And perfectly safe airplanes with naked passengers securely chained to their seats would not prevent a terrorist from detonating a bomb in a densely populated area. He and his bomb just wouldn't be on this plane.

That's a great summary of the situation. And in my view that's exactly what makes the difference between the iPad/iPhone and any more regular computing system like a PC, Linux or Mac box.

And cars can be chipped. And iPhones can be jailbroken. Jailbreaking an iPhone is so simple today that anyone could do it*, instead we complain that the system is too closed. By the way, some developers that were refused by Apple's store turn to Cydia instead. Cydia is an alternative appstore for jailbroken phones were you can get both free and commercial apps too.

My iPhone is indeed jailbroken. Not to install pirated software or to make it simlock free, instead I did it to overcome some major annoyances such as the lack of an easy switch to turn that annoying auto-rotation off. I can now internet laying on my side in bed. :-) SBSettings is a blessing. Maybe Apple should "invent" that too ;-)

*but if you are so "adventurous" to install ssh please change both passwords (root & mobile)!

Ahh, but designs for that sort of stuff need large wings, with lots of internal space for the structural members as well as the hydraulics and stuff for folding the wings. The design calls for extremely high aspect ratio wings which just can't do that.

Certain words have crept into vocabulary and are now used to the exclusion of other words. It seems young folks are unable, now, to express themselves without swear words. It seems that they are completely unaware that there are actual words that actually MEAN what they are trying to say; but since they don't know them, they attach the same word that everyone else attaches for emphasis. So we end up with sentences that include the same word, for emphasis, three times... when all they really mean to say is "I was astounded."

To me, people who use swear words for pretty much everything sound uneducated and ... well, the follow-the-crowd type... someone who is clearly influenced, in the way they talk, by whoever is around them at the time.

Rather true. The power of swear words is precisely in their taboo nature. To use them regularly makes you look vulgar (aka, of the common people). It also removes their power. This is true of things like "God" and having talk of Christianity flooded everywhere, but that's another discussion. Yes, it would be preferable if people strove to learn new and creative ways to express amazement and offensiveness with either the words that already exist or, if necessary (not likely), with new words instead of simply co-opting existing words.

It's also interesting to me that people argue that words have no meaning out of context, etc., and typically argue that with someone who is offended by that kind of speech... and yet, then they use those same words specifically to offend or be abrasive. That's not out-of-context, that is a very specific context. If you are using a word specifically to offend me while claiming I shouldn't be offended because it's out of context, you're being rather rude.

I think the point was, being offended to the point that you'd actually seek to have the word legally banned is out of proportion to what the situation calls for. Being offended is a fact of life. Striving to ban "bad" words doesn't change the ability to offend because, as you note, the words chosen are being chosen specifically to offend. The words are a symptom, not the disease. I don't think there's a real cure for the disease, as at times there is reason to be offended with others or the general facts of reality. The only thing that can be done is to try to comfort those when they are in pain, when applicable.

I personally dislike swearing. I find it ... well, vulgar and uneducated :) Here's my actual "political" response though: as long as I am not allowed to use certain terms for people because it's "politically incorrect" or "offensive" to them, etc - for example, "black" or "gay" or perhaps saying that some act or sexual orientation is a "sin" - then I don't see why you should be allowed to swear and cuss under to offend someone under the guise of free speech.

Um, people use "black" and "gay" all the time. No one is being fined or arrested for the use of those words, nor should they be. Yes, one person may scold another for the words they use. That holds if you say "nigger" or if they say "fuck". It's a one-on-one interaction, where each person tries to defend their belief that a word should or shouldn't be used. It's the same as here. Yes, the people around you may not speak up, but then most people are too uninvolved or too cowardly to express their own views on the subject. And yes, that puts you an uncomfortable position where you feel you're battling the world when one person expresses derision about your word choices. That's life. That's how it's always been. The only difference is how often and what words are most likely to result in someone else pipping up and actually commenting.

Me? I'm more concerned about the actual anger and thoughts of others. PC-ness simply masks the issue. Having said that, I don't actually do what I should to work through that issue--to befriend those with questionable beliefs and challenge them to defend those beliefs (while I am equally challenged on my own beliefs). But, that's a much more involved and complex process. Isn't it just easier to be angry and blurt out a comment on the word choices of another instead of actually involving yourself with others in an actual two-way, long-term conversation?

Well, I rode my bike in to work today...

Granted, the motivation is more my quest for ROCK HARD BUNS OF STEEL than it is for saving the world from The Swamp Thing, but either excuse works out great on the hipsters at the coffee shop downtown!

Horse-manure.

Yes, Byrd was a Dixiecrat. I'll give you that one. On the other hand, he has since renounced his segregationist views as well as the KKK...Unlike, say, Strom Thurmond.

Metzger is a Bircher, and like many Republicans, falsely claims to be a libertarian. How he won one Dem primary, I'll never know, but he changed parties right afterwards, and is clearly not a Dem by any stretch.

Duke never held office as a Democrat. To say he was a Democrat is disingenuous at best.

Then there was Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond, who clearly switched parties in the 60's due to their disagreement with Democratic support for Civil Rights legislation.

Let's face it, liberal and progressive views are not in line with racism, while conservatives often harken to a past filled with racism at the very least.

And as for rights, pleas tell me what rights I have lost under Obama. The worst he has done is not denounce or back away from Bush's assault on our rights, which is unsurprising. I warned while it was happening that governments and politicians don't give up power, no matter how progressive they are or make themselves out to be. It's the right's fault for pushing his policies through, and the left's fault for not opposing him more, and finally, the people's fault for electing him for a second term despite his clear idiocy and incompetence.

The association of words with meanings is such a practiced process by most people's minds that it is automatic. Hearing or seeing a word will immediately conjure up the associated mental semantic object, without any choice for the beholder (behearer?).

Normally, that's fine. However, words designated as profanity by consensus tend to be
a) associated with substances or actions that are generally "personal" - masturbation, copulation et al are /generally/ not performed in public, and doing so often generates a similar reaction to the profanity,
b) carry connotations of the worst aspects of the aforementioned topics. Sam and Bob make love suggests an activity that is mutually enjoyed and respectful. Sam fucks Bob imagines a somewhat more one-sided arrangement, with possible violent overtones (depending on the reader).

In other words, profanity as a class will induce an automatic mental imagining of the more unpleasant aspects of activities not usually encountered in a social situation. The visual or aural equivalent of an unpleasant smell being shoved under your nose.

Admittedly, the degree of discomfort varies between individuals, much as it does with smells, but it's still impolite to be so inconsiderate of others' potential feelings.

You seem to be suffering from two misguided assumptions. First, you misunderstand the role of the police in our society. Second, you are setting up a false dichotomy.

The police exist to provide the illusion that if you commit a crime, you will go to jail. As long as would-be criminals believe that if they break the law, they will be caught and punished (or at least, that there is an unacceptably high likelihood that they will be caught and punished), they have an incentive not to commit the crime. When you leave a "low-hanging fruit" crime unpunished, you are telling criminals that they can get away with crimes, as long as they aren't murder, rape or kidnapping. That's got Bad Idea written all over it.

While I seriously doubt that anyone on /. is going to argue that the alleged theft of a cell phone (even an eagerly anticipated prototype cell phone from a well-known company with bajillions of eager fanbois) is more important than a murder or rape, it's just plain stupid to argue that all cops should only work on murder and rape cases until the backlog is gone. Think about it for a second -- next time you get in a car wreck or you find someone breaking into your house, do you want the cops to refuse to investigate the accident because there is an unsolved murder that the entire freaking department is working? You will end up with anarchy, and I'll wager that the rate of murders and rapes would skyrocket because the criminals know that the po-po won't respond to calls because the murder and rape cases on the books are "a higher priority" than a simple breaking-and-entering call. And, every once in a while, a seemingly low-priority case ends up leading to the arrest and conviction of a big-ticket criminal.

The police department must try to strike a balance. When a crime has potentially been committed, they have to investigate -- even the lower priority cases -- because it is impossible to solve every crime...but as long as a reasonably high percentage of them are solved, it is more advantageous to most people, most of the time, to obey the law.

"They're all criminals, they should all pay."
Including Steve Jobs, the guy who created his own 'police force' and raided a guy's house because the guy pissed him off?

Welcome to the new double-plus-good future, where everything is owned by Apple.

You’re really going to have to expound on that. I have no idea what you’re getting at. Please don’t tell me you’re distressed just by having to drive past churches.

Evolution is equally pervasive where I am. I believe that God first of all exists, secondly could create, thirdly happens to have created, and while I really don’t care if someone disagrees with that, just about anywhere I go is saturated with evolutionary theory: billions of years this, millions of years that. In completely unrelated subjects they’ll feel the need to point out the completely unnecessary fact that such-and-such a fish, according to them, is thought to have been unchanged for tens of millions of years. And should I happen to voice my own opinion, I’ll be heartily beaten over the head by the devoted believers in Science.

Frankly I’d prefer we could just pretend to be civil enough to mostly get along. I’ll tolerate hearing about their billions of years and atheists can tolerate hearing a few prayers.

My experience was similar, and in the same timeframe. I was following a [THE] howto related to installing on Fedora, and got it mostly working. Then I traded in all the nerd cred I had earned & went with a prepackaged distro (MythDora, as my familiarity is with redhat/fedora).

3 years later, it's still running. The only issues I've had have been hardware related (a fan died in the power supply). WAF is so high that when that happened funds were immediately allocated to replace the PSU & get the dvr working again.

The pain of setup is having to know how to make ALL the components & drivers work. That's still available for masochists who want to set up everything from scratch, but with Mythdora & Mythbuntu available, I'll happily use that & spend the extra time with my family (or killing aliens).

I'm pretty sure you're right, but I think it's talking about ocean (well, tidal) current, not electrical current.

This is an interesting answer to a question I always wanted to ask - how does the first law of Thermodynamics play into harnessing tidal/wave energy? Very interesting, and I'd love to see a citation if available.

I suppose the next question would be, What's the overall supply, and can/should we focus on not depleting it like we have done with hydrocarbons?

You're absolutely right - I'm not defending Valve here (you could probably have found similar language in any other EULA), but rather bashing the bundled hardware/software model. The difference is that Steam's EULA applies to its software only, while Sony's applies to both its software & hardware by virture of the fact that you can't run their software on any other hardware.

You and I clearly have different priorities with how to spend our money, and that's just fine. The cost of installing the Steam client on a PC is $0, while the cost of bringing home a PS3 is $a few hundred. Should Valve alter their EULA to require all of my children & pets to be renamed "GLADOS", I'm out the money I spent on games in Steam. My other games still work, and I still have a killer frame rate in PowerPoint. If (as somebody suggested> the Sony EULA requires you to rename your kids "Sonny", then you're out the money you spent on games ($10 more than PC version in most/many cases) plus the cost of the box (and extra controllers, etc). You can probably sell that stuff for half of what you paid, but given your initial investment, you're still out more than the money I've spent on steam.

If I buy a factory sealed Widget, I expect the advertised features to work...at least for as long as the warranty lasts. The manufacturer retains the right to turn your PS3 into a paperweight. I understand a software license, and I accept it - software is intangible. I don't accept (or understand) a EULA for a machine that I have purchased.

Suppose Toyota figured out that they could fix their gas/brake pedal problems by installing software that incidentally also disables the radio. An functional radio is not central to operating a car, but it is a feature that I expect to work if it worked when I bought the car.

While the terms of the EULA are quite similar, the context is very different.

Fair enough, let's call it Valve's oranges to Sony's hammer. My point is that agreeing to an EULA in order to install software on hardware that I control is very different from buying hardware with a feature set that the manufacturer can change on a whim with absolutely NO recourse. Steam can be run on any supported hardware, while PS3 buyers have to shell out hundreds of dollars for the specific hardware Sony will support. If you don't like what Sony has done with their software updates, then your options are as follows:

1. Suck it, or
2. See option 1.

Companies treat their customers like this because their customers allow it.

Maybe PS3's/360's/ipods/etc should come with Surgeon General style warnings on the package, "FTC Commissioner's Warning: By purchasing this item, you consent to being treated like shit by the manufacturer for as long as you own the item."