That you can go to a state university on an honors scholarship, work the entire time, and leave with $40,000 in debt. Since primary education is a joke and a bachelor's is required for most decent jobs, something has to be done about this.

Article aside. The Android platform has a real chance of dethroning the iPhone platform as well as the Blackberry platform for many of the same reasons that PCs beat our Macs. It is only a matter of time before a blockbuster Android phone comes out because any company can make one for any network. Then it will only be a matter of time before another one comes and another one and so on. Not one of these phones may have the popularity of the iPhone, but put together they may leave Apple in the dust. The tipping point will be when software developers shift resources from Apple aps to Android aps. If that happens, Android will start running away.

What the hell does "whimpish dispositions" mean?

I can tell you that there were a lot of things in my childhood that didn't kill me and made me weaker. Is that because I'm a wimp? I'm sorry. Sometimes the kid with asthma needs medicine to live. Am I a pussy for owning an inhaler?

Get bent.

And don't expect them to actually restrict your data or inform you when you are over limit.

I don't disagree with you that she should be punished. However, what law would you suggest they use? Is it considered harassment? I would have guessed that would be the first place prosecutors would go if they could use it.

I don't think the law is set up to handle such a weird crime of intent. We are allowed to be cruel with one another in America. We could not build enough prisons if we made being an asshole against the law. The difference here is an adult intending to cause mental distress to a minor. There need to be laws against this, but those laws will necessarily be pretty weak and hard to prove. Here we have a woman who deserves punishment, but I'm not sure that we as a society can easily legislate a punishment for what she has done.

In the end, she has been punished. Our overactive news media has been used to its fullest, distributing her name and her actions to every house in America and many throughout the world. Unfortunately, there are others like her, but those stories don't end as outrageously. At least she will start to understand what it is like to be the subject of another's hate. If there is any justice in the world, it will drive her to the same fate.

The right thing for Drew to do is shut the fuck up, be grateful for a loophole in the law, change her name, and move far away. If I were that girl's parent, I would spend the rest of my life looking for revenge.

That is illegal without a CAN SPAM act. Try again.

Now they can die together.

You know what? Spam doesn't affect my life. I don't care to sue a spammer any more than I care to sue a homeless man on the subway or the chinese restaurant that slips a menu under my door. It shocks me that this is such a big deal. If everyone ignored it, it would go away.

If you are going to enforce arbitrary criteria for competition, then you can't cry about it when it doesn't go your way. If she was born a woman or even a transsexual that meets the IOC standards to compete as a woman, let her compete as a woman and deal with the consequences of the rules we have made. It isn't fair to her otherwise. Her competition should take their hats off to her as a person with greater talent.

That is not "openly hostile." That is "You have to show us that you are able to be professional before we are going to let you see our secrets."

If they were awesome songs, people might pick up the game for the music. That would still result in fewer sales probably, but I'd bet you could do it profitably.

What?

Legislation is a popularity contest. This is a democracy. It is only indirectly our popularity contest, but it certainly is a popularity contest among our elected officials, and people attempt to buy popularity daily. That is why the courts are so important.

Music means different things to different people. You are extremely cynical, ridiculously cynical in fact, to assume the music industry is, has always been, and will always be based on the vanity of the consumer. Sure, some people do select their music for vain reasons. They are called teenagers, and they only do it because the recording industry deliberately markets to their overactive, teenage sense of vanity. Stop the marketing, and the music industry lives on. However, anyone publishing music can no longer be sure what will be "The Next Big Thing" (tm), because they will no longer be in complete control of the content and distribution. Businesses have the right to take measures to reduce their risks, but not at the expense of competition.

The idea that any work in the public domain is unwanted with zero value is completely wrong. Most works will be forgotten, but that happens regardless of copyright status. Most works are completely unavailable long before their copyrights expire. It may have little money making value--though there are many businesses making money off the sale of public domain works right now--but it has much greater value culturally. Artists can make use of public domain works in their own works. Students can learn from public domain works for nearly nothing. A long copyright gives a huge advantage to the wealthy.

A top 100 chart has no bearing on this discussion, because it only gives a biased view of the industry. For every artist on that chart, there are hundreds of artists that are making music profitably. You write as if no one will sell anything without a seven digit marketing budget, but the truth is that most artists never have anything close behind them, and they still survive. In fact, they would probably do a lot better if the industry didn't push them into horrible contracts. With the marketing gone the industry would level out some, and I don't think that is a bad thing.

Copyright law is currently held hostage by the cartels that are making all the money off it. I have no problem with anyone downloading any work that is over 20 years old, maybe even 10 years old. Those works should be in the public domain by any reasonable standard. Unfortunately, we don't have reason. We have monopolies that are allowed to control legislation, fix prices, exploit artists, and escape any prosecution for their own crimes. People talk about justice for content providers. Where is the justice for the consumer?

If everyone is doing it, maybe it should be legal.

Yes, please educate us all! We are the ignorant masses, after all. Tell us again how a netbook that does less than a laptop yet costs more than a laptop failed because of Microsoft. Maybe you could teach a college course and get tenure. Then you could meet with all your intelligent friends and watch each other masturbate.

I didn't really mean to be that harsh, but I was on a roll. ^_^