I can't speak for the US but at least here in Norway the distinction between personal activity (that doesn't have to pay taxes) and commercial activity comes down to scope and profitability, not organization. Everything from professional poker players to product pushing bloggers and prostitutes have had their activity deemed taxable with demands of back payment and penalty taxes. If you rent out your house once a year while you're away on summer vacation it'll fail the scope requirement, if you're just trying to make your own hobby tax deductible as a business expense you'll be denied, but if you turn a profit over time it's taxable income.

As for having no rights, well you're also the boss of your own individual business. Employee rights are there to protect workers from the boss, they don't work very well when you are the boss. Either way what you do or don't do will come straight out of your own paycheck, that's just how it is running your own business.

That's such utter bullshit. These brilliant inventions don't come from ordinary Joe's who want to sit around doing nothing. They come from visionary geniuses who are compulsively driven to bring those visions to reality.

I lay no claim to be a Tesla or an Einstein, but I've still created tools that have empowered mankind and transformed the lives of billions, and I didn't do it because I was lazy, and I didn't do it to get rich, and I didn't do it because I thought anyone was going to be grateful.

I did because I want to feel like Atlas. In my own small way, I am. And that'll do.

I remember watching a documentary about about B&W striped wet suits where the guy got a whole lot of reef sharks into a feeding frenzy and then just jumped in with them, sure enough the sharks scattered out of sight. However they were common reef sharks that are pretty much harmless, I've yet to see it tested with great whites.

Obviously, but the point that people seem to be missing is that any one of those boxes is only likely to upgrade to anything compatible with HDMI 1.x. You get a HDMI 2.0 set top box? Well either it talks HDMI 1.x (1.4 probably, maybe 1.3) to your TV or it's a dud. Nobody's going to ship a DisplayPort-only TV until they're sure everyone has a DisplayPort source and nobody's going to ship a DisplayPort source-only device until they're sure everyone has a DisplayPort TV. It's always the extra that you might have, like Firewire to USB. Not every computer has a Firewire port, but you can assume that anything relatively modern will have an USB port. Maybe the tide will turn the tide with Apple etc. pushing mini-DP, but I haven't seen it happen yet.

That said, I've heard a saying that says "the market can be wrong longer than you can be right", which is to say as long as you're planning to sell in the stock market again (as opposed to getting a controlling majority and go private) you need the market to realize its mistake and adjust the stock price accordingly. Otherwise you're stuck with it, either you can sell out again at the same undervalued price or you can leave your funds invested there hoping that some day eventually the market will understand. It is especially true of bubble economics, you might think it's a bubble but if you bet it's going to burst the market might continue inflating the bubble beyond your means forcing you to sell off before it finally bursts. You were "right", but unless you can understand when the market turns you might still end up the loser.

It is mathematically possible if the remaining 15% are sold at 80%+ margin. Realistically possible no, but mathematics have never concerned itself with what is practically possible.

In your example there, true a previous robbery does not mean a person commited a murder. But it does demonstrate that this person has little or no regard for the law and has a history of committing serious crimes.

Actually the point was that we would have a stronger nation and a better world if there were more overlap and less distinction between illegal and unethical.

And you may wish to brush up on your own history there. The bankers have a long history of trying to control the nation's currency, beginning with Andrew Jackson (who was shot in a pointless duel), again with Abe Lincoln (who was assassinated after issuing interest-free greenbacks), and finally succeeded with the current Federal Reserve system. Incidentally, Kennedy wanted to revert back to government-issued currency.

Banks funded the politicians who put the system in place. You're an asshole to read my post in the most hostile he-must-be-a-total-idiot manner possible and then assume ignorance on my part because of your assumption. This kind of shit and the way it's become so fashionable lately is why intelligent adult discussion on this site is becoming such a rarity.

Yes, that's because "bipartisan" is usually code for "time for Republicans to acquiesce to the demands of the Democrats". Unlike most Republicans who just want to appeal to their base and do whatever is politically expedient to get re-elected, the Tea Partiers generally operate on a belief system. This is why lots of more mainstream Republicans don't like them, because they will say and do things perceived to hurt the Republican party's election odds.

For some reason people here just love to assume things that were never said, and read meanings into posts that are simply not there, so I'll reluctantly add: I don't like either major party one damned bit. I wish we had more of a parliamentary system where third, fourth, and fifth options were viable. But what I observed remains true. The Democrats have lots of support in the media and are effective at portraying their postions as mainstream and normal, with any dissenters branded as "racist" or otherwise bigoted, which many Republicans are afraid of and don't know how to stand up to.

Why is it that one cannot mention a clear, simple, easy-to-understand example in order to illustrate a point without the small-minded becoming obsessively hung-up on the example while missing the point being made with it?

The example I gave would be valid and legitimate whether or not I believed anyone should own a gun. The hypocrisy was the point. In fact I salute the way several European countries do things: they ban citizens from having guns AND the police (generally, with some exceptions) don't have guns either. That's how you do it without being a hypocrite about it.

I personally do like gun ownership, yes, but it is you who are trying to convert this into a gun-control debate. You are emotionally reactive and small-minded, unable to use reason to understand the distinction between a useful example and the point being made. I hope that one day you realize the self-limitation this represents, for that realization alone will overcome said shortcoming.

The only source for those reports is astroturfers. I have yet to talk to actual human being who owns one or knows anyone who knows one.

Seems like you assume that everybody who reads /. lives the same place you do. They do not. Some of them live in California, for example, where you have "at will" employment, where

any hiring is presumed to be "at will"; that is, the employer is free to discharge individuals "for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause at all," and the employee is equally free to quit, strike, or otherwise cease work

You might have heard about "Silicon Valley", lots of people work there who are skilled in various computer trickery. You could let an employee go simply for not liking the pitch of his voice (unless of course you told him, then it might be construed as discrimination). Since you do not have to give reason, most employers would not give reason, just terminate the employment.

I have no idea where this took place, nor do I know where you live, but only 1/3 of the US work force have some "just cause" protection, the other 2/3s can be terminated at any point in time for any, or no reason.

Why permit such revisionist history at all? If you're going to pretend he was not a criminal, then you must also pretend the government didn't convict him. Are we going to pretend the US never had slavery if Congress passes a law to posthumously free all slaves back to 1776? It's absurd. That Alan Turing was convicted of the crime of homosexuality is a historic fact and his "crimes" only reflect badly on the UK government, not on the man himself.

Not much, since the whole reason it needs to be a vacuum tube is because air would stop the beam.