Wherever alcohol, squash, and modern interpretations of siege devices are found together.

And nothing of value would be lost.

It's actually in the roasting and processes used to make decaf. For one thing, it's almost universally roasted so dark that it's basically burnt, and becomes extremely bitter. The lighter and medium roasts that have the more mellow flavours actually have the highest caffeine content.

Well, the Zetas only kill you.

Unfortunately for me, my insurance company thinks the same way.

I know OpenSuSE still supports KDE 3, and I"m sure there are other distros as well for those who don't like 4.x

It's a right as much as any other form of health care. For one thing, plenty of women take hormonal birth control for medical reasons unrelated to family planning. Should a bunch of religious zealots get special rights not to comply with a law that affects every other employer?

Fair enough, since they'd be the ones shooting themselves in the foot, since they'd be going from a potential lost sale from my seeing it first and deciding it's not worth buying to a definite lost sale. From a utilitarian point of view, it's better for the authors if I do what I'm doing.

Well, any of my exes can certainly testify that I'm a jerk. In this case, however, I still can claim the moral high-horse over the MAFIAA.

The word you're looking for is "chutzpah."

I remember how when I was studying photography, I had this documentary class where the professor was going off on how great the DMCA was because it allowed artists to take down sites that posted such low-res photos that nobody could print or do anything useful with. I had the audacity to say "What about due-process?" He tried to fail me despite my acing every assignment just because of my stance on copyright.

Or a site anywhere else in the world for that matter.

Not for life, no. But I do think that they should be able to derive income from that work. Copyrights in the 10-14 range give authors, musicians, etc enough time to have a legal monopoly on distribution to get properly paid. If they want to have their work give them income for life, they're free to invest the profits. Assuming, that is, that the publishers/labels actually pay them any of the money that they deserve rather than steal it via questionable accounting practices.

Furthermore, you seem to be tarring all "pirates" with the same brush. There are those who will never pay, there is nothing that can be done about that without breaking the internet. Anything that can be converted to data *will* be transmitted around the world for essentially nothing. Trying to put that genie back into the bottle is like trying to use DRM to keep someone from Star Trek from replicating a fancy watch. Can't be done. Companies dealing in IP need to change their business model to adapt, rather than try to put the genie back into the bottle. I'll say it again, there is NOTHING that can be done to prevent file-sharing, and businesses need to stop fighting it and work on finding new ways to monetize their content. Here's a hint: People pay for convenience and quality. Trying to find a good rip on TBP can be like pulling teeth from an angry velociraptor sometimes. Most people would rather pay than dealing with finding a good .torrent.

I'm a heavy downloader, myself. I'll happily admit it. I also believe in paying the creative folks. I don't have the highest income, so I won't buy *anything* without watching it first. If I like it, I'll buy it. If not, I'll delete it, especially with HDD prices these days. Hell, half the cds/dvds/LPs that I've purchased in the last year are still in the shrink wrap. Even if it's something I know I'm going to buy, I'll also download a copy since I'm too lazy to rip it and stick it on my file server.

And don't get me started on heavily DRMed stuff. I'll put up with Steam since it's fairly unobtrusive and generally is the easiest way to get a game installed on Linux. But do you have any idea how much of a PITA it is to play Blu-Ray content on *nix? It'd take me longer to break copy protection, grab the image, and transcode it into a watchable file than it does to just .torrent the bloody thing. Give me a legitimate way to access this content without obnoxious DRM, and I'll happily pay.

In short: Authors *should* get paid if people use their work, but you can't stop piracy. The more convenient businesses make access to IP for consumers, the more people who will pay rather than seek out the alternatives.

I've really given up on working to get converts lest I become as annoying as the JWs. I really have come to the conclusion that there really isn't One True OS that satisfies the needs of all users. And even on the *nix side, most folk pick a distro that "just works" (which can be a rather subjective criterion).as well.

After the latest rounds of virus infections hit them (clueless family members), my sister got a Mac (which I will provide phone support for) and my folks still stick with windows because they "don't want to change" (nevermind that MS keeps overhauling the interface). They're stuck calling tech support.

I'd have done it myself if my mod points didn't vanish yesterday. I've certainly been the sort of geek who hasn't done well in communicating with others when it comes to technical matters. Despite years of bugging friends and family members to "just get a Mac" every time I had to give out free tech support, no one ever did because I didn't/couldn't articulate the reasons why this would be a good idea. I think I've learnt my lesson, and have been able to get people to at least start playing with *nix by actually *showing* how it's not so scary to use and how easy it is to run plenty of Windows software through WINE.

I think that the good folks in Liverpool know how to deal with the Murdoch empire.