Obviously this farmer broke into a Monsanto lab, stole the seeds, and then planted it in his farm.

Worse, he applied RoundUp to unlicensed plants, and they survived. Instant patent violation.

Does paying a minor, even for such a voluntary action, require parental approval?

According to the terms of the program, yes.

"Payment is paid out through a verified PayPal account, once the bug is fixed."

A minor can't have a PayPal account. As well, there's a "Terms for participation" which implies a contract to submit the bug. If a minor can't enter a contract, they can't agree to the terms.

That said, Nathan Winograd's HuffPo article amounts to little more than malicious hearsay and it is incredibly biased, leaving out critical information in favor of whipping lazy readers into a furor.

The core of his argument is based around documents filed by PETA's shelter to the state indicating the intake, adoption, and euthanasia rates of their "animal shelter".

Note the part of his discussion which centers on the fact that by calling their operational a "shelter", there's an understanding that they'll actually try to adopt out adoptable pets. The numbers they've given don't appear to support an active adoption policy.

Now, if as you say PETA is running this "shelter" purely to take in sick, injured or incurable pets so they don't get abandoned, then no problem. As long as they stop calling it a shelter and make sure that anyone turning animals over to them understands that they're almost certainly going to kill it. Or, as some cases indicate, just let it finish dying on its own in a stack of cages.

As for the argument that there are worse shelters and no-kill or rescue operations... yes. Yes there are. Unimaginably worse. The vast majority of them get into the state their in through a huge lack of resources (financial, staff, marketing, etc), which is the exact opposite of PETA's situation. That makes PETA's shelter an interesting case study... how can a shelter with all the money, volunteers and a powerful PR machine behind it kill 9x% of the pets that walk through the door?

... (2) link to a site behind a paywall ... Do I win? And if so, do I get my money back?

Technically, it's just a URL with some mangled HTML which might have made it into a link if a so-called editor actually did his fucking job.

So, it's a Slashdot trifecta, just not the one you identified. No prize for you.

When a marketing claim conflicts with real-world-testing-based claims by tinkerers, I consider the marketing claim to be false until proven otherwise.

You could have saved yourself some effort if you left out everything prior to the comma.

Better hope the needle was made of some robust metal, otherwise you will find that the haystack contained only a few pieces of ferrous dust.

You mean "pieces of terrorist dust", don't you?

Because the best way to find a needle in a haystack is to dump increasing amounts of hay on top.

I thought it was to burn the entire field to the ground, then sift the ashes over a magnet?

You're letting your hatred of MS blind you to the likely, and perfectly reasonable, response they would take.

First, I don't "hate" Microsoft. I dislike their products and business practices and would prefer not to have to deal with their shit as much as I do, but emotions like "hate" and "love" are wasted on something as impersonal as a large corporation.

Second, their history strongly indicates that they don't do "reasonable".

but if Google were to block Microsoft ads

I don't expect they would. My comment was an example of behaviour approximately equivalent to what Microsoft is doing with the WP YouTube app, not a prediction of Google's response. As you say, it would be incredibly stupid of Google to start a war involving the suppression of advertising, and I haven't seen anything from them suggesting they'd play that way. I do expect they'll take measures to block the WP app, but I don't know how it'll play out after that. I think they might have solid grounds for a trademark complaint.

Near as I can determine, Google's main strategy for competing with Microsoft's mobile stuff is to just avoid being associated with it, and this cease and desist against the YouTube app is consistent with that approach. I don't see anything particularly "evil" about that.

If this is just a pissing contest between two behemoths, neither of whom is one bit less than 50% evil, then I just don't care.

Yeah, it's definitely a pissing contest between two behemoths. That's the difference from the various apps and extensions which do the same sorts of things.

That being said, I'm going to root for the behemoth that I don't personally dislike. Google provides me with useful services. Microsoft has a long history of giving my nothing by high blood pressure. It's a no brainer.

But because it's Microsoft, fuck them, right?

If Google modified the Chrome browser to strip out ads on/from Microsoft owned properties, Microsoft would have a fit. Anti-trust complaints in multiple jurisdiction, legal threats, political lobbying, chair throwing, the works.

So yes, fuck them.

It's like the even bigger fuckfaces of the older politician generation bred just wimps on purpose so they wouldn't be ousted before being literally too senile to talk.

George Bush Jr. demonstrated how badly that strategy can backfire...

AOL reads your messages. Google reads your messages. Facebook reads your messages. Apple reads your messages. Microsoft reads your messages.

How is this news? The price for free IM is that they read your messages and sell the info they gather to advertisers.

Microsoft's recent ad campaign suggesting that Google reading your messages is somehow unethical make it news, I'd imagine.

There *may* be some moral difference between reading your messages for your protection versus reading your messages to target ads, but I doubt that Microsoft bothered to make that distinction when they were complaining about Google's practices.

Poop

A one-word first post from an Anonymous Coward which accurately and completely describes my feelings about the whole deal.

They must be ice skating in Hell today, I tell you...

Banning children is easier said than done. I child-proofed my house, but they still get in.

I used to have that problem too, but then I got myself a 3D printer...

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got another set of ABS meathooks to clean up.

I can think of several people that I would like to volunteer for a one-way ticket to Mars.

I'd pledge $5 to the "Send Snooki Home" kickstarter...