|| Laws derive their legitimacy from protecting people, not defending power constructs made up by rich kids to legitimize their parents' stealing

Um, a quick jaunt through the history books would indicate the exact opposite - laws are pretty much ALWAYS aimed at maintaining the interests of the current power structure.

Bought a Lenovo laptop for my wife as she was getting ready to leave her job of 5 years and needed something to do some job hunting.

14 months later, the thing is dead as a door nail, and since it's 2 months out of warranty, they're unwilling to do anything for me. They won't even set me up with a service ticket so I can pay a few hundred bucks to have them replace the motherboard.

Never again, Lenovo.

Nope, not that simple:

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scientificamerican...

Same diet, different gut bacteria - one group gets fat, the other stays lean.

The old (calories in - calories burned) model is overly simplistic and ignores a couple decades of research that shows that obesity is more than just a willpower deficit.

"Could you imagine what would happen if Google pulled access to its maps API or started charging?"

Dunno about your company. Bur out company has some functionality which depends on the Maps API and we're already paying Google for our API access, including SLAs and limits on our usage.

Business models which rely on using/abusing other companies business models to survive are ALWAYS in a precarious position.

"Then there's the whole social media thing - probably a WAY bigger time sink than dumb telephones ever were." I don't buy that, because I remember the arguments between me and my sister over who got to use the second phone line (me for modem use to dial into an old BBS or her to yak with her friends) going completely nuclear on a regular basis. Mind you, it was YEARS after my parents originally got her the second phone line that I started trying ti dial BBSes. They did that so her constant phone usage would quit tying up the main line because my dad used it for business calls from time to time. Obviously the plural of anecdote is NOT data, and YMMV.

Actually, if you read the link you provided, that 97% was in a referendum that got less than 25% voter turnout. And the absolute number of votes cast to become a state was actually lower than in previous years.

So, uh, isn't DICE violating FTC regs by publishing this shite without disclosing that they've been PAID by UBER to endorse their service???

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ftc.gov%2Ftips-advice%2Fbusiness-center%2Fguidance%2Fftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking%23how%2F

Let's see, according to figures I can find if we chopped US military budget in half, it'd still be twice the expenditures of the next largest military.

I'm sure that will leave us wide open for the rest of the world to waltz right in.

I promise you, we don't have to spend more on our military than the next 10 largest military budgets COMBINED to be safe.

Ok, that's fine - but only if we stop letting all the Coal Plants dump their pollution into the atmosphere for free....

What???

You mean there might be a REASON to use iodized salt instead of all-natural, feel-good-warm-and-fuzzy Gourmet Sea Salt??

I'm shocked, SHOCKED, I say...

"This is why law enforcement needs to actually follow the law."

Except that's NOT what the conniving bastards behind this will take away from this.

THEY will take away the fact that they need to ram through even HARSHER laws that prevent the need for apologies.

Why yes I'm bitter and cynical, why do you ask?

If you read the intro to the baen free library (http://www.baen.com/library/intro.asp) you'll find that they discovered that freely available DRM-Free downloads of books CONSISTENTLY increase sales of actual physical copies.

So I'd say there's a good chance the same principles you talked about in your experience with Bandcamp hold true for eBooks too.

If only there were a way to search for information like that

Au Contraire - the susceptibility to cold was perfectly understood by the engineers.

Management is another story, but the engineers knew what the consequences of launching in conditions that cold would be. (see Roger Boisjoly)

The fact that the guy you replied to didn't realize the submission meant exactly what it said - microtransactions are, in and of themselves, neither good or bad. They simply are. It's how the developer uses them that determines if it's good or bad.

But people don't work that way. Once some "thing" that is not inherently "good" or "bad" has a "bad" association in someone's mind, that thing is "bad". Never mind that the next instance of "thing" that they meet may be used in a "good" manner - they've already internalized the "thing == bad" rule and will blindly apply that to every other instance of "thing" that they meet.