A lot of video cameras have that feature too. For some reason Apple stopped supporting that after the 5.5G of the ipod and the newer ipods need those special apple cables instead of the standard 3.5mm to RCA cable.

Just remember that we are talking about Germany where a judge makes the decisions and never a jury.

There is no need for new laws. Privacy and harassment laws already exists. I'm not sure if the USA also has dignity laws (couldn't believe it if not).

Who on slashdot would open an .exe file after clicking on the supposed video that should start in the browser?

By the way, the person that made the website was creative with that virus (or maybe adware?). I'm sure a lot of naive people would open that (but those don't exist on slashdot, right?)

With big sport games its the broadcast channels you get with antenna and with the digital channels it is better than analog cable TV but sadly no ESPN for the people that watch more sports. Maybe there is a chance to get ESPN from unencrypted satellite channels but I never tried that since I'm living in an apartment and a big dish is no option.

Why not free? The broadcast channels are already free using an antenna and I'm assuming that those are even the most watched ones. Why shouldn't it be possible to get Comedy Central, Discovery Channel free by showing ads like FOX, NBC, etc. ?
There are also some countries where only free exists with the exception of HBO like channels.

I'm already getting almost everything free that I watch (or everything after dropping cable). I get the broadcast channels and with hulu I also get the things that I watch on comedy central. The only channel really missing is Discovery channel and I can live without it. (not worth the $50 cable bill for one channel)

California already has 6 areas with Clearwire coverage and nationwide it has about as much coverage as FIOS has. Do we need a new story every time a new coverage area is added?

I would be OK with caps if they are fair caps or just being charged like phone service.
I prefer it if they would charge $5-20 for the connection (depending on the chosen speed) and than charge maybe 10 cents a GB (that's what Amazon S3 charges). You can't tell me that charging more than 20 cents a GB is in any way fair.
They might even be able to add free nights like Cell phone providers (or whatever time the least usage is).

You could get a router on which you can install DD-WRT (which has bandwidth tracking).
With the following link you can find all the hardware that is supported (a lot).
http://dd-wrt.com/dd-wrtv3/dd-wrt/hardware.html

At my school you had to pay for the locker each semester and there was also something to sign. I don't remember what it was I signed (7 years ago).

I might be a little more for privacy rights than most here since I was living the first 15 years of my life in Germany where there are much stronger privacy rights than in the USA. I'm just sometimes shocked to see how little people care for their privacy.

When steam starts without Internet connection, it will ask if you want to retry connecting to steam or start in offline mode.
There is nothing to configure to get it working. It also works if you don't save your password (just tried it to see what happens)

Isn't a locker search already going to far? Don't students rent the lockers from the school and can be compared to you renting an apartment?

Get a court order if you need to search a locker or an apartment/house. If you can't get one than you probably don't have enough prove.

After every school shooting you hear some group calling for the ban of violent video games. The best ones are always the ones where the shooter didn't even play any video games.
I wouldn't even see this as news since it happens every single time in every country.

You mean like the TN products that are on the market since about a year?
http://tngames.com/products

This year they will release the helmet where you can fell the head shots.

Breaking in into a bank through the ATM machine is probably the worst idea ever. Banks (or at least the banks I worked at) have a motion detector in the room behind the ATM. Only once I saw a bank that had an ATM removed and just covered up with plywood from the outside while the motion detector was disabled in that room. Triggering the ATM alarm is worse than the premises alarm because the premises alarm gets triggered sometimes from cleaning personnel or other employees but for the ATM room you need a special key that not everyone has.

I'm also not sure that you can easily go into debug mode without anyone noticing (assuming some employee let you in that room) because the ATM technicians have to call Diebold before doing anything with the machine. They will know if someone unauthorized is using the ATM and restarting with a live CD won't work because that will also trigger an alarm.
I'm guessing it was an Diebold employee that installed the malware since he would have been the only who could have gotten that much access to it.