I think that efforts could be spent on troll-filters instead... I remember getting hundreds of mails on my inbox and how nice it was when i got my first decent spam-filter. With current context-detecting software around, i think its not so farfetched to think on something like that..
True, it could mean a risk for free speech, but troll-filters would get better in time and as long as you can easily check the comment you shouldnt be too worried. There could even be a vote mark so the comment 'unhides' itself if the trolling was worth reading...
Look at slashdot.. I dont know how the comments get voted, but the general approach of the site is to hide uninteresting posts, and it works pretty well IMO..

I don't think that talking against software ownership is the same as talking against any kind of property at all.
Software are, ultimately, ideas. They have no physical embodiement and so are not limited to the usual rules of usage
Sharing is not always the same as giving away and you can't "give away" your software since in the end you never lose anything.

And no. He does not deserves to be mocked anyways. I don't think you would go to a harekrishna monk and start slapping him in the face saying "don't you teach patience and forgiveness? huh? huh?"... I mean.. Someone who preaches non-violence that much DESERVES to be mocked, Right?
It's really sad that a person who encourages sharing and cooperation among people gets attacked..

it kinda is.. i've never been mugged on my visits there, but i saw someone get mugged more than once. As a rule i leave all my documents except for my ID in the hotel, or else carry a photocopy (most cops won't make a big deal about it if you explain you're traveling).

if what i've posted earlier turns out to be true then i'm inclined to think this wasn't a regular buenos aires "choro" theft.. The Bush's girls robbery was an 'in situ' thing, they saw the opportunity and took their chances.. and got away with it. The victim is usually the careless girl or the guy in the wrong corner at the wrong time.. I don't think the Bush's muggers cared much if they got caught or not, since most of them are bold teenagers that really don't have (or think they don't) much left to be taken away anyways so they just rely on their "viveza" to survive.

Knowing in advance what kind of bag stallman had and stealing the recordings so there would be no evidence is, imo, way too complex to fit this profile

wtf is the point of joking about it? i just posted the circumstances of the act and it was clearly beyond stallman's expectations to be a victim of such a planned assault.
I hope next time someone mugs you on a street corner you get laughed about by anyone standin near let's see how you feel about it...
seriously..
/. is so full of jerks apparently

as promised: http://www.agusx1211.com.ar/2012/06/robo-stallman-en-buenos-aires.html (it is in spanish though) could someone confirm this information? thieves in argentina may be sneaky, but they're not that smart. nor the care that much about it. This was someone who knew what he was doing..

According to a testimonial, the whole incident was pretty thought through. The robbers replaced Stallman's bag with an identical, albeit empty one at the end of the talk. On top of it, the canera on which the whole conference (and probably the robbers) was filmed got stolen too. The op name is lucas romero if you want to try to find it. ill post a link when i get home

Nope, just got off the phone with them and they told me it's al qaeda again... Oh you, Al Qaeda

i just think this whole issue is plain simple: freedom of culture.
People need art in their lives, even if they won't die of it, i believe it to be an intellectual boost needed for everyone who wants to be even remotely succesful in life.
And yes, I know there are tons of issues surrounding this, so this is NOT the ultimate solution, but taking into account all the issues surrounding the current model, it makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better to try and solve the problems from the artist side, instead of chasing every single consumer..
I for one wouldn't mind an "Art Tax".. it's way better than a 'Save Wall Street Tax'

my genes didn't let me finish homework

I think that there's no way to prove WHO you voted for, just that the vote registered isn't the same as yours.
For each image, there corresponds a unique ordering of the candidates, so the only way to cheat would be that the votes appear in a diferent order as in your ballot

But if the algorithm that counts the votes, which should be freely available, works individually on each ballot, then it would be possible to decipher your vote just by looking at the count before and after summing your ballot. I really don't know if there's a way to make the algorithm fail for a single ballot.

we'll just have to run around with voltmeters
it wouldn't be hard to make an awesome wristwatch sized one!

wouldn't this solve the only issue around this? then it would be just like torrent. sort of.. it would just lack the comments, but that could be easily done on a website.. is there a way turning autoplay off wouldn't work??

i've never had an android, and i don't really know what's all the fuzz about it.. but if at some point of history they could offer some variation of my default phone (i always buy small and simple phones), like, the option to add some sort of anti theft tech, i would go with android, since it looks (that is, by what i've heard) aimed to be an open platform. the same goes, i think, to anyone who stays with one type of phone (not the ones that like to have the coolest phone out there. that market couldn't care less for functionality) i think this is great to expand the market.. we could all sit and say how people don't like to have some sort of bash 'cause they 'freak out' when they see it, but the truth is that more and more people are getting used to it, at least enough to know they haven't broke anything by opening it.. and that's quite enough to change that uneasiness of having a customizable phone into a powerful incentive, as in ''i don't know how to use it NOW.. but with time this phone will rock''

i'm not sure about this, but i can think of a few reasons..

first, the bond it makes when crystallized is very weak (similar to a noble gas crystal) so maybe gravity is able to break it??? :S

second, the pressure at different points of the bowl is different, so the freezing point is not equal, and when the temperature drops more (you'd need to do this to get the whole bowl crystallized) different parts of the bowl would contract in different proportions ruining the shape.

and finally, ... well.. those are the two reasons i can think of :p someone more into this could give you a better answer, but i'm sure this guys already thought about it and found out it can't be done that way!

um... it's nothing like the thing on the article.. what you're talking about is a lens with adjustable focus. what they're talking about is a mirror with ultra smooth adjustable shape. though they may seem similar, there's a big difference. also, you can afford a lot more focal dispersion (i just made that word up) in eyeglasses than telescopes**, hence the bitchiness about it being ultra smooth.

**just take think about it this way. if you have a small imperfection in the eyeglasses, you may get a really tiny solid angle of the image wrong. astronomers like to look at objects that cover very very very tiny solid angles from where they look :P