Did anyone actually RTFA? The part about Anonymous and what I read from the rest was pretty much common sense. Didn't try to make terrorists out of kids, and the only obvious "scare tactic" I found was that they had red headers in the pdf. I actually feel better knowing somebody is keeping an eye on things, just in case.

That being said, I think I understand a bit more about why there is a need for active watchdogs to supervise the police. Given their job they cannot sympathize with the organizations they investigate - and if they do it's likely they won't do their job right. Everything they see or hear about say, an animal rights group is through the perspective of possible trouble. And it is as it should be, that's what they are being paid for. But you cannot let the same people also guard personal rights... and the fault for the consequences belongs to whatever politician thought it was possible.

Long live anime! And books, books are cool.

What, no Lisp? Just kidding. But seriously, Java has an interesting advantage: it's starting to benefit a lot from being open. On the same platform you can already program in Javascript, Ruby, Python, plus Scala and (my favorite) Clojure. And more to come.

And btw, you want to move away from older languages. What this whole generation of script-like languages has in common is that all of them are better then c/c++/java/c#.

You are right in that it's a culture issue, but believe you are wrong in your approach.

I realize from your point of view what they do is illegal, and immoral. What you fail to understand is that in their environment it is neither. China as a country profits massively from lack of licenses, so any laws enforcing them are most likely only for show. As for the moral aspect: they view it exactly as you view listening to an unlicensed mp3. In theory is vaguely wrong, but in practice walking on the grass is more serious.

Now, think a bit about the message you're sending. First, you don't give a damn about their culture. It's your company, your rules, your values, period.
Second, you'll be seen as a weak manager. I'm sure there are dozens of other problems more serious then this (for them) and if you insist on dealing with a (from their point of view) useless issue first, that's not smart prioritizing.

Still, you may know all this and still want to make a difference, because you consider using unlicensed software is wrong. Ok, go for it. But think twice about how you do it and the side-effects.

AFAIK, they're more expensive. I buy Philips, no complaint whatsoever: nice light, only one "death" in 5 years (I let it on when the main voltage was waay below 220, and after this it was caput). They take about 3-5 min to warm-up.

AFAIK, Hawking radiation has a very very small rate of loss, a lot less then, for example, light reflected off the moon. If it wasn't so we could see black holes.

You really need a stint on 4chan. If I learned anything there, is the fact that people are naturally good.

My mother is a dentist in Eastern Europe. They have emergencies like everybody else, when they can't refuse a pacient and most rules about insurance don't work. Back when she worked for the state they had mandatory emergency service 24/24 (I remember she often complained it was very tiring, but better paid). They still have it at bigger hospitals.

I don't know how it is in US, of course.

There was an article a while back (unfortunately I can't seem to find it... maybe on edge.org?) about the role of environmental factors in gene activation, particulary in cases of autism. Depending on several factors a brain will be better at either practical sciences or social skills. Now, the interesting part is that if you're born on the practical side, the social part can be learned. It'll take years and some effort, but as many ex high-school geek kids can tell you, it works.

Also, there was a comment about "good old boys/rich kids club" that doesn't sound very good. I think it's not that, but a problem of perspective. The simple truth is technical matters, even if a lot more fun, are in 99% of cases secondary to real-world matters. It's not that the invention creates the product/company, but a lot of factors determine the need for that product, which the invention merely facilitates.

Also, from Jared Diamond, the factors which determine the success of an inovation: (1) economic advantage, (2) social value and prestige, (3) compatibility with vested interests, and (4) ease with which its advantages can be observed.

Se the "change of accident type" post above. Most accidents ABS facilitates (according to that study) are 1. you being rear-ended and 2. you going off the road. Both are bad for you but not so much for the insurance company.

Uh... actually it's not. Assuming you'll change your mind, if you start with with windows you have it installed from the start, and thus pay a small amount included in the price of the laptop. But if you start with linux, you'll have to buy a separate windows license which will most likely be more expensive.

So it's "cheaper _unless_ you change your mind".

This reminds me of the forum at ornery (http://ornery.org/), one of Orson Scott Card's sites. Pretty much everybody there thinks OSC is a nut and isn't shy of saying so, and still the guy keeps footing the bill and AFAIK has never interfered with the forum. We're not talking about a few people, the forum is pretty damn big and reasonably well known.

(As for _why_ they think that about him, that's a different discussion. Suffices to say he's always been openly pro-Bush.)