "unavoidable facts on the ground". Sounds like you're talking dog shit.

You have made a common but (as Sheldon would say) not forgiveable error in your reasoning. Two, in fact.

First, the "Talent" makes big money because they actually draw people to the movie. Enough to justify their huge salary? Yes. The market wouldn't bear it otherwise. Nobody, esp. studio execs., gives RDJ $25 mil because they dig the goatee. By your logic, grips and best boys should be getting big pay checks too.

There is *no* parallel in gaming, or at best the company itself is the "Talent". Voice actors, capture artists, designers, etc. do not individually draw major numbers of customers to purchase a game. The only people who do (and they are few in number) are creative director-types who do, in fact, earn great pay checks.

As to profit sharing, should these self-same developers take a huge pay cut if the work was a failure? Or, do only the people who a) built their company up from the ground, over years or decades, to reach this point, and/or b) poured all the front-money including salaries into the project, have to suffer if the game fails?

These developers you speak of are absolutely free to quit their secure jobs, go start a company, develop their own games and keep all the profits. They don't, of course, and that's why they don't get to show up with a cup in their hand when their company's 'AAA' hits it big.

What an insanely vapid rant, on literally every single point you made.

I've never had a cause to worry about this, but the undertones of patheti-sad rage in your middle-school English rant seem to indicate you have some pretty deep-seated issues, though I cannot fathom how this topic triggered them. How you can so blithely validate extorting people who a) may not have been convicted of anything yet, b) may actually be innocent or even c) if guilty, will be punished within the confines of the accepted legal system, of which public humiliation has not been a meaningful component since the stocks?

These are absurd leech sites serving no purpose other than to earn money, and survive on the backs of the lowest form of smug, self-satisfying losers who get off on having a list of faces who they can finally point to and shout, "see, there are people lower on the totem pole than me!"

Ah, wait ... I think I just figured you out.

Hey, the 90's are calling, they want your comment back.

ColdFusion runs on Tomcat now.

Been living here two years and trust me, they have.

Everybody here want's everything re-privatized. Power, gas, the trains, etc. The lies that the politicians told during the money grab (better cheaper service through competition) have of course not panned out. Competition is a farce, there is monopoly and scarcity of choice everywhere, unabashed price fixing and price increases that far outpace infrastructure costs and inflation (i.e. solely to increase profit), all in the absence of regulation and built on the backs of trillions of dollars of a tax-derived infrastructure.

All I see and hear is whining and whinging, though. No reason for the greed to stop, in absence of any real will to stop them.

the right approach is offering something which doesn't give them a reason to "pirate" it. ... example: having your magazine available worldwide without restrictions. ... you can't pirate an ebook/magazine

I struggle to imagine how your example could be any more pointless. Like pissing into the wind and congratulating yourself because you remembered to keep your mouth closed.

Especially this -> You can't pirate and ebook/magazine? Is this just some petty terminology hangup, would you prefer the terms steal/infringe/plagiarize/redistribute illegally? The other possibility is that you're suggesting that copywrite doesn't exist, or that it isn't a crime. If so, I imagine you must also cheer when banker's foreclose on junk mortgages (and double-dip by shorting them) and wall streeter's game stocks and profit while Gramma's pension halves in value. After all, they're getting away with being thieving dicks too, gaming the system and smiling because it's so hard to get caught breaking the law ... what's the difference?

The fact is, you'll never get through to the poetmatt mentality. If you are distributing digitally there will always be tools too thick to realize the consequences of their petty arrogance, that their actions directly jeopardize the source of the material perhaps irrevocably (especially in niche markets).

If you can't find a way of monetizing the content through secondary channels (professional support, training, high charges for advertising, timely feeds, or perhaps just using digital only as a supplement or enhancement to subscribers) it's possible your business model isn't going to translate to the digital age. I'd suggest polling your clients directly, ask them what they are looking for and maybe you'll find a safe, no-hassle way of delivering it or a new way of operating that fits your current skill sets / resources.

I'm assuming its so that there is a bit more space for the next drop of tar to form, since the one that just fell is going to take some time to incorporate into the bottom mass. Probably didn't have to happen right right away, but it would allow the next drop to begin forming from the earliest possible fixed rest point.

I'm betting that the longish length of the previous one had the monitor worried for years that it would reach the bottom mass without pinching off first.

Supposedly this is to protect the identities of MIT staff who might be harassed — but government policy is to redact such information already.

There is nothing in the article that supports your conclusion. From the article:

In its motion, MIT asked the court to establish a process by which MIT could review and propose redactions to any such documents prior to their release. With this motion MIT does not oppose the release of these documents, but seeks only to redact information that could threaten the safety and privacy of its employees, or that could threaten the security of MIT’s computer network.

So your outrage is what, that MIT isn't proceeding in the good faith that the government would bear the burden of protecting their staff's identities. Yea, that makes sense.

If somebody solicits your attention through forced indignation, its a sure sign you are talking to either a) a zealot or b) a drum beater looking for a pat on the back. Nobody thinks what happened to Aaron was reasonable (other than those fetid US attorneys and prosecutors who build their careers by prosecuting beyond reason or justice), but selling shit as Shinola just tarnishes the overall conversation around it, even if there is a grain of truth in what you are selling.

Sky News showed the new plane — which was not carrying passengers at the time — had been sprayed by foam, but there were no signs of fire.

But there is! Scorch marks on the roof in front of the tail section.

Check it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23295115 [bbc video feed]

... it crashes without even needing to leave the jetway.

To be fair, neither of the companies you cited actually have (had?) the mandate "Do No Evil" plastered next to their names. It's pretty ballsy to come out with that statement and yet then crap like this, especially when they just shrug their shoulders and say "um, yea, dude gives us tax breaks" when you call them on it.

Can't say I disagree about the rest, though. Corporations hijacked American democracy decades ago, everything they do is just smoke and mirrors to hide their unabashed self-interest.

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"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." ... Man In Black