Do you trust student drivers with instructors in the passenger seat? At least in this case a capable, trained driver can take over at a moments notice. Being cautious isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there comes a point with every new technology where it has to be tested in the real world (or are suggesting that it never be allowed off the track? I can see it now: fully automated stock car races... And you thought NASCAR was boring before).

Do you have a driver's license? Have you ever declined to show it when asked? If so, you know it causes more trouble than it's worth. Not having one is even more of a hassle. It's great to have principles, but at the end of the day you have to pick your fights; it's easier to just comply and move on with your life. We no longer live in a society where people can be anonymous; Accept it and move on.

The details of our evolutionary line may be incomplete, but there is enough information to chart a rough lineage from the earliest organisms to modern man. As for Natural Selection, which is the scientifically accepted mechanism behind evolution, the evidence is overwhelming; humans have been controlling the evolution of plants, dogs, and other creatures through artificial selection for thousands of years. It's a very short mental step to infer Natural Selection from artificial.

As for the teachers fumbling over tough answers: that's an inadequacy in the education system, and perhaps a bit of hubris on the part of the teachers. It is okay for a teacher to say "I don't know the answer to your question, but I will find out and get back to you." Instead, we have educators who make up answers on the spot using incomplete or inaccurate knowledge (I once had a CS teacher who insisted that a page fault was something that happened when a program crashed), or who just don't care enough to formulate any sort of answer, leading to students who mistakenly believe that evolution isn't a complete science.

What about the children? Won't somebody please think of the children!?

Not sayin this guy used Ubuntu, but still....

I used to fight against apathy, but now I just don't care anymore.

The necrophiliacs.

It is what it is; geeks (for better or worse) may be responsible for creating the technology, but in an era dominated by computers even people who "have a life" need to have an basic awareness of computer security practices. The problem is that people are lazy, afraid of change, or just plain stubborn. Every new technology has a breaking in period, but computers have been in the home for over thirty years. It's time people get with the program.

You're missing the point; simply because you, me, or the majority experience no memory leak issues does not mean they don't exist. Computers differ enough that it's impossible to say that what works on one system will work on another with a different operating system, different system settings, different software installed, or even different hardware. I'll concede that it's impossible to replicate every possible user installation, but it's likely that the people who report the problem have something in common, even if it's not readily apparent; being hostile toward them for reporting it is arrogant and counterproductive.

The law is irrational and based on archaic values. Commercially available cigarettes and alcohol do more damage to a person's physical, psychological, and social well-being than marijuana and a few other of the less dangerous "illegal" drugs ever could. As long as a practice doesn't subvert the rights of others, the fourteenth amendment guarantees the right to perform it (in part, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States"). By definition, the law preventing the possession and use of marijuana is criminal, and not the people who break it.

[quote]And wasn't McKinnon extradited for crimes that were US created (not to mention created AFTER the event)? So how is he to know what the law is in the US..?[/quote] I get what you're trying to say, but I'm going to correct you on this specific example; one of the conditions of extradition is that the alleged crime must be a criminal violation in both countries. A person would not be required to know the laws of the U.S., just the laws of the country they reside in. Obviously this is different than physically traveling to a country, but I felt the need to be pedantic.

I think it's more than that. I think the ego can't/won't let a person perceive a state of nonexistence (try it, you can't do it), so it logically follows that people would make up an afterlife to account for this.

oops, this was supposed to be a reply to the sibling, not the parent.

I would argue that there are no such things as inalienable rights anymore. Life, Liberty, the Pursuit of Happiness? You can get the death penalty for murder, and you can get jail time for most other crimes. Doesn't sound inalienable to me.

An old saying goes "Programming is a race between programmers building better idiot-proof software, and the Universe building better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."