Apparently, as the individual bringing the 'questionable' item in, you can expect to be victim-shaming instead of the people that overreacted taking ownership of the mistake they made. And even when the people overreacting had it pointed out that they overreacted, an apology is simply too far for them to go. That's what you can expect.

HBO only has an online only subscription if you are using Apple TV or iOS devices, or are a subscriber for Optimum Broadband Service. I'm still waiting for a true stand-alone offering like Netflix has.

Someone who didn't read the article. One of the comments in the 'more serious of the two bugs' indicated that Microsoft INFORMED them that the patch was lined up for January, but was pulled and rescheduled for February. You lost your bet, by Google's own bookkeeping. Try for another?

And yet there are manufacturer coupons for things like food that grocers accept. Does the grocer accept the hit on that money that the manufacturer decided to entice the customer with, or does the grocer reclaim those funds from the manufacturers? Honestly, I don't know as I haven't worked in that business, but a little logic would seem to imply the grocer gets reimbursed from the manufacturer for discounting the item.

It's more about buying a $100 product at a store that has a $30 rebate, and forgetting or not filing the paperwork to get the money back, instead of, you know, just offering it as a direct rebate or coupon to the seller and allowing the customer to buy it at $70 out of pocket. I'm sure the claim rate of rebates is not 100%, and it probably isn't over 50% if I had to guess.

I made a mistake in my response. I was thinking 'religious slurs' and instead typed 'racial' confusing in my head how some religions are conflated or associated with a particular race of people. Additionally, yes, I also confused the straw man and ad hominem logical fallacies. Despite those mistakes of mine, I'm not sure that the intent of my comment was entirely out of line. My point was that, whether religion is a choice or not, it is not relevant to most discussions. Perhaps that may be where someone's morals are based, but unless it has direct bearing in a debate, it has no place in it.

For example, I would not disparage your religion or beliefs if we were having a discussion on what to do about abortion. If the argument being made by a religious person is factually wrong (an IUD is an abortifacient, a position not commonly held by anyone in the medical community) then that point can be refuted WITHOUT calling the person a dumb, blind sheeple. No where in that particular, religiously-charged argument is the position being held that religious adherents personally are being required to do something against their faith (i.e. not required to have an abortion). Other topics are subject to majority choice and Constitutional validation, such as "can a company have a religion?" or "can an employer push their beliefs (religious or otherwise) on employees through their compensation?"

Even if they don't accept commonly held facts, then it is STILL irrelevant what their religion is, because there are more than a few stubborn, atheist and agnostic individuals. Religion doesn't necessarily make you stubborn. They were stubborn before, They are just trying to validate that stubbornness with a reason (God says so). And whether or not the 'common state' is people insulting people, I find it necessary to be better than that, even if it currently fails.

I suppose that should've been 'religious slurs'. My mistake.

Unless a subject's religion is the bearing of a discussion, I don't see where using racial slurs enhances a debate. All too often, though, slurs are used if that is one of the primary defining characteristics about the subject. What all these characteristics amount to is trying to avoid a Straw Man argument.

More simply put: Don't attack the messenger if you cannot refute the message.

The point of ISPs extorting money out of companies like Netflix is to serve one of two goals. 1) Gain more profit for doing less work or 2) kill off the services if such costs make them unprofitable. Then, the competing service said ISP offers (or "exclusive" service contracted in) will be the only one available for those ISP customers to purchase. Win/Win for the ISP, and a loss for all of us, since one often does NOT pick their provider.

Who makes the copy? Does the receiver go onto the physical hard drive of the offering server and read each of those relevant bits itself, or does the offering system, perhaps a web server or bit torrent client, read the file (or file segment(s)) and make the copy, sending them across the wire to the requesting system? Regardless whether or not the requester initiated the copy, the distributor's agent (be it program or person) made the copy to send. The requester (or requester's agent) received and recorded what was sent to it. At most you can say it was a two-party offence, though I would not see it that way.

It seems logical that the offending party is the one OFFERING and SENDING, not receiving, the copy.

Why is the idea of rehabilitation a nice 'secondary goal' to the primary goal of stopping the person from committing crimes? By forcibly incarcerating someone, you accept responsibility for what happens to them during their incarceration as well as their attitude afterwards. If you fail to even consider providing incentives or starting any kind of positive feedback loops for good behaviors for those you've restrained, then you fail to live up to your goal of stopping the person from committing crimes. Oh, you get a few months or years respite from them while they're in jail, but unless you plan to keep them locked up for even the pettiest of "uncomfortable crimes" such as burglary, then they WILL be released in time.

Tailoring the punishments to assistance to not commit crimes, even if that assistance means a support group for someone who's lonely and steals something to get attention instead of jail, you gain real improvements in peoples lives. It is called the 'Department of Corrections' for a reason. Perhaps it's time we started correcting the issue instead of just shutting them away.

It isn't just 'diagnosed with a mental illness', the proper term is 'adjudicated'. Meaning, you go before a judge and they decide you are unfit to possess a firearm. The other method the mentally ill are barred is following (and during) a stay in a mental health institution. Of course, these rules seem to be decided by the states, but most include similar language that does not include simple 'diagnosis'.

http://www.ncsl.org/research/c...

Start up/shut down times are nominally much improved due to hardware states not having to be reinitialized from scratch every single boot. This also assists with a higher function, low power sleep mode.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/...
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/arc...

Cleaned up timing core meaning that where Windows 7 is hard-locked to a timer cycle, Windows 8 is not and can scale down processor usage accordingly. It is also more efficient in memory usage, reducing the footprint in memory considerably. http://www.engadget.com/2011/0...

Hyper-visor core technologies using Hyper-V (supporting 32 and 64 bit guests) rather than that lackluster Virtual PC. (no link, this is just a 'duh' observation)

Problems with the ugly start menu can be resolved in part using the Windows 8.1 free upgrade, the Update 1 (adding more desktop-friendly features back into the UI) and use of the Windows-S search feature to quickly locate programs you frequently use. I don't often go to the start menu myself, I open the Search utility and find my app in as few keystrokes as possible. It isn't perfect, but it (combined with the core re-architecture mentioned before) makes Windows 8 very usable.

I'm not shilling for ISPs. I'd rather see municipalities own infrastructure and companies and the people use it. That way, real competition can actually occur, not just the duopoly we usually have. And, if the people in an area want faster internet, they can fund an upgrade of the infrastructure and see who comes to provide the service.

You don't build a road because someone wants to come to your door and deliver you some goods. You build a road because you want them to be able to do so.

Funny, in my anecdotal evidence, my power, coax, and telephone lines are run through a 10 foot easement at the back of my yard, buried underground. It is like that for all houses on my street. I believe water sewer and natural gas come from the street side at the front, also buried underground. But because you never saw a setup like mine, that must mean it doesn't exist. I see.

It isn't intellectually dishonest to compare regulated utilities (electric, water, sewer) with "regulated" utilities (telecom) because the reasons I gave are correct. And yes, I do still see telecom companies as regulated, since when you have to allow an interconnect to other companies providing the same service, you are not free to do as you would please (unregulated). You do not want a disruption on your property, people digging holes to lay new lines, because someone down the street wants a different brand of Cable than what is in the area. Because of that reason, telecom companies were given a local monopoly. Laws might have been changed to allow for competitors, but even if they have, where are the competition?

In a perfect world, perhaps every underground run would have extra space. Frankly, if a city owned the conduits by through which the lines were run, awesome! That would allow for new contenders in an area without disruption, the exact goal I would seek. That is exactly the equivalent 'public infrastructure, private usage' I hinted at. However, I don't believe the cities generally own said conduit to provide that service. When the conduits are privately held and AT&T (for example) won't let a competitor run lines through their conduit, that kind of turns us back to the competitor having to run their own conduit and line, doesn't it?