Corrected Translucent Databases link. Was previously pointing to the beta site.

Monopolies are corporations whose success isn't predicated on customer satisfaction, virtually by definition. Facebook was a monopoly, and shitty company, before anyone in government even knew what it was. While our corrupt government massively enables these behaviors they aren't, technically, required.

In fact why does this article focus on the tech sector? Similar claims could be made of banks or car companies among others. If anything has changed it's that the tech sector has grown and diversified enough that its subsections can support major companies as monopolies (or near monopolies) for example facebook/twitter for the relatively new social media section.

So major companies with virtually no competition naturally become destructive to society. Maybe we need a wave of enforcement of anti-monopoly laws... or given modern corruption per Citizens United some new major limitation on how corporations are allowed to incorporate or buy stock in existing corporations for any state (e.g. Make Wal-mart unable to incorporate in a new state due to its annual revenue nor buy out smaller companies and run them as mini-Wal-Marts).

Of course, we should outlaw Corporations as "People" on top of that.

Massdrop just started another run on the ergodox that will be ending in about a week, anyone interested in this keyboard would probably want to check that out.
I've never used anything but standard cheap keyboards but I'll be trying the ergodox on this latest run. At a glance they appear very similar. I like this guy's thumb layout better, though I'd prefer the board was split into two pieces one for each hand.

Having read your link, no he did not. From your source:

He converted an existing implementation that used software acceleration to use hardware acceleration instead. The original team did estimate 2 months for that change.

I've found 0 (or near 0) correlation between country of origin and work ethic. This is complete bullshit and flamebait. That this was posted by an AC does not surprise me.

I'm not certain about the COL in silicon valley and other very expensive areas (generously assuming you're even in one), but unless the skills you were looking for was some obscure language and/or toolset I'm pretty sure this is obvious bullshit as well.

It seemed odd that only posts I see on this subject ("Classic Obama", "Obama ... What is it with this guy", and "Why does Obama keep doing this") all seem to suggest this hypocrisy is somehow unique to the current president.

Maybe I'm missing something as I was born in '88, was there a time when politicians weren't appointing people based on who would be best for the major corps in the industry.?How is this anything but the standard Corruption which we can expect from all future presidents?

You say you're a libertarian:

your signature states:

The amendment for direct election of senators, vs their previous election by state legislatures. These seem like contradictory ideas to me, why do you not view them that way?

Makes me think of this: http://xkcd.com/189/

But monitored by some wearable computer(s), I don't know how good current technology would have for accurately sensing and represnting various body types (plenty of critism of BMI for example) but I could see how turning excercise into a sort of game could have a future. If they can, more power to them, obesity has sadly become a significant problem and excercise is a necessary tactic for reducing it.

To paraphrase Patton

uh I mean tomcat server not this

You could even put that playlist on a local music server.
Sockso is good though when I last used it (~2 years ago) some features didn't work it didn't play all file types so I had to convert music files to, I believe, .mp3 (maybe .ogg).
The program itself is just an executable jar you have to configure, comes bundled with a tomcat if I remember correctly, just double click and you have a music server.
I can confirm, that at the time, it ran out of the box on 10.04 Ubuntu.

I have little faith in the unbiased nature of someone named war4peace. But I'll bite...

True an engineer can't know ahead of time exactely how/when/where say an American combat rifle will be used. However, seeing that after 9/11 we invaded 2 countries that had little (Afghanistan) and no (Iraq) connection to it but do have strategic uses/oil (rich tasty oil) its pretty clear the US will use those weapons as it chooses, unilaterally (more or less) and in violation of international law and any sense of morality.
It would be like suggesting chemical weapons research for Bashar al-Assad might be used to find new cures. Technically true but the precedent suggests otherwise.

We should build more powerful nukes because people would just knife each other anyway?
Logistics matter a great deal, saying the internet is worthless because USPS is a reliable means of transmitting information would be moronic.

And someone else can deal with the ethics of that.
"The standard you walk past is the standard you accept." Don't pretend you have higher ethics than what your actions reflect, you don't.

I completely agree that there could be times an engineer is working on a project and not predict how that technology, even fairly directly, could be used for purposes they would never condone. I, personally, would only ask that an engineer make an honest attempt to determine if immoral uses are possible and reasonably likely in lifetime of the technology and use that to judge the work as ethical or not. A standard would need a more concrete definition and thus more consideration than I can put into this comment.

FTFY (Even that is arguable given they could be used to enforce a police state, and that non-lethal weapons can cause permanent injury)

However of course this may be impossible or impractical with current technology. Ex. I imagine it would be impractical with current technology to disable an aircraft or submarine without virtually guaranteeing the death of some/all occupants.

Wars are frequently started not for moral reasons but merely justified by citing some moral argument with no connection to reality. Designing better lethal weapons for a country (read America) that is already generations of military tech ahead of all allies and much more so enemies with the justification of "saving lives" is an exercise in cognitive dissonance.