I see this a lot, but I wholeheartedly disagree. No candidate will ever agree 100% with your stance on every single issue. As a result, you will always be compromising on something. And contrary to what the Libertarians and Green parties try to convince everyone if, very rarely do the two main parties represent some vast gulf between what almost everyone wants to see.

Personally, I'm a Democrat. Does that mean that I'm lockstep in line with President Obama's agenda? No, I don't like how he has expanded the drone program, and I don't like how he has carried forth the culture of absolutely secrecy on so much that the government does. However, one most things I consider vitally important to the health and well-being of the country, I do agree with him. I believe that if he is re-elected president, on the whole, we will be better off in four years than we are today. THAT is my goal, not to petulantly demand everything I want out of a candidate.

Long term, I am hoping that we can change the party itself to be better. When I think of President Clinton (who I liked and respect very much) signing NAFTA, DOMA, and things like the CDA, it makes me realize that we have already progressed since the 1990s when he was in office. With some effort, hopefully in 2016, 2020, and beyond, we can elect people who are even more progressive than Obama.

That is the ultimate goal: not to throw away my vote on someone who can't possibly win because I demand that they cater to my exact stance on every issue, but to change the party I support to better reflect where I want the country to go. Because to be blunt, the two mainstream parties don't give a rat's ass when people throw away their votes on non-viable third-party candidates. For all of the sound and fury it generates at the time, ultimately it signifies nothing. They're under no illusion that things will ever change in that respect.

If Libertarians were smart, instead of throwing their weight behind Gary Johnson, they would be trying to take the Republican party back from the Christian fundamentalist right-wing extremists who demand that their candidates support violating the basic human rights of women, worshiping a specific god, legislating morality, etc. Their complete abandonment of the political process as it practically exists today in the misguided notion that they can create a viable third party is one of the reasons we're in this mess right now, with one party that's exceedingly good at getting people to vote against their own self-interest with a considerable amount of power. Believe me, as a Democrat, I wish that they would get back to their roots of fiscal responsibility and individual liberty. At least if they won, I wouldn't fear for the continued existence of our country.

Not only that, but the Android tablets I have kick the crap out of iPads. I also think that it's interesting that Apple is now going to come out with a 7" tablet after the Kindle Fire and Asus Nexus 7 have been proven to hit a sweet spot in the market. Look at who is making ripoffs now...

I don't think the kind of consultant you are talking about and the kind of consultant referred to in the summary are the same kind of consultant:

These are the kind of consultants that tell the CEO that he doesn't need those expensive engineers with health benefits and unemployment insurance. For a reasonable fee (that will end up costing AMD even more money in the long run), these consultants will be able to bring in some of their company's other consultants and not have to worry about silly little things like benefits, thus reducing costs. For the next financial quarter or two--certainly long enough to cash out your stock options and find another job at a company that will pay you more because of your success here--it's win-win!

How about laying off the consultants instead?

I'm serious. Consultants are nothing but leeches, and they will almost always give you advice on how you can make your company just like every other company in your industry. I yearn for the days when companies looked for ways to set themselves apart, to stand out from the crowd, instead of trying desperately to follow lockstep in line with everyone else. Other companies have massive layoffs, so hey, let's do it too!

Especially the engineers. You need engineers to keep doing what you do. This really bodes badly for AMD, because without engineers, they're basically slitting their company's wrists. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that they're getting rid of the ones with seniority at that to try to save a few bucks on salary while simultaneously bleeding themselves out of knowledge and experience.

But hey, it's their funeral, so whatever gets the stock price up a little bit so that they can cash out their options, right?

...Says someone who probably thinks that Fox News is "Fair and Balanced." MSNBC? THAT is partisan. Fox News? THAT is partisan. People who think that PBS is partisan either don't watch PBS or they consider stuff like teaching evolution as a commie takeover of education. They think that factual reporting is partisan if it's inconvenient to their position. Did you watch PBS during, say, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal? I did, and believe me, they were not cheerleaders. The news shows are as objective as any I've seen, with the possible exception of some international news sources aren't aren't so U.S.-centric. In fact, they're so objective that a lot of people don't like watching their news shows due to the lack of excitement that comes from injecting partisan politics into the stories like most other news networks do. Some of us like getting news from a source that isn't beholden to corporations and that depend on sensationalist ratings for their monetary lifeblood.

And this is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever read. Like I said, you stop giving oil companies subsidies and tax breaks, raise the capital gains rate, increase the top marginal income tax rate, cut defense spending, and then we can start talking about getting people off the government teat. Otherwise, shut the hell up and leave the federal subsidy to public broadcasting alone.

Oh wait that's right, it's only the government teat when it's services for the poor and middle class, isn't it?

He is calling for public subsidies to public broadcasting to be eliminating. This includes both PBS and NPR.

...And he's wrong. There is an excellent reason for the Federal government to supply them with money. These stations are non-profits specifically dedicated to public education. I get so sick of this attitude that it's not government's job to promote the general welfare of this country. Go re-read the Constitution sometime, it's in the first sentence.

Public radio and public television have done more to educate pre-schoolers than any other education program. Here's a list of bullet points that I ran across recently:

• PBS is the number one source of media content for pre-school teachers.
• The American public has named PBS the most trusted public institution for nine consecutive years.
• Children who watched Sesame Street in pre-school spend more time reading for fun in high school and obtain higher grades in English, math, and science.
• Kids who played the Martha Speaks app for two weeks had a 31% gain in vocabulary tested.
• Last year, PBS offered more than 500 hours of arts and cultural programming watched by more than 121 million people.
• While the federal appropriation equals about 15% of the system's revenue, that's an aggregate number. For many PBS stations, including those that serve people who may need it most, this counts for as much as 50%.

...And there were a few other bullet points, but you get the idea. Whether you're on the left or the right of center, almost everyone agrees that PBS and NPR are worthwhile.

But if you cut the federal subsidy, the end result is that a lot of the smaller stations serving poorer areas that can't raise as much money as those in more prosperous areas will go under. Of course, that seems to be the MO of Republicans these days--we want all of our benefits, and to hell with the poor people.

As I said above, a lot of stations in poorer areas will go under. You seem to be under the impression that anyone who wants to can just cut their budget by 12%. If you're decently well-off, you probably can, but this is why people like me get so frustrated. You have no idea what it's like when people tell you, "Just cut 12%!" when you're barely scraping by.

No, the only thing that's misleading is your attempt to justify Romney's brilliant plan to solve our budget problems by eliminating the government subsidy to PBS and NPR. It will most definitely kill its availability in a lot of areas, especially more rural communities and poor communities, the very places where it's needed most.

You've also effectively proved yet again why people like me get so frustrated at Republicans. Look, I understand we have a large deficit. I'm not oblivious to the fact that we're overspending in this country. But why is Romney picking on public broadcasting? I've heard the rationale that, well, you have to go after everything--everyone has to tighten their belts. But it's just awful convenient that to Republicans, everyone having to tighten their belts means that poor and middle class people, people who disproportionately use public services, have to tighten their belt, but rich people get yet more tax breaks and benefits.

If Romney/Ryan are serious about cutting the budget deficit, why aren't things like cutting subsidies to the oil industry on the table? Why aren't things like increasing the capital gains tax on the table? Why aren't things like raising the top marginal income tax rate to 39% on the table? Why aren't things like cutting defense spending on the table? Why is it that only programs that benefit the poor and middle class are being cut?

And before you feed me this line about "job creators" bullshit, please remember that I'm not as stupid as your standard Republican who votes against their own economic self-interest because they think that God wants them to. I watched George W. Bush systematically cut taxes throughout his presidency and we see how well that helped the job creators--by the end of his second term, we were losing almost a million jobs every single month. If you honestly believe that bullshit, then why is it that taxes are now at rates lower than they've been since the 1940s, yet unemployment is higher? The answer, of course, is that those so-called "job creators" aren't actually creating jobs, and it has not one damn thing to do with tax rates. (And before you shove polls in my face, make no mistake--I know that companies are saying that, but as has been demonstrated by the steep tax cuts/unemployment rate, it's not actually true.) Instead, the "job creators" are taking those tax windfalls and funneling it directly into the pockets of the rich.

So please, stop with this idiotic notion that cutting PBS and NPR is going to help solve our budget problems. Or better yet, I'll tell you what, I am not an unreasonable person willing to compromise. You agree to some of the things mentioned above--cutting corporate subsidies, raising the capital gains tax rate, raising the top income marginal income tax rate, cutting defense spending--and then I'll agree to put funding PBS and NPR back on the table for cuts. It's not tightening our belts that I object to, it's how Republicans only want to tighten the belts of the poor and middle class. When you actually make some genuine effort to tighten everyone's belt, then maybe we can talk.

By the way, this whole sequestration thing is an excellent example of Republican double standards. To kick the can down the road, they agreed to across-the-board spending cuts. Hey, it's only fair, right? And like good little playmates, they came together with their Democrat colleagues and agreed that both had skin in the game and would lose out if they couldn't reach an agreement later and it came to that. But now, Republicans are trying to weasel out of their end of the sequestration bargain to cut defense. Yeah, they're always, "Cut, cut, CUT! Make government smaller! Waaaah!" as long as it's the poor and middle class that are impacted. As soon as their rich fat cat buddies might have to suffer a little bit though, WHOA! Hold the phone! You're killing jobs! Which, of course, is a bunch of bullshit, and I'm sick of it.

So yeah, come back when Romney comes tells us how he and his rich buddies are going to have to suffer a little bit for the bad economy, to tighten their belts. Until then, though, shut the hell up and leave the federal subsidy to public broadcasting alone--or better yet, increase it, since it's already been cut to the bone over the years, and it's demonstrably fulfilling its Constitutionally mandated purpose of promoting the general welfare of our country.

I just hope they don't get discouraged at the number of downloads and installations that don't receive donations. I suspect that a lot of people are like me--they don't mind throwing a few bucks their way (or even a few dozen), but we tend to install, reinstall, set up virtual machines, install yet again, and so on across dozens of machines. I might give a one-off donation, but I'm not going to donate every time I install a copy of Ubuntu.

That's one of the things that's so damn frustrating about Windows and why Ubuntu (or really, any Linux distribution) is so useful. Windows is an awesome OS and I don't mind paying the license fee to run it, but I don't have a few thousand dollars to install it on each of my hobbyist VMs I use for development and testing stuff. Back in the days when I could just use my product code to install it willy-nilly on a few dozen machines, each of which I probably run for a few days and then reinstall for some new reason, it's not that big a deal. But now that everything phones home and nags the hell out of you and denies you service to what you bought, it's not such an appealing option. Hopefully Microsoft will someday realize that they're actively driving people like me away from Windows, but until then, I'll happily cast my lot with Ubuntu instead.

That's what experiments like the Biosphere are for, to test the feasibility of completely self-contained self-sustaining miniature ecosystems. If you just sent up some bacteria and a whale, you might be right. But if you sent up some plants that can live in the thin atmosphere and photosynthesize the sunlight there and add in some bacteria that can digest the dead plant matter and release nutrients that the plants can use as food, then within a few centuries, you might have a jungle. At that point, you might be able to send up other lifeforms that can live and thrive in the new ecosystem without destroying it. Keep iterating this process, and the planet might just be habitable to us in some not-insurmountable period of time. Even if not, who knows, it might be more conducive to using for various resources.

No, he did not answer "yes." This is from the transcript of the voir dire:

THE COURT:The next question is, have you or a family member or someone very close to you ever been involved in a lawsuit, either as a plaintiff, a defendant, or as a witness?

Let's see. On the first row, who would raise their hand to that question? All right. let's go to Mr. Hogan.

PROSPECTIVE JUROR: In 2008, after my company went belly up, the programmer that worked for me filed a lawsuit against me and ultimately, across the next few months, it was dismissed and in such a fashion that neither one of us could sue the other one for that matter.

THE COURT: What was his -- what was the employee's claim?

PROSPECTIVE JUROR: It was a dispute over the software that we had developed, whether it belonged to the company or to him, and I had documents that showed it belonged to the company. Ultimately, as I said, it would -- we settled out of court and it was dismissed.

See what he did there? Instead of saying "yes," he answered as if that were the only case. By omitting the other two cases he was involved in, he effectively misrepresented that this was the only case. I'm sorry, but it is extremely foreseeable that being sued by Seagate is a material fact that should have been disclosed. He also lied later in this exchange:

THE COURT: Okay. All right. Thank you.... So I want to make sure that both Mr. Hogan, and Ms. Rougieri, that you would apply the law as I instruct you and not based on your understanding of the law based on your own cases. Is that correct, Mr. Hogan?

PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes.....

THE COURT: Okay. All right. Would that in any way -- you'll be instructed on what the law is and would you be able to follow the instructions I give you on the law, even if it may not completely correspond to what you may know about the patent system or the intellectual property laws?

PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes, I follow your instructions.

He said months ago that his own experiences relating to patents helped him decide how he should rule, and then he proceeded to "help" other jurors understand based on that information--NOT the judge's instruction. And his statements since have indicated that he was going out of his way to be on this jury so that he could be a part of this big case.

It all looks pretty straight-forward to me. The guy borrowed $25,000 from Seagate in 1991, didn't pay it back, got sued, declared bankruptcy to dodge his financial obligation, and apparently still is buttsore about it. In 2012, he had an ax to grind against Seagate, he hid relevant information to get on the jury so that he could grind it, and then he proceeded to trash Samsung--the currently majority owners of Seagate--to get back at them. And now he's going out to the press and lying about the questions and instructions to not look like the tool he is.

I hope they nail his ass to the wall for juror misconduct and that Samsung gets an actual fair and impartial trial out of it.

You're wrong. I bought an SSD the other day that used to sell for $200, but now they're selling it for $600 off. I'd post a link, but I--hopefully understandably--don't want everyone else to ruin my supply.

If you're a player of the game, you might have run across me at some point. I'm TonyV, the creator of the Paragon Wiki web site and current owner and administrator of the Titan Network sites.

I'm really hoping that this won't be the end of the game. I've posted a message on the official forums here (and on the Titan Network forums here discussing what I'm intending to do. It might not work out, in which case four months down the line, we're not going to be any worse off than we are today. But if you're reading this here and don't browse the official forums very often, please drop by. As the game's continued existence will depend on a crowd funding effort, we really need you to stay plugged in over the next few months. I'll post regular updates on our Titan Network forums to let you know how it's going.

You are 100% correct. This guy is undoubtedly seeing dollar signs on his own patent, and if the jury had invalidated Apple's patents, I honestly believe that he thinks it would hurt his ability to monetize his own patent. It's very telling to me that he had an "aha" moment not about what the decision should be, but how to "explain" to other jurors why they should side with Apple. It seems to me that he had already made up his mind which way this trial must go, and he was just trying to figure out a way to convince the other jurors to go along with him.

The thing I'm wondering, though, is does that matter? I mean, once a jury has rendered a verdict, can you actually have it overturned because it's later found out that a juror has ulterior motives? Isn't that why the lawyers have an opportunity to strike jurors before the trial starts? And if so, why the hell didn't Samsung's lawyers ask the jury pool if anyone had any patents? It just seems to me that if I were Samsung, I'd want a jury that doesn't have any patent holders on it. Not that there's anything wrong with patent holders, but I would fear that any patent holder on the jury would be financially motivated to push for a system much more in favor of patents and would rule with Apple on the case to protect their own interests, which I'm convinced is what actually happened in this case.

IANAL though, so I can't answer these questions. Maybe someone else here who is a laywer can weigh in.

It most certainly has, and it's most certainly working. :(

The sad truth is that there is pretty much only one way: Make so much money so quickly that you build up a war chest capable of mutually assured destruction if someone sues you. Otherwise, your best bet is to get just big enough to be bought by a megacorp and hope that they give you the leeway to keep working on your project relatively unfettered.

Independent inventors/developers/designers/whatever simply don't have a chance in today's patent environment. Ironically, they are screwed by the very system that was originally set up to protect them.