Shooting them in the head will stop them from both messaging and gaming. If we're already admitting rapists, pedophiliacs, or exhibitionists are not able to be rehabilitated, why bother even pretending they can live a productive and successful life? Just get rid of them, no one wants them around, obviously. Solves the problem, neat and clean.

No joke, I saw a m0m in a minivan turning around to READ A BOOK to her kid in the back seat, while driving on the freeway. You're completely right, it's the everyday unsafe drivers that worry me just as much as or more than the ones that are under the influence of something.

Wolf hunting, in the snow, with your beer you purchased from a private store!

Wisconsin. We have cheese, too. And lakes, most notably one rather large one bordering the state to the east. And lots of forests, where you can drink, and shoot guns.

I am skeptical that physical assaults on anyone, including citizens of another country, are legal in France. Maybe they do things differently over there, I really don't know, but finding the proper authority shouldn't result in being ignored when reporting an assault. Maybe he just hasn't contacted the right people yet.

I also understand it's probably a real pain in the ass to pursue this legally due to the short time one spends in a country on vacation, usually, so what might be more helpful is if someone could point the guy to the right person to talk to.

It's probably a complete waste of time to talk to McDonald's, though.

I can totally relate to this. I have to sleep with a fan or some other true white noise in the background. HAVE to. Absolutely have to.

My (ex-)wife bought or was given this noise generator thingy because we had problems sleeping with snoring and TV and such, and when I say "we" I mean that I had a problem sleeping, and she had a problem not turning off the TV when it was time to go to sleep. Anyway, it had a bunch of audio modes to pick from: birds, happy burbling river noise, jungle, crickets, a few others, and a white noise track. Well, the track for each was, as you said, just long enough that I could pick out the patterns, and as we listened to them to try to pick one, I was saying "no" to each one rather quickly, and she was getting more and more frustrated. Finally I said, "just try the white noise one, I don't care if it's boring, it's the only one that's going to work." Rather soon (almost immediately) I realized the track for the white noise was simply an 8 second loop and the "whiteness" JUST barely didn't match up from the end and the beginning so I could hear this tiny clip in the audio when it looped. "NOPE THIS ONE WON'T WORK EITHER" in fact, it was by far the MOST annoying one of the bunch. She never understood why, and it got returned or thrown out or donated or whatever.

But yeah.

Patterns.

They suck sometimes.

This is even simpler. Have your software display a large, easily readable banner to the user, that says "use of this software implies you have a license blah blah" (have your legal department replace all, including "blahs," with proper legal terminology.) Then, you've already stated you know some non-paying "customers" are using it, so go after them with said legal department, make them paying customers one way or the other.

Maybe they're already here, making sure, behind the scenes, we're fucking ourselves up so much we don't have time or resources to worry about the rest of this galaxy.

Conspiracy theories are always more fun than alien domination theories, aren't they?

Without much exaggeration, this might be the best thing I've found on Slashdot in years. Awesome band, great sound. Never would have heard of you guys otherwise.