Good question. Yes.

As a constituent of Senator Wyden who has heard for years only glowing reviews of his personality and character, I'd like to point out one fact that everyone seems to be overlooking.

As you say, he already knew about PRISM, and was, in fact, making broad hints about the program for months. He knew about the program AND DID NOTHING TO STOP IT. He has a sworn duty to uphold and defend the Constitution, and did nothing to stop PRISM from taking place. This leaves one of two situations, and I'll let you pick which you believe. Either the PRISM program is Constitutional, or Ron Wyden has broken his oath to us and abdicated his responsibility as the Senator he was elected to be and should therefore be recalled. (One of the clear duties of the Senate and House are as a check and balance upon the Executive branch. Civics 101.)

If you complain about the PRISM program trodding upon your Constitutional rights, you have Mr. Wyden to thank for not acting to stop it, and have chosen the latter position.

As an aside, Mr. Wyden is the politician who, while running for Senate the first time, promised to run a clean, honest, upfront campaign with no negative campaigning. Immediately following this pledge, advertisements began appearing against his opponent, Gordon Smith, claiming Smith "killed a kid" in the name of corporate profits. The truth was, a teenaged employee (legally employed) at Smith's farm died in an accident, and the parents of the teen appeared soon after the negative ads in ads for Smith absolving him of responsibility and blame.

Now, I don't know how that's going to work, but I can easily forsee a case of Google (for example) seeing a non-Google-approved android device showing up at the Play Store and the kill code being sent out... not saying Google would do that, but can you imagine the fun of a malicious app that lets you do something wonderful, for a week and then it shuts your device off permanently? No factory reset, no recovery. Dead.

I can actually believe that some large unnamed software company would include this code in their phones/tablets to prevent piracy of their software. Keep in mind the difficulty of upgrading the computer hardware using some unmentioned OSs because they base their license on things like the serial number of the hard drive. New hard drive, different system, no license. Brick. Buy smartphone with certain OS, buy software for it, screw up in license server. Brick.

Imagine the phun when someone discovers how to send this code to a phone via SMS? Hilarity ensues...

This is not a scientific issue, it is a legal and ethical issue. He was thus no longer speaking as a scientific advisor, he was taking a legal/political stance.

OMG. He became an outspoken advocate against current government policy while being paid by the government to provide scientific input, and he got fired. How awful.

Laws should and must include social considerations and not just be a reflection of scientific physical laws. While you may call that "anti-scientific", it really isn't. You may also call firing a scientist who has wandered into public policy "anti-scientific", but really, again, it isn't. "Use of drug X causes Y dollars in damage to society, using the following assumptions and cost analysis basis..." is science. "We should set the criminal level of use of drug X based on cost..." is a statement of a personal opinion.

"Yes, thank you, agrarian scientist, for the information that one person walking on a field of grass doesn't hurt the grass but may in fact help it. We're still going to make 'Do Not Walk On The Grass' signs legal and enforce them with trespass violations because the owner of the grass has property rights that your science doesn't consider."

Oooh, oooh, a car analogy just came to mind. "Thank you Dr. Traffic Safety Investigator, we understand that any distraction at all while driving can increase the chances of an accident. Unfortunately, it is politically and socially unacceptable to outlaw the use of the car radio or windshield wipers while the car is in motion, nor will we create a law limiting the driver's and passenger's freedom of speech by prohibiting all discussions during a drive. We may consider a law allowing the use of duct tape on small children in the back seat, however."

Except the government hasn't even denied that they are collecting all this information. Their defense has consistently been, "Yes, we're collecting everything about everybody, but we only look at the database with a court order. Trust us." Even if that's true right now, whom do you trust to have that kind of database and never, ever abuse it?

What opponents? The Washington elite of both parties have lined up to defend this thing and remind us that they need this information to protect us from the big, bad terrorists.

The article says nothing about prevention. It mentions one time when a scientist was asked not to speak to the press again. Ask. The rest of the complaint is that scientists who have signed the Official Secrets Act are hesitant to talk because THEY are afraid they might let something confidential slip out. Their fear, not a prohibition from the government, stops them from talking.

Two points. Great Britain does not have a 1st Amendment, and even if it did (or has something equivalent) these scientists have waived the rights it would grant by signing an agreement not to talk about certain things.

As for badgers, everyone knows that British badgers are a source of tuberculosis that is hurting the cows and beef/dairy production of small family farms, and that only addle-brained old women want to put up "badger crossing" signs. Doesn't anyone in England listen to The Archers anymore?

It would have been just about as much effort to "switch" to the latest version of MySQL as it was to "switch" to the latest version of MariaDB. They were going to do one or the other.

Probably so. Which makes this the ideal time to pick MariaDB, while it's zero-effort.

There isn't any effort to migrate from MySQL to MariaDB. It's a drop-in replacement.

Actually, their views are that as long as AGW proponents merely concoct pecuniary schemes that would do jack all to solve the actual problem according to their own fucking computer modelsd while greatly reducing quality of life, one should treat their demands accordingly. Which is to say ignore them. As for science skepticism, well, there's a damned good reason for that.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/04/20/220201/studies-suggest-massive-increase-in-scientific-fraud

If you're so fucking worried about children, ban pools and 5 gallon buckets. You'll save a fuckton more children that way. The only reason your lefty schizo buddy Loughner was able to get a gun was because the mental health system failed. Same with Lanza. Both of them were beyond the stage of paranoid schizo where they should have been forcible committed. Also, why is it that all the mass shooters lately have lefty tendencies?

Please, try not to be such an idiot. They are worth whatever the seller is willing to sell them for.

No, They are worth whatever the seller can sell them for.

I wrote a little hello world program and I am willing to sell it for $2 million dollars. If my shop catches fire, the insurance definitely will not cover that amount and likely I would be arrested for insurance fraud. If people were actually paying that price, it would be a different story. It is worth whatever I can sell it for.

copying is/can be a copyright violation too. Receiving a copy that has been copied and distributed to you is not which is what I think you were going for.

That's true. In some areas, they even sell fake drugs (represented as real drugs) in order to get purchasers on tape then arrest them a few blocks away.

And example of entrapment would be a cop asking you to hold a bag, then the cop right beside him arresting you because it had a bunch of drugs and a loaded handgun in it.

China has to play lip service to copyright laws of other countries else they won't get the economic advantages membership in WIPO and WTO. China is members of both and have signed treaties (although I'm not sure how many are ratified) for both. Those two organizations attempt to set rules other countries have to follow in order to avoid trade penalties with member states.

So while it might not be a big concern, they will attempt to make it appear that way. Remember when China fork a version of linux and made it their official operating system? That was to get around complaints about copyright and pirated software that threatened to sanction them through WIPO.

Not only taxes on the sale, but differences in income taxes between states or nations can explain a lot on it too. Suppose area A has an income tax of 10% and area B is 12%. Suppose area B also has a digital tax of 5% on media storage like Canada does and the US partially does.

Now, if I want to make $10 profit per unit sold, I would price my widget differently in area A then I would in area B. Companies don't reach in their pockets to pay taxes, they pass the costs onto consumers for the most part. In the US, this can be seen by multi state fast food chains. I have noticed differences in prices of Mcdonalds and Wendy's in different states when I visit them and it all has to do with the local economies and taxing structures. If you travel, seriously look at that. You will be surprised at how much different the prices can be.