Nobody with half an ounce of common sense is claiming you shouldn't care about both.

The point is that the "health risks" investigation carries the risk that scanners will be authoritatively determined to carry zero risk by an esteemed medical investigation body (chaired by the college roommate's dog's babysitter who is John Pistole's cousin, but don't let that bother you), and thus the entire case against scanners will be shot down in the press when there is still a real-but-difficult-to-quantify objection against the things on privacy grounds.

That is the problem.

There is no problem with disagreeing with a law and even fighting it - as long as you're prepared to put up with the consequences of disobeying it.

Is he breaking the law?

No.

Maybe, but that's a subjective judgment. Tax law is not subjective. There is a very good reason for that.

It pays proper corporation tax. Proper corporation tax is what is legally required. If you don't like the amount of tax Google is paying, close the fucking tax loopholes that allow it to get away with less.

As a private citizen who does not have the financial means to do a double Irish, blind trust, or whatever-the-hell-else legal mechanisms I could use to legally optimize my taxes, does it gall me that Google is paying such low taxes? Of course it does. I find the whole system loathsome and unfair. Do I want to see the laws allowing them to do this changed? Absolutely.

Do I want to see them subjected to arbitrarily made up rules that are contrary to what the written law says? Fuck no. If someone does not understand why this would be a bad idea, it's not really worth arguing.

Hey, I'm fine with it, because it means that I'm no longer a pirate. All my movies, music, games, everything, will be paid already.

Right?

...can someone please remind me how much of my money is being wasted on this shit?

But think about it this way - a big part of the reason for sharing such information and making it commonly accessible is to enable the automation of pattern-finding.

This is tough to do with patient records scattered through fifty thousand different hospital databases. With those 130,000 cases online, you're going to start seeing commonalities in various reactions to treatments, statistics, etc. which in turn will make it much easier for researchers to begin understanding what combinations of cures/treatments may or may not work - leaving the "weird" ones that don't fit into any patterns to the Jimmy Lins.

That'd be hilarious. I can already imagine the business justification: "we need to install a heater so we can power the cooler because we heat too much when it's cold outside."

Actually, I live in Switzerland (and have worked all over Europe in the past decade and a half).

This is very common. You set up an LLC/GmbH/SARL/whatever in a place that has advantageous tax rates. You pay the tax that you legally owe on time worked in the country where your job is, you set up your offices and residence elsewhere as needed, deduct the maximum legally allowable for business expenses, etc. etc. etc.

It's usually pretty cleanly defined. Tax authorities may not like it, but they are as obliged to follow the law as you or I (I once took a massive deduction because I commuted to work by car, and simply added up the distance with the rates published on their own website. They did not like it, but I was able to point them to _their own rules_, and that was that...)

However, this implies that you wouldn't be able to receive _any_ stimuli.

I don't think it's too far-fetched to assume that, if we're soon to be able to reliably "read" brain signals from people who're so totally trapped, we'll also soon see true direct machine-to-mind communication. I.e. being able to inject stimuli directly into the parts of the mind that process basic awareness -- the holy grail of virtual reality.

That, of course, means that, as Scott Adams said, "the holodeck will be humanity's last invention".

We "let" them try it last time. "Try" being the operative word.

I still say the North should apologize for all that unpleasantness in 1860-65, tell them they're free to go, and throw in some cash and parts of the Midwest as a goodwill gesture. Buh-bye, don't forget to write!

http://www.magnet-shop.net/

German outfit, huge range of Neodymium magnets, spherical, cylindrical, banana-shaped, what-have-you.

I thought it was because he was always so...saur on Mondays.

What if you bribe the cops $400?

Muji has amazing pens for notes, drawing, etc. Cheap, robust, reliable, good quality ink, etc. All thicknesses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here