Y'know, I did pay for it. It's been offered to the alumni of my alma mater, and about the only thing tangible (outside a worthless piece of paper) that I received. I really don't want all the extra crap that's offered, but I'm more than happy to use the service they offered in perpetuity. Also, kinda pissed off they decided 'in perpetuity' doesn't mean what they meant when they said.

No, that's just an attempt to cull their staff willingly. It's bottom-line myopia.

There's a better solution. Find the guy who bikes to work every day. Offer him half the 'incentive' to wear your shackle next to his own. Or .. figure out a way to mimic the data input for the shackle, and have it run 24-7. The insurance company will love you! You might want to invest in another shackle that looks the same, just in case their gestappo walks the halls looking for the insolent.

As a band name, I certainly wouldn't capitalize it. Just like Erectile Disfunction .. Why .. pray tell .. is that ever capitalized? It seems like the antithesis of capitalization, as [ed. in] a hole.

I'd argue you are going to need a heck of a lot more rocket fuel for deceleration than the mass a parachute system would require.

I can conceive of at least two reasons that the airline might not like this practice:

First, they get really bad press by leaving people stranded in the middle of no-where. In the case of people intentionally ducking the last leg, that leaves the airline in a quandry - do they blow their ontime percentages by waiting for the person and earn bad press, or do they leave the person in the middle of no-where and risk the bad press?

Second, moreso than how much they can price gouge the public, flying to hidden cities starts to screw with things such as forecasting, government tracking, and load calculations.

Would it not be awesome sometime in the next couple years before this practice dies off to hear about an airplane taking off empty because nobody wanted to take the last leg?

Incidentally, I'd like to ask how many more years we have to be subjected to the lesson on how to buckle our seatbelts. Seatbelts have only been mandatory in ground transport since 1964, y'know. Sure, airline seatbelts operate slightly differently to enable others to extricate people in emergencies, but still.

The ethical choice I make has to be weighed against the ethical choice of offering a "free" service in exchange for obtaining the metadata of every person connected to a one or a zero. At the end of the day, my own integrity means a lot more than however much "They" might choose to make off my expense. Am I worried about that choice? Excellent question.

I think one of the biggest fallacies that developers make is forgetting that vertical real estate is far more precious than horizontal real estate. Even now on a 27" screen, I've got two inches of vertical real estate eaten up by browser menus, tabs, and headers. I've got perhaps ten inches of horizontal real estate that serves no purpose other than to brighten my room. Needless to say, I'm not a huge fan of the changes, but I understand you have a larger market to serve. I am obviously not part of that market, and that's why these changes make me sad - this website used to provide me relevant information in my field that I used on a regular basis. Now it just lets me know that I am not relevant, and that slashdot isn't capable of providing useful news. You're a Crossfire or The View, when you used to be the Daily Show.

Like pee in the reservior?

Tell that to Steve Jobs. I'm sure he'd still believe his doctors were wrong, were he still alive.

Don't forget each of the 1.5 million downloads. According to my maths, that comes out to roughly two undecillion dollars.

Fair enough. I'm too young and stupid to remember the past, congratulations on your observation. Do me a favor though, and clarify what you mean. You mean that the agitators are people complaining about tropical deforestation, or are people they the people perpetrating tropical deforestation? You weren't clear.

To be fair, I think my one of my points was very specifically that the countries most in need are in fact the ones most responsible for the tropical deforestation. To wit:

My response to that idea was certainly *not* more talk or bribing. Perhaps you'd like me to simplify it, so I'll do you the favor. These countries interact choose to interact with developed countries because they seek to gain equal footing amongst their peers. The terms by which we engage this desire will absolutely control the behavior they exhibit. If you'd choose to bribe or talk to them, all you accomplish is playing at their level. Their behavior is all about tit-fot-tat / quid-pro-quo. Instead, if you no longer accept how they do business and instead require that they operate according to the principles that you dictate, then you can control more than simply the product you receive. Now, please don't forget that communication is always a two-way street; they must be happy with the terms mutually agreed upon. Like I said toward the tail-end of my argument: globalization certainly has some benefits in that regard.

I think its abysmal that the same people outraged about things such as tropical deforestation are also outraged at the idea of globalization. At the end of the day it simply doesn't make sense. If you want someone to work with you on something, it certainly isn't helpful to ostracize them. You simply can't include them into your circle for some things, and exclude them for others. That isn't the way society works.

P.S. I don't know about you, but I can't for an instant believe that bribing someone is going to encourage them to feel a part of your circle, or even that it would change their behavior at all. I'm more inclined to think they're going to give you more face time, and learn how to tell you want you want to hear. Course, that only works so for so long before they think they can start asking for reparations. Or something.