And killing the used market overnight would be a bad thing for consumers and ultimately also for publishers/devs -- you are taking away a part of the value of the game (namely the resale value), without lowering the price of original purchase. Giving lower value at the same price should lead to lower sales, lower profits and (hopefully) a change in business model which involves the publishers getting their head out of their asses.

BTW, piracy has made large inroads into the music "industry", where the "industry" is the publishers/distributors who were extracting economic rents from the artists who actually produce the product. I personally have no problem with the "industry" going to the wall if it fails to adapt to changing circumstances (and in fact uses every means at its disposal, fair or foul, to maintain the status quo which suits it).

Usually in corporate-speak, "pursue other interests" == "spend more time with his family" == "fired". I've had companies I do business with where the CEO left explicitly call me up to explain that, in this case, "spending time with his family" was really "spending time with his family" as the CEO's wife was really quite ill, and the company didn't want us to wonder about their direction/strategy/management competence.

No. Sit further away, you'll be fine :)

Your post is ridiculous.

I suggest you look up what "write-only" means before you spout bullshit. Hint: it means "hard to read, and thus hard to maintain", with Perl often being given as an example .

So Spanish is a useless language too, as almost nobody can understand it but other Spanish-speakers.

"A boat does only one thing particularly well -- travelling on water". Producing fixed-layout .pdfs is pretty bloody useful for very, very many applications. And produces those so that they actually look good, and the author can focus on content and structure without having to worry (much) about layout.

(La)TeX has its strengths and weaknesses, and whether it works for you is a matter for you to decide, however please refrain from posting crap.

Evernote. It comes close, whether it's close enough is up to you to decide.....

International distribution, download infrastructure, payment services, many millions of potential clients for the vendor + ease of installation and a (pretty much) secure environment for the users is not, to use your words, "nothing". You can argue that MS can feasibly provide the same on its own (lord knows, they have the download infrastructure -- they have to so that they can support all the security patches), but that would also cost them money.

XBOX369 - at least that explains what you did afterwards :)

You're missing some points -- adding them strengthens your argument though.

They are paid, usually by the taxpayer (as they tend to work at public institutions).

Universities are again funded (to a greater or lesser extent) by taxpayers, so the taxpayers pay again. The system continues to exist because the publishers own the "big name" journals like Nature, and because the insiders (e.g. established peer-reviewers) get fast-tracked when they want to publish in these journals. It's a racket which siphons huge wealth from the taxpayers to the publishers for little effort. May it end quickly.

Yes, you can fault them. Abuse of power for personal (career) gain, as well as a lack of ethics and humanity. It is also a well-established doctrine that "I was just following orders" is not a suitable defence against wrongdoing (not in the military, not anywhere). The system is broken, no question, but it will never change unless there are personal consequences for those that exploit it.

And the fact that the so-called justice system can threaten to ruin someone's life (and simultaneously advance the career of the person doing the threatening) is acceptable to you? If the crime was truly so bad, by all means, go ahead and throw the book at someone. The fact that a much lesser punishment is ultimately considered acceptable (ie the plea bargain) should tell you that the initial proposed punishment is nothing more than a "negotiation" tactic, with one party in the negotiation holding all the power, and with a perverse set of incentives to boot (the prosecution wants to win, but doesn't want a court case, as those take time which could be better spent racking up more wins through quick plea bargains).

Due to a rather strange side-effect -- the low-frequency rumbling from the powerball made my gf feel ill when she heard it......

You can keep your jokes and snarky comments to yourself, thank you.

I don't think Germany openly admitted it -- more likely they forgot to suppress it.

Try being pedantic yourself -- it's "gets". Apostrophes aren't just random little pre-s symbols you know.

So, let's ask them for details on what they have been doing. Queue response: "National Security! We can't tell you!" sotto voce "Monitor him, he's asking questions".

Big words, little dog. It gives you a model of how the world works, it has hugely driven forward our understanding of the human mind (behavioural economics) and the connection between our physiology and our behaviour.

Genetics is not a hard science either - it's not based on strong causality either (else we would be saying "genetic makeup X causes Y", instead we are saying "genetic makeup X increases the likelihood of Y". If you're looking for real science, try physics, wander by the math department, and then stop -- you've found them.