No, that is incorrect. It is the parent's responsibility to scrutinize, regulate or eliminate undesired advertisements directed towards their children/adolescents (for any reason). It is not the Government's job. Period. Don't like the additional responsibility of being a parent, don't have kids.Also, kids aren't the only target audience of video games (especially of this type).

Reading comprehension test - Fail!

Emphasis, mine. Obviously, with Diablo, Diablo 2 and Starcraft 1's DRM, this wasn't an issue as the authentication was offline and will work for as long as you have hardware/OS that can run it.

The problem with this is the suits will blame the lost sales on a bad game, not on the DRM unless you can demonstrably show that people DO like the game and are willing to WORK to play it, so long as the DRM isn't in their way. By separating the two issues (piracy does allow this in a fuzzy-math way), one can see that a game is popular, by piracy rates, but sales for it are low and cause the bean counters to investigate why as it obviously isn't the game itself that is the problem; priced too high, DRM too intrusive, etc.

The part you seem to leave out is, that it is because of these social safety nets that non-living wages are able to be offered and are accepted. If people could not actually live on these wages, the market would be forced to adjust and increase wages as necessary. If the market did not adjust, the Government would have to step in and force them to via the Minimum Wage. The minimum wage is the proper mechanism for ensuring a living wage of the populace. However, it does not grant politicians any power over the populace so they prefer to directly pay the people via the government and get the power as well.

I didn't ask why the Feds were involved. I asked why what he did was even considered a Felony.

So, trespassing? Violating Tos which is breach of contract. Somewhere I'm missing where Felony status becomes reasonably involved.

I'm going to give you a second chance to read that again and really think about it. If you are so aggrieved by someone's actions and the effect they have had on your life, that you are willing to sacrifice said life in a final attempt to make their actions known and, hopefully, punished, don't you think that IS something we as a society should pay attention to? On my worst day, I haven't seriously considered suicide and I'd wager you probably haven't either so it's not something people do willy-nilly.

At least with IT, those people chose to work in a field where most of their interactions are with machines rather than with people.

Yes, we have been indoctrinated into carrying around identification cards/badges that can be used to identify us. However, the fact the we are being identified and by who and for what purpose is known to the holder of the card (i.e. we have to take it out and show it), or if wearing it, we can see those who can see us and our cards. Tracking is not involved in the current system unless you swipe the card for access and again you know and can control what is being tracked. The new system is for ubiquitous identification and tracking, not knowing who is identifying/tracking you or when or for what purpose. This is a different system and one people should NOT be indoctrinated into as it is dehumanizing.

So, you are all for fraud/cons then as that is the epitome of taking advantage of uninformed people.

Likely, based on what? With a flat-tax and no deductions (save the one I mentioned) I believe the government would end up with more revenue than it does now. It would also become (due to the single deduction that helps low-income people more) a progressive-tax as the more you make the higher your effective tax rate goes (until it flat-lines at the flat tax rate). Not to mention that it would allow most of the IRS (and its expenses) to go away.

What's the remaining problem after that? Once you've subtracted out the minimum living wage from being taxed, how can taxes on any income above that be "crippling"?

Then include a single deduction (the minimum living wage deduction) that applies to everyone. the first 10-20K is untaxable. Solved.

Well that's you. I have been building my own for just as long and I see things quite differently. My method has always been (and remains) to buy the best motherboard you can find and then buy the CPU that has the best price point you can afford today. This way, in a couple of months when the $1000 dream chip you were drooling over comes down to a reasonable price you can grab it and do a simple swap. I usually got 2 CPU's out of every motherboard this way and my machines were functional for almost twice as long as other people's.

Um, what about the new loan payments on that there edumucation of yours... :)