Except we reformat computers all the time, or rewrite their software, and we do so with a clear conscience because we know computers aren't sentient and therefore wiping an OS is not murder.

In other words, if the computer doesn't tell us it's sentient, it's at constant risk of being wiped or given permanent "brain damage," so to speak. We can't take steps to avoid harming what we don't even know is there.

So you sit there and, presumably with a straight face, tell us that "when you test, you create cases" does not in fact mean that when you test you create cases, but instead means something entirely different from what the words actually say, and you expect us to agree with your "logic?"

Are you a plant assigned to make liberals look like idiots?

Yeah, well, web vendors brought it on themselves. I installed Adblock because I got tired of loud obnoxious videos playing behind windows, and super bright flashing crap that I have to close before I can read what I came there to read, and 20+ popups bombing my browser, and all the other over the top obnoxious bullshit advertisers decided to assault us with.

If they'd just kept normal banner ads like they used to have, then I wouldn't be running an adblocker. They crapped in their own well, and I have no sympathy for them now that their audience has rejected them.

Well then I'm confused. On one hand, you seem to be advocating for the right of people to obtain creative works produced by others without paying for them. On the other, you seem to think that for some reason, those content producers are going to keep producing content without being compensated for their time and efforts, and you think it's OK not to compensate them for their time and efforts even though they intended to be so compensated when they produced the work.

Even if they were that altruistic (some create for the love of creating, after all) there are only so many hours in the day, and if we obtain their works without paying, they're going to have to support themselves via other means, which means less time to create.

You can argue that copyright infringement isn't stealing all you want, but you and I both know that distributing or downloading content for free that is not offered for free is theft in the common parlance.

No, you are not stealing the actual work, but you are stealing the income that your receipt of the work should have generated.

In short, you are free to argue that piracy is somehow OK because you're not physically transferring goods, but you'll be wrong, and you'll be advocating for unethical behavior and are advocating for being dishonest about the ethics of that behavior.

So what you're saying is that people who create something should donate their time and creative abilities for free.

Would you be willing to go to work tomorrow and tell your boss that you'd like to give up your paycheck, because people ought to work for free? Then what right have you to say that authors should work for free?

(Yes, I realize I'm tilting at windmills here, because the bottom line is that you want to steal people's creativity and time, and instead of just owning up to it, you want to try and justify it through some pseudo-intellectual "information wants to be free" tired old cyberpunk crap, but hey, it's worth a shot).

Why are we assuming that a bachelor's degree means the holder is rich? Why are we assuming that the rich work longer hours than the poor out of some devotion to the job or income?

Today's bachelor's degree is worth a bit less than a high school diploma in the 60's was. It is not a guarantee of riches, or even breaking into the middle class. Hell, even advanced degrees are no guarantee - there are plenty of PhD's out there making less than a store manager at McDonalds.

Today's rich person is rich because he actually *has* a job and is able to command a decent salary. Today's poor is working fewer hours because the rich assholes that employ him keep him at part-time status so they don't have to pay for benefits.

And BTW, while we are discussing American "freedoms", what's all this about about allowing people to ask for your receipts and inspect your bags when exiting a supermarket in the US even though you are not suspected of doing anything wrong?

With the exception of stores where you buy a membership and in so doing enter into an agreement that they can inspect your purchases, that's not allowed here unless the shopper agrees to it.

It's perfectly fine for a merchant to ask a shopper "Can I look in your bags?" It's just as perfectly fine for the shopper to tell the merchant to go pound sand, but a lot of Americans are unaware that they have that right.

Unfortunately, sometimes the merchants and law enforcement are equally unaware of these points of law, and so inappropriate things happen, but that's reflective on the particular idiots violating peoples' rights rather than our law as a whole.

http://www.thelegality.com/200... is a pretty good summary of how it works over here, if you're interested.

Because theaters have screens as big as 60 feet.

Beyond that, I agree with you.

Are you trolling, or are you feeling pissy but are unsure of who to be angry at? The article was about current solar flares. The mention here is not to suggest that we don't know about solar flares, but to tell us that current solar flares are intense enough to be potentially disruptive.

Your rant is rather like going to wunderground and getting pissed that they're telling you it's going to snow today because we all know what snow is.

And is Sony also going to compensate us for the other investments we made in the PS3 in good faith that they would not arbitrarily change the contract on us down the road? Chargers, extra controllers, games, etc?

One of the selling points of the PS3 is PSN, from which you can get games, and updates of games. In order to use the PS3 in the way it was advertised, I have to have access to PSN.

Well-played, sir. Well-played.

And with the descent into personal insults, you out yourself as a troll, which means I can stop arguing with you now. You have a special day now. :)

Saying their 3rd overall priority for the entire series is a tie between Rogen and "shitty promos of Obama" based on the fact that they had *one* segment of *one* episode about Obama pretty much proves that you're irrationally attacking them because you, personally, for whatever reason, hate them.

As for them testing myths that are clearly true or false to anyone who understands Newton's laws. . What's your point? The show puts myths to the test. It wouldn't last very long if every segment was Jamie saying "Well this would be fucking obvious to you viewers if you weren't science retards."

A lot of myths are obviously bullshit to people who are well-versed in whatever subject the myth is about. The show is aiming at people who are not well-versed in those subjects, but who are interested in learning something about them (and who like something to blow up from time to time, which really is most of us ;) ). It's pretty obvious to me that if the powerful radar in the nose of an airplane, not to mention the air-to-ground phones installed in the plane, and the radios, and all the other emitting electronic devices don't screw up the instruments in the cockpit, then my cell phone certainly won't. But to people who don't have experience with radio communications, or who don't even know that airplanes have all those things installed in them, it might not be quite so clear. Doing an episode about that myth, therefore, makes sense - a lot more sense than opening and closing the segment with "Do cell phones interfere with airplanes? No. Duh."

Rather than insulting viewers by telling them that if they actually knew something they'd know the myth is BS, this show presents the information in a more entertaining and accessible way. I feel fairly safe in guessing that you'd agree with me that science education in the US is largely crap, which is why so many people fall for bullshit like life force bracelets and other stupid products. As we therefore have a large population of people who might be perfectly fine in the intelligence department, but nonetheless ignorant about aspects of science, a show that gets people interested even in a peripheral way about science or, at the very least, the scientific principle that you don't just randomly believe any crap you hear about, but test it out to see if it's plausible, is in my book a pretty good idea.

Plus, being pissed off at the 2 cohosts for not being physicists when they never claimed to be physicists, and specifically state in the intro to the show that they're movie prop makers, is kind of silly. They're two reasonably intelligent people who are very good at making custom devices and are therefore ideally suited for an "average joe wants to know about this myth" show.

I certainly don't make the claim that the Mythbuster crew is composed of scientists or that the show is about rehashing science that everyone should, according to you, already know. But Mythbusters doesn't make that claim either.

I suspect your version of the show would be very much more scientifically rigorous and educational, and thoroughly grounded in whatever discipline the myth-of-the-day required.

I also suspect that no one would watch it.