if you don't have an offline installer you didn't "buy" a game you leased it for an indeterminate period. I've been on steam for a long time, but I don't support a platform with money if I can't play my game at my cabin with no net. Granted Steam has some offline ability but it is flaky and doesn't work for all titles.

By your logic Gaming owes itself to MicroSloth and we should all support that crap. The only thing Valve gives back is that which is required by the various licenses, and they have made a good living off OSS.
All this aside I still love and play HL often.

other countries such as ? easy to quote nothing...

Lord no. The system needs reworking. The LEO's (law enforcement officers) should submit the request and justification to a third party, just like search warrants, who should then provide the data. This kind of tool needs centralized authority and security. But humans are crap, so even with watchers some will abuse the system.

I'd mod you up if I hadn't posted already. A simple check and balance system would make Flock a great resource and stop the abuses. I don't like the idea of being tracked everywhere but if you had just cause, the ability to do a city or state wide search for a vehicle by plate number is amazing and could save lives.

There are in excess of 800k Police/Sheriff/Highway Patrol officers in the US. 50 doing bad things or even 500 is a very tiny percentage. Look at other professions and plot the sizable percentage that go rogue. I wonder what the % of CEO/CIO that commit fraud and embezzle is. Cops that go bad SHOULD be nailed to the wall, but quit painting everyone the same color as the crooks.
On another note Flock is a great tool provided it is strongly regulated. What they are doing today is crap. You need a writ or a warrant to get info on anyone...

FT or Field Training is 12 months AFTER a 14-18 week boot camp academy. You can be let go for any reason during your FT. That seems like a fairly robust training and guidance period. What other countries are you referring to ? All police in the world operate with "qualified immunity" not would not be possible to do the job without i.t

People keep saying it's hard to get a non-blurry picture of them.

Some have suspected somebody has gravity bubble tech which would bend the light.

This thing just spins but isn't itself a disc, though on average it's s disc while in motion.

Post WWII-Germany/Paperclip there were more visible saucers seen over Washington and such but the Germans were developing solid discs. The blurry ones are more over the past few decades as drone tech has become common.

Curious.

> I don't know why anyone would send one in any other format.

I'm told by attorneys that Office is nonnegotiable in Law.

Microsoft could probably raise the price to $500/mo and they'd get it.

Should a citizen be required to pay a creepy Redmond company to interact with the Courts?

It"s at least Unconstitutional in New Hampshire, likely other states as well.

Not that Courts themselves care about Unconstitutionality very often. Nor do they personally pay anything for Office. Empathy tends to be low.

But if one wants to make a decent argument that is a good one.

Agree, but finals are over and many teens and college kids are the ones running linux.

"Windows is for Boomers" they say.

It's at least plausible that usage dipped as the end-of-year school workload spiked.

It is a nice thought but nothing more than that. Not even enough for a bad cup of coffee each.

"We know that people uniquely trust Google Earth" Anyone who trusts ANYTHING Gurgle puts out is foolish. Everything Gurgle does is for profit.