Apparently, Microsoft thought the cost of licenses for all the code on GitHub was included in the price.

No, we're a party of civil rights.

We think it's wrong for private companies to spy on your Internet traffic and that copyright infringement should not render prison sentences. From this follows that it becomes impossible to enforce the copyright monopoly unless of course someone starts copying to sell - it's always much easier to follow the money. The obvious corollary to this is of course that it becomes legal to download songs and movies off the Internet. Like it already is in Spain, for example. And somehow, the Spanish movie industry flourishes. Coincidentally, a continued rise in file-sharing happens to correspond to increased sales of music and film in Sweden while movie theatres scored yet another record year. Obviously, they still get paid so your basic premise is flawed.

So, please tell me why we would give up our civil liberties because Hollywood wants to control how and when we watch movies?

No, it's true. Two seats.

We used to have human rights. Now we just have...

Well, quite a lot of snow. And reality shows on TV. And snow. Yeah, that's about it.

We're not hosting TPB, we're just routing traffic to them. Just like an ISP. Serious Tubes routes traffic to the Pirate Party, so they're even more removed. But, last night, Portlane, one of the ISPs that routes traffic to Serious Tubes, was pressured into cutting their transit to ST, even if they were just a provider to a provider to a provider to TPB.

Damn, thought I was logged in for that comment. Sorry about that.

I've lived in Scottsdale for the past 2 years, having previously lived in Chicago and Silicon Valley. The vast majority of developers here are C# developers who would rate between a B- and a D if graded on their development skills. The vast majority of development jobs in Phoenix are also centered around C#; seeing as most web-based startups are using Java or LAMP as their underpinning technology, Phoenix's labor pool and developer job opportunities simply aren't aligned to maintain a robust startup environment. Additionally, development jobs pay anywhere from 30-50% less than other major coder cities. Lower cost of living be damned; if companies are looking to hire C# developers for $70k/year, they're not going to attract top talent. Chicago, San Jose, Austin ... you could spend an afternoon listing all of the cities that are healthier for startups and talented developers. And, all of these issues are just the tip of the spear - we haven't even addressed the political climate in Arizona. Good luck convincing talented developers here on an H1B that Arizona is a safe place to live and work.

RIM should abandon QNX, and run either Android, WebOS, or even Firefox OS instead. Maybe Firefox OS is exactly what RIM needs to both go-to-market faster (since QNX still isn't ready, and this arguably is more so) and ingratiate itself with a development community.

Get your ITIL v3 Expert / Manager certification. Jobs for ITIL Experts / Managers start at about $150k and work up from there.

One other commonality is going for the reason that the copyright lobby can keep buying legislation - the corrupting influence of the lobbyist system and the way government keep stuff hidden. Ie following in Lessig's footprints.

Stupid submitter makes my head hurt.

There is no ink in laser printers. There is toner, a bone-dry powder that is fused to the paper by the fuser, generally a very warm cylinder.

Ink-jet printers use ink, but those droplets are so small they dry into the paper without having to be heated.

Facts, use them.

Yahoo! should merge with Ask, AOL, and Lycos. They could call themselves That 90's Web Company.

I swear to {deity} that as I was reading this, Wordfeud gave me ASEMBLR.

Yes, in that order.

I think you're mixing copyright, patents and trademarks. They are actually quite different in scope, subject matter and duration so please try to keep them apart. From your description, I'd guess that your story concerned a trademark. The USPTO can very well deny a trademark application for a name that can be mistaken for a name already registered in a different, but similar, category. Or grant it, as you say it's a bit of a crapshoot.

One real-world example: Apple Records could not keep Apple Computer from trademarking their name until Apple Computer went into the music business with iTunes. It's still not the same category (record company/recording vs music distribution/sales) but close enough to possibly cause confusion and a court date.