I can't see Adobe accepting the sale of something customizing paintshop pro without getting some bucks from it.

Especially if it uses the commercial product's name in its advertising.

everyone smokes down South

As a southerner, I'd like to point out 1) of course we don't all smoke, and 2) while yes, smoking is more widespread in the south, Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Nevada are all in the top 10. 11, 12 and 13 are Alaska, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. :)

Check out this map and the table linked at the bottom: http://www.smokefree.gov/map.aspx

Smarter people know its not a good idea to start smoking.

This is too simplistic. EVERYBODY knows that smoking is bad for you. Some just know in more detail.

My wife had an in medical school for her anatomy class. He showed the students how to dissect a cadaver, and showed them the horrible, shriveled, black lungs of a deceased smoker.

And then he went outside and took a smoke break.

My explanation? There's a HUGE difference between intelligence and wisdom. Intelligence is the ability to solve problems; it asks "how can I reach goal X?"

Wisdom is a big-picture thing; it asks "what kind of goals are worth having? What is good for me in the long run?" And I think it also includes the willpower to do those things. If you know what's best but don't do it, I'd say that's foolish.

(And of course, we are all foolish in some ways.)

Schoolchildren who have been found to have a lower IQ can be considered at risk to begin the habit

So does having a lower IQ lead to smoking? Or does smoking cause a lower IQ? Or do both result from a worse family environment? Maybe being exposed to second-hand smoke is a risk factor for both, or maybe being exposed to parents who knowingly and daily act against their own best interests stunts a child's desire to reason about the world and encourages them to make foolish, emotional decisions?

If it were as broad as "you can't modify our web site - you have to view it as-is", and that were enforced, it would basically destroy the web. After I request a page, it's my choice whether I want my browser to request each of the images in the source file or none of them.

Besides, how do they know if I have a cache or just don't care to see them? This would be totally impractical to enforce.

Hopefully it's just as another user has said, "you can't use our trademarked name in the name of your script."

If you are going to advertise one speed but only deliver a lower one, that's false advertising (or something).

YES. Although technically, they tell the truth - they say "up to" some speed, which is really a promise NOT to give you more than that, but says nothing about what they WILL give you. I'd like to tell them I'll pay "up to" X dollars for that, and vary my payment as I please. "Eh, it was kinda slow this month - I'm paying you $5."

I wish they were required to advertise an average speed or something that we can measure and hold them accountable for.

Personally, I just poke a stick in my eye and listen for new rattlings in the tin-can-on-a-string.

It doesn't bring a lot of comfort to the Mexicans in that situation. When I lived in Guadalajara, I was a short walk from a row of luxury car dealerships: Porsche, Lexus, Audi, BMW, etc. And I was a short bus ride from people living in dirt floor houses and not eating enough (I was involved in a Christian ministry to some of them).

I'm pretty conservative in general, but that doesn't seem like a healthy economy. It's not encouraging to think that the world's wealthiest person got that way through monopoly deals with a corrupt government whose citizenry is mostly poor.

I have still never met an "alpha geek" that uses a Mac.

I have. One of the best developers I know uses one, and loves it. (He's mainly a Rails developer, and Macs are popular with that crowd.)

It shouldn't really matter that much so long as most of the heat stays in the fuel.

Because hot fuel explodes harder inside an engine cylinder?

And for your information, honey is delicious and pre-eaten.

Technically, yes, but the bees didn't digest it and burn the calories out of it, or we'd call it 'poop' instead of 'honey.'

I don't even understand what it means to "partially oxidize" the fuel ahead of time. Isn't oxidizing fuel, by definition, burning it, since fire is an oxidation reaction? If so, why isn't "pre-oxidized fuel" like "pre-eaten food?" In other words, wouldn't it mean wasting fuel?

Surely my pathetic chemistry knowledge is at fault here, right?

I find Schmidt's comments refreshing; perhaps we could have a rational discussion about security without needlessly ratcheting up the fear machine. Traditionally wars had beginnings and endings -- that is to say, they had structure (not to be quaint). When we're eternally at war with concepts, it numbs the sentiment.

I agree, but the fear machine has a short battery life. I was in the airport recently and saw that the terror threat level was orange. Ho hum, I thought. Orange should mean "more than usual." If the level is always something close to red, the whole system is meaningless. (Besides which, what the heck am I supposed to do if there's a code red - grab a gun and look for bombers?) I read "The Boy Who Cried 'Wolf!'" as a kid. Didn't everyone?

What you really mean is if we wanted specific options (those that aren't available for iPhone, but are for Android), we'd have gone Android. So what it really comes down to is whether one really wants (in this case) a WiFi finder.

No, what he really means is if you wanted freedom from someone arbitrarily removing options or preventing you from creating them yourself, you would have gone Android.

Maybe lots of people picked iPhone based partly on having a WiFi finder. But now they don't. What favorite app will disappear next? Nobody knows.

What it really comes down to is whether one really wants the final say about one's own device.

The notion that anyone can arbitrarily impose a "correct" way of doing something simply because they have power, influence and authority went out with the Victorians. Those of us living in the Age of Empricism require objective, measureable effects to distinguish the (usually mulitple) correct way(s) of doing something from the multitude of incorrect ways.

So imposing standards is incorrect, then?

Got any data to show that it's harmful?

It's not the same. The button pushers are deliberately tricking themselves. I have thought carefully and concluded that something is actually true. The fact that I find that truth satisfying is secondary.

If you experience the feeling of love, does it matter whether it's directed toward another human or toward a mannequin? I think so, and I have a system of values in which to frame that difference. If you think that we're only atoms, then a feeling is just a feeling.

What you just said PRESUMES that a feeling is just a feeling, then implies that believing otherwise is silly. That's not an argument; it's a snub.

My argument was that you can't have it both ways. If "the universe is all there is" as Carl Sagan has said, then the rest of his statements in the intro to Cosmos that spiritualize our discovery of it are rubbish. If you're going to be a strict materialist, you have to say that curiosity and censorship, love and rape, heroism and murder are all equal and irrational: just complex movements of some atoms that will one day be cold and motionless.

Of course, I don't believe that. But I have a framework of thought that allows for intrinsic value. Which is why I have reason to reject a "utopia" of perfect earthly happiness if it has no moral basis.