Out of interest, what did he whistleblow? I thought he just decided that access to a particular journel or somethign was too expensive and decided to download and distribute as much as he cold get his hands on?

In meatspace, it puts a halt on anyone in uniform, unless they have a valid warrant. I've seen it work, even with an out-of-control dept.

The fbi.gov page under "violation of rights" is the best explanation I've seen in normalspeak.

No. I make about a third of that, but I own enough assets that per the form I messed with, I don't qualify.

"...the exchange will send the money directly to the insurer every month."

Gotta love a guaranteed income.

Privacy is what tells you you're a person, rather than being property. Property can be 'inspected' any time the owner wishes.

Somewhat in anticipation of unwanted tracking of this nature, I have a new user-agent in my browser, which reads:

U.S.Code/Title 18 Sec.241-242

While the cite was meant for meatspace, I see no reason it shouldn't apply in cyberspace.

I had the same thought. Instead of affecting everyone, just have their own private network for their private content. Subscribe to the VPN, get its content and its DRM. That will protect their content about as well as can be (assuming there'll be some breaks in the system, but that's not our problem) and does no harm to the rest of us.

It is important to distinguish between equality in opportunity versus equality in accomplishment.

Try increasing font size to 130% or so (which some of us with aging eyes must do to read the screen comfortably). All the undisplayed comments become a continuous unreadable mess, impossible to tell what belongs to which.

This problem is commonly seen in bad Wordpress styles, too. Hmm...

I spent 14 mod points on the main discussion, so I'll drop my comments on the Horrible Beta here:

Slashdot was basically the geek crowd's replacement for Usenet. Slashdot came along about the time Usenet became unusable due to spam and trolls. Slashdot succeeded largely because the format was plain and functional -- basically it worked like a glorified newsreader (and the mod system does a good-enough job culling spam and trolls). What it looks like ... well, Usenet wasn't pretty either, but it was efficient for discussions. In fact, someone in the main discussion suggested offering Slashdot as an NNTP feed, as the world's only living replacement for Usenet.

NO ONE COMES HERE TO ADMIRE THE VIEW. We come here to discuss stuff, just like we did on Usenet. If you turn it into a blog with comments -- that encourages the one-shot spam and troll comments, and the ranters, but it KILLS the back-and-forth discourse that fuels discussions.

As it stands, Slashdot is easy to use, quick to peruse, and functions well to fill a niche that nothing else does anymore. It doesn't force us to use the software of YOUR choice, either -- Slashdot's current interface scrapes by in even the most primitive browser. I don't have to install an update just to talk to people. (Nor would I.)

Change it to be just like every other site, enrroute changing it so only the latest and greatest browser displays it halfway correctly (the "no images" icon is absent for me too) and most of us will leave. If there's no rapidly-appearing replacement that's just as discussion-friendly, we'll dissipate into the ether and be lost.

But Slashdot won't keep us.

I say that with sadness. I've been here since 1998. I've had a paid subscription since 2000 or so. There is NO other site that has kept me this long, and NO other site that I've given money to. But if it becomes the inefficient, discussion-unfriendly mess of Digg or any of a dozen others I've tried and left over the years, there's no reason to waste my time here.

In fact, given how annoying the beta interface is all around (and I wandered around as best I could), if I were new here today, I wouldn't stay long enough to post a single comment, and I'd never be back. I'd sure as hell never subscribe.

People who want discussions DON'T WANT OTHER CRAP IN THE WAY. It's that simple. KEEP it simple.

Use 'value' instead of 'wealth' and see if people understand better. My car's value doesn't go up just because the price does.

Me, I want to know where they're buying web hosting by the day. ;)

Annual contract, more likely.

See also
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/pruden100413.php3
and
http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell100413.php3

[In my observation, Mr.Sowell is rarely wrong.]

Hosting isn't bought by the day, or even the month most of the time. Even my piddly little webhosting account is bought by the block of six months. Do you seriously think a shutdown saved anything on their probably-annual hosting contract??

"The majority still accept government authority, period."

And there's the problem. The power is no longer with The People.

They even helpfully closed parks they don't own!

from http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/pruden100413.php3

The Park Service appears to be closing streets on mere whim and caprice. The rangers even closed the parking lot at Mount Vernon, where the plantation home of George Washington is a favorite tourist destination. That was after they barred the new World War II memorial on the Mall to veterans of World War II. But the government does not own Mount Vernon; it is privately owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. The ladies bought it years ago to preserve it as a national memorial. The feds closed access to the parking lots this week, even though the lots are jointly owned with the Mount Vernon ladies. The rangers are from the government, and they're only here to help.

I do wonder if suppliers, being savvy about this timing, raise prices just in time to benefit from it.