I'm still a private citizen if (and it's a slim 'if') I win the general election, I imagine the countdown to my inevitable corruption by the dark side OR nervous breakdown will begin.
In this situation, the patent system (which ostensibly is set up to benefit our culture) is being abused and ultimately hurting society. To hell with software patents. And this is coming from a software developer.
This is one American who is looking into emigrating if our road to police-statedom continues on apace. Please, U.S. government, continue driving the best and brightest away.
Of course, this is politics that we're talking about, where it's pretty common to hold two completely conflicting viewpoints at the same time.
Ahhh, good old doublethink. When will these idiots realize that it's porn that drove home video adoption, it was porn that funded the early days of the internet, and it's porn that keeps their loveless marriages intact!
I've always thought of it this way: If you've ever listened to a post-game NFL interview, you can simply hear how dumb some of those guys are. Then you realize that the vast majority of them have college educations.
I'm 31 with 3.5 degrees and would go back to school in a heartbeat if it were financially feasible. But I'll be the first to acknowledge that college isn't for everybody, especially those taking $50K in loans to get a degree in art history only to find themselves working at Starbucks when everything is said and done.
Some people may want to give the work an entire read before ponying up. Lord knows I've ready some really bad books by some supposedly good authors [cough]American Gods[/cough] where I wish I could recoup some of my lost money. Give the slow readers some time and they should come around.
I'll only buy a book if it's DRM free. If it isn't, I'll usually buy the paperback and acquire the proper file from the usual haunts. I have a Kindle (early adopter) and my girlfriend has a Nook. It's nice to be able to go back and forth without having to worry about encryption. I also make it a point to donate to Calibre once per year. The program has quietly made the lives better for people who still choose to read.
I work for a state government as a developer. There are a number of projects that I've been involved with where the mere mention of using open source software is met with derision. The cost/benefit analysis I typically give is that a few weeks of my salary is far less than a commercial purpose, but even then we still shop around and get quotes from contractors (where the real money is!).
My personal theory is that no government agency wants to save money since it means they'll have to do without the difference for the next budget cycle. I've heard stories of tens of thousands of dollars being spent on useless software just to ensure that the agency in question would be able to maintain their budget.
This sounds an awful like an actual conversation. Man, I hope you're behind a lot of proxies because the NSA is coming after you to find out how you bugged a politician's office!
I wrote a greasemonkey script to remove Fox News articles from Google News results. It may be censoring, but when it's done by an individual to weed out twits, it's worth it.
Let's get all of those Yakov Smirnoff jokes out of our systems. I'll start...in America you can abuse power, in "democratic" Russia, power abuses you! Wait...I may have that backwards.
On the post: 2012 Democrats: Remember That Civil Liberties Thing From 2008? Um, Nevermind
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On the post: 2012 Democrats: Remember That Civil Liberties Thing From 2008? Um, Nevermind
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On the post: Google Follows Apple In Unnecessarily Pulling App That Allowed A Little Girl To Speak
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On the post: TSA Declares Themselves Fashion & Funny Police
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On the post: GOP Platform May Include Internet Freedom Language... But Also Wants Crackdown On Internet Porn
Ahhh, good old doublethink. When will these idiots realize that it's porn that drove home video adoption, it was porn that funded the early days of the internet, and it's porn that keeps their loveless marriages intact!
On the post: DEA Gets Lawsuit Dismissed Because It Couldn't Cope With Two Terabytes Of Evidence
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On the post: District Court: $675,000 For Non-commercially Sharing 30 Songs Is Perfectly Reasonable
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On the post: Screwing Students Through Pointless Textbook Bundles
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I'm 31 with 3.5 degrees and would go back to school in a heartbeat if it were financially feasible. But I'll be the first to acknowledge that college isn't for everybody, especially those taking $50K in loans to get a degree in art history only to find themselves working at Starbucks when everything is said and done.
On the post: People Are Willing To Pay, Even If You Offer Something For Free
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On the post: Hachette Tells Authors And Tor To Use DRM Because It Is Awesome Or Something
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On the post: The Daily Show's Awesome Re-imagining Of How Whistleblower Thomas Drake Was A Spy
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On the post: Patent Troll Claims That Showing A Video With A Static Ad Next To It Infringes
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Hope I don't get sued!
On the post: US Olympic Committee Forces 30 Year Old Philidelphia Gyro Restaraunt To Change Its Name
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On the post: Senate Not Concerned About How Often NSA Spies On Americans, But Very Concerned That It Built Open Source Software To Do So
I get this a lot
My personal theory is that no government agency wants to save money since it means they'll have to do without the difference for the next budget cycle. I've heard stories of tens of thousands of dollars being spent on useless software just to ensure that the agency in question would be able to maintain their budget.
On the post: Olympic Level Ridiculousness: You Can't Link To The Olympics Website If You Say Something Mean About Them
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On the post: MPAA Points To Its Roster Of Crappy Online Services And Asks What We're Complaining About
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On the post: Viacom Uses Fans As Hostages: Blocks Daily Show, Colbert Streams For Everyone To Spite DirecTV
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On the post: DC Dumps Bill To Force Uber Into High Prices; Complains That The Bill Was To Help Uber
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On the post: Russia Plans Internet Censorship Bill (For The Children!); Russian Wikipedia Blacks Out In Protest
Alright Everybody!
On the post: NYPD Put Couple On 'Wanted' Poster For Videotaping Police
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