...but reading the consistently and utterly ridiculous comments on Digg or Reddit stories has given me a new appreciation for the commenters on Slashdot. The toolbar was just the icing on the cake.

1. Less talk and more subtlety. This means very little or no explicit dialog, no in-your-face pictures of dancing robots (but maybe Baltar and Six in front of an electronics store), and Jimi Hendrix's version of All Along The Watchtower playing on some radio in the background of some guy on the street. As it stands, it was too overt and tried too hard to make its point for viewers already accustomed to needing to think a bit more.

2. What probably would've happened after Lee recommended all technology go away is a split between those who still wanted it and those who didn't. The two sides would create a pact to keep separate from each other, the small minority of technology-loving people going to live on a small continent off the west coast of Africa... Said continent, of course, to have been destroyed at some future point in time by natural disaster and essentially all technology along with it. This would solve what would be an obvious dilemma and split in viewpoints of the remaining people while reasonably explaining what would've happened to their technology.

Seriously, how is she going to track this down? If you're afraid of being found out, post it to Wikileaks where they are beyond any court order. If she tries to pull anything on you, tell her that she needs to prove it was you, and if she can't that the university will be on the financial hook for it (i.e. back off).

As a former lab instructor, my job was to share my knowledge with students, not to prevent them from taking it with them. Hard-ass instructors like this just pissed me off because they think people won't show up to their lectures if they have their notes. There's no better way than to return the favor than to do exactly what they tell you not to.

Because it offers legal incentives for people who choose to engage in it. The problem here isn't a legal question, but an overly-emotional argument over the word "marriage" itself, the lequal inequities that result from legislation like this being a mere side-effect that doesn't concern those who pursued Prop. 8.

There should be be no legal incentive or disincentive for people to marry or not marry. It shouldn't be the government's business beyond the enforcement of any other standard legal contract with absolutely no special status. Again, you seem to focus on the word marriage when I'm saying you're engaged in entirely the wrong debate.

Specious arguments like this are fielded by Prop. 8 supporters (most common being Daddy and Daughter want to marry) to distract from the question at hand, mainly by painting it as opening the gateway to incest.

First off, it isn't a specious argument to ask for people who aren't in romantic relationships but otherwise cohabitate to ask for additional rights granted to those who are currently "married". I know two men who are likely never going to marry, but aren't gay and would like a say in the same aspects of their lives that a currently "married" couple would. In fact, it's the fundamental point of the debate - that marriage as it's currently defined abrogates the rights of many individuals within society. That includes those in straight, gay, transsexual, polyamorist or platonic relationships alike. Nobody is any more or less special than anyone else, so don't treat anyone more or less special. Period, no slippery slopes, no extras, just full equality.

Marriage has benefits conferred upon it specifically to discourage this. Why do you think gays want to get married?

Again, why should marriage confer special benefits if they don't want them? Did you ever think that maybe some people don't want those benefits or the responsibilities that come with them? This is why I specifically brought up the issue of states automatically deeming cohabitants as common-law married. People can ask for those rights if and when they want to. Why should they be "discouraged" in any way if they don't desire to be married? If you're of the age of majority, you choose who you want to be with and who you don't. That's part of being a grown-up, and living their life as they choose (as you yourself say below).

If the question comes up, we'll answer it (and hopefully on the side of them being free to choose how they live their life as they choose.)

It is an issue, but just not one covered by mainstream media or in the forefront of people's minds.

Sure they have, mostly by supporters of Prop. 8 to discolor and trump up fears and smear opponents. Otherwise, they're completely not relevant to the question at hand.

Show me one article for anyone on either side of Prop 8 discussing the destruction of wealth, or the negative side effects of the broader problem of divorce on children (and I don't mean those who say if Prop 8 is repealed that their families will be "broken up"). This is what I'm talking about. You're again misidentifying what I'm trying to argue - that marriage, as it's defined today, and regardless of whether it's among two straight or two gay people, has many other negative side effects that nobody seems to want to address.

The real issue here is why the government is involved in the business of marriage to begin with. Government shouldn't be involved at all in the current fashion.

What bothers me personally is this artificial dichotomy that people have created surrounding this issue on both sides. This isn't just about gays and lesbians. What about spinster sisters that simply live together and want their civil rights? Boyfriend and girlfriend forever? Polyamorists? Where are their rights? And what about states that automatically deem a couple to be in common-law marriage without them consciously having entered into that contract? None of these issues have been covered by the proponents or opponents of Prop 8.

Marriage should be replaced by a comprehensive standard (but modifiable) civil contract between two or more consenting adults like any other business contract. Whether one goes to a church to get married, or to a lawyer's office, they can choose to call it what they will and associate as they want to, but that's separate from the contract. In effect, every "civil union" will be bound by a prenuptial agreement that must be consciously entered into by all parties that defines all of the criteria for what is currently deemed marriage. Assets coming into the marriage shouldn't be deemed automatic community property unless the parties choose this consciously. Child custody will always be split equally amongst the individuals unless otherwise specified in the contract or unless it can be clearly proven that harm is coming to the children from one or more of the parties; joint custody is implied even when they live together (since that's effectively the same thing, just that they're under the same roof). In addition, this will also function as a living and non-living will so that probate judges don't erode an inheritance for the state's benefit as opposed to the individual's benefit, and also to avoid conflicts with the families of the individuals involved. Also, just like a standard contract, individuals will not be entitled to things like lifetime alimony and must mitigate their "damages" by being obligated to find work and/or getting educated to find better work. The contract may be modified at any time with the consent of the parties. During a "divorce", the parties will be bound by the separation provisions of the agreement, thereby reducing the amount of time that lawyers and judges are involved, the amount of tax money spent on courts, and the amount of personal money spent on lawyers in protracted litigation. For those in current marriages, their marriages would be subject to the same standard civil contract rules with modifications from any pre-existing prenuptial agreements.

Neither of the candidates in this presidential election nor any of the state or local candidates made any mention of the damage that the process of divorce has on families, and on individuals' wealth. Divorce is one of the biggest destroyers of wealth in society today and contributes to other societal problems such as childhood delinquency. Why not take on both the issue of civil rights and of divorce, and redefine fundamentally how society organizes itself? If people were forced to think carefully on what a marriage really is - a business transaction - then they might treat it as such. Wrap whatever other window dressing you like around it, but it all boils down to business at the end of the day.

I'd say that if any corporations were truly progressive, they would push for this too. At the end of the day, this would be to their benefit when an employee "divorces" since there would be less time spent off of work. Too bad Google doesn't get this, and even more humorously undermines its own argument by laying off people. Mixing business and politics isn't smart business anyway, as being neutral on issues pisses off the least number of potential customers as I'm sure Google will lose a few of its customers. Unfortunately, everyone loses when we force these dichotomies down people's throats, and business money like Google's simply aggravates this.

Of all the industries that are slow to implement change in cryptographic practices, banking is by far the slowest. Part of this is bureaucratic inertia, part of this is lack of trust of newer algorithms until "proven" safe, and still part of this is reliance on legacy HSMs in their server facilities. Even the NSA has mandated a faster transition to better crypto (e.g. Suite B) than banking. Banking is still using 3DES instead of AES128, although for practical purposes brute-forcing 3DES at 112 bits of effective security isn't that much worse than AES' 128 bits. Banking won't move quickly unless someone starts stealing many thousands of high-profile accounts, but it'll be a bit like a buffalo stampede.

Still, it's mind-boggling that MD5 is still in use by anyone at this point given that it is susceptible to collisions. NSA Suite B is very clear that SHA2 256 is the minimum acceptable hash, and so it should be elsewhere regardless of your symmetric or asymmetric crypto. Back in the day when RSA512 was still used for PKI because of limited computing power, there might have been an excuse to stick to MD5. And yet, we all moved on to RSA1024 and RSA2048 because RSA512 was broken too. SHA2 is free, and it works. It really is time to move on from MD5 for all uses.

Funny enough that the entire security of the Internet as most users see it is based on the MD5 hash of the browser binary...

The fundamental problem here isn't the data loss (other than a possible loss of privacy), but one of what someone other than the authorized owner of that information can do with it. Credit reporting agencies, property title offices, passport offices, and a whole host of other people need a much stronger form of authentication. These fools have ignored this problem for years, and impose costs not only on the victims but on everyone else due to prosecution, police investigation, etc..

From a practical security perspective, security on data use is really limited to the "something you have" aspect (i.e. your name/SSN/DoB/address), less on the "something you know" and rarely the "something you are" categories. Both government and private industry needs to wake up and start making it much more difficult for people to have anything bad done to them simply because someone uses their data ON TOP of mandating cryptography and security for information (which I deem to be separate concepts).

An idea - digitally sign the hash of a person's fingerprint, retina, signature and a non-obvious PIN (i.e. pictures, phrases, numbers, questions), put the root certificate authority in a government-controlled secure bunker or military base with FIPS 140 secured HSMs and multiple independent layered checks and balances, and use the signature/verification chain for both government and commercial uses.