Are you kidding me? In virtually every field the Nazis were backwards and intentionally antagonistic to a proper implementation of the scientific method. They rejected Einstein's relativity as "Jewish physics" because of its philosophical implications and the religion of its early researchers. The NSDAP's stance on education was that no subject could be divorced from "racial" truths, hence you had physics replaced with "German physics", biology and anthropology replaced with "Rassenwissenschaft" (racial science), and even maths corrupted with racist, imperialist, overtones.

They were able to pull off some amazing short term work in applied physics and engineering, especially in aerospace and chemistry, but they were handicapped by a worldview that was absolutely hostile to empirical evidenced based research and education. If anything those advancements were in spite of the educational climate, and largely attributed to scientists who were trained in pre-Nazi institutions. If the Germans had won, the next generation of scientists and researchers would have been a dismal lot indeed; muddled, confused, indoctrinated, unable to think critically, and infused with a racist mentality that would poison and retard their ability to make meaningful advancements. After a few generations they'd have nothing but pseudoscientists and mystics.

And don't get me started on the Soviets. Lamarckism, in the form of Lysenkoism, was the official doctrine of the state well into the 20th century.

No one is going to be seeing that money, mark my words. It's a carnival game designed to prevent you from winning. It's not even fundamentally possible for the correct side, the science side, to win because the question is turned upside down. The creationists absolutely know this, which is why it's a very cleverly designed publicity stunt for their cause. No matter the outcome they'll get to trumpet to their followers that they stumped the scientists, while the scientists' explanations will be too subtle and erudite to make sense to the uneducated or those too eager to believe the Bible is literal truth.

Or we can, as a society, reject the notion that non-commercial file sharing should be a crime at all and take back our collective cultural birthright from the parasitic rent-seeking content cartels and their toadies in Congress.

I know that every computer I interact with for a client or friend gets ABP installed with Easylist and Easyprivacy lists. There's never been a problem with these blocking legitimate site functions, and I am 100% sure they've blocked malicious scripts/ads. If I could quickly and adequately explain how to use Noscript they'd get that too, but most users find it too difficult to discern which domains are legitimate and which are trackers/ad domains.

Sorry, but ad agencies have lost all trust. I can't in good conscience allow a client's machine to see ads when there's even a small chance those ads will be malicious and compromise the machine and their personal data (and create more work for me). I can't even be sure that unintrusive text ads won't be eventually subverted or compromised. And when I ask people, just for my own interest, if they want to see text ads, I've never heard a "yes".

I'm convinced that the entire online ad-based economy is a giant bubble, kept inflated by a fictional aether which is the mass delusion of the efficacy of advertisements. There's a saying that half of your advertising budget is wasted, but you can't know which half. Well what if it's closer to 90% wasted and people start to realize that?

Many people don't even see the ads. The ones who do rarely click on them. The ones who do click rarely buy anything. Are those 1/100k people really worth a multi-billion dollar industry? Is it structurally sound to build such a huge sector of our society and economy on such volatile ground? Then there's the "meta" advertising economy built around sucking up all your personal info to make the newest snake-oil, *targeted* ads. Targeted ads which, few see, fewer click, and from which fewer actually end up making a purchases.

I don't see a way around it. The internet is headed for a giant contraction in the sectors that don't actually sell physical products or real services. The only "ad" companies that will survive will be the ones big enough to be able to diversify. Google can probably survive as a hardware and services company, and their masses of information is valuable beyond it's use for advertising. Facebook will probably die in the nest 5-10 because ultimately they don't sell anything but ads and user data (to make ads). Facebook actually scares the hell out of me because they're sitting on all that personal data, which is considered one of the companies assets. When times get tough, and they will, Facebook will be legally obligated to liquify any asset they have to protect their shareholders. As part of their bankruptcy process that information is going to be sold to whoever will buy it; insurance companies, credit bureaus, governments.

Actually I bet Windows 98SE is too old to be vulnerable.

As with many human problems a technical solution isn't always best. The real underlying issue is that our brains are built according to a fundamentally parallel architecture which isn't very well understood. Your consciousness is something like a "software" trick that gives you the illusion of serial operations. You can focus the spotlight of attention on one thing at a time but you're never really doing that, it's just a simulation. Classical computers are the complete opposite--though in modern times we do now have truly parallel CPUs. It's not just technology that's against you, you're working against the nature of your brain.

Your problem is that you are trying to force your brain to function in a way that it is antithetical to its design on a fundamental level. Doing this for too long causes real and measurable fatigue. If you are finding yourself overstressed from the demand of focusing too intensely on a task you should change your workflow. I would suggest breaking up your time into smaller chunks, maybe of 15-20 minutes so that you are not focused on any one thing for too long. Not every task is amenable to this procedure, so there's going to be time when you simply have to endure.

You can also set achievable goals and have some sort of metric for measuring and verifying them. Write down that you'll answer X number of E-mails or spend 15 minutes doing that twice a day. Write down a schedule and tape it to your computer screen.

You can pirate Windows 7 and even Windows 8 (if you hate yourself) nearly as easily, they'll even validate as fully legitimate copies and access Windows Update perfectly. MS's activation technology has never been more than a slight hinderance for unlicensed users. AFAICT its purpose is to randomly invalidate legal copies so that users will call tech support to keep us from being lonely. Very thoughtful of them, actually.

Your comment about old P4 Dells is spot on. These old, bulky, loud, power hungry, monoliths just don't seem to die.

Supposedly that information is sent to your @comcast.com e-mail account. You can probably count on one hand how many people actually use their ISP-provided e-mail address, so few people are going to see the details of their alleged infractions--by design, I'd say.

In many regions, there's not even any collusion necessary, as there's only one ISP available for broadband.

What happens when the "lab" is a consumer device the size of a desktop printer?

We'll just ban them? What happens when consumer grade 3D printers are capable of building the parts necessary to make the desktop microbiology lab? We'll just ban them too? I don't want to live in a world where a technology as liberating, powerful, and cheaply available as such a 3D printer exists, but its use is forbidden. That prohibition would eventually have to be enforced through draconian means; house to house searches for machine tools and computer hardware, etc. So to save ourselves from horrific annihilation through a man-made virus we impose on ourselves horrific man-made slavery and oppression.

I also don't want to live in a world where any human with a few thousand/hundred dollars can purchase a device capable of killing millions. Throughout human history the arms race between defense and offense has been fairly neck and neck. It's gotten a lot more lopsided in recent history, since the invention of the gun. If I wanted to kill you, really, really wanted to kill you and didn't care about the consequences to myself after the fact, you're dead. It's just that simple. I can buy a gun, maybe I'll have to wait a few days and pass a background check (and I would pass, clean record) and I'd find you and kill you. I'd probably be arrested, incarcerated/executed, but you'll still be dead. Even a bullet proof vest won't make much of a difference. I could buy a 60 year old Soviet-made carbine that'll defeat any vest commonly used today. Or I'll just get close enough to shoot you in the head.

There's no defensive technology available today, on the personal level or on the national level, capable of defeating a determined opponent who is not rational (this does not mean unintelligent), and does not care about the consequences of their actions, including their own survival.

And guns are toys compared to what is already possible today, though not cheaply possible. What happens when the expensive super-weapons of our time are as cheap as the "toy" weapons we have now? Could humanity survive if everyone can walk around with a nuclear bomb or a deadly virus?

I think I see the problem, actually. Humans just suck at living together when the power to destroy is cheap and ubiquitous. Eventually an individual will be born with a genetic mutation that makes them irrational but with the amoral guile of a sociopath. They'll acquire the latest weapon of their time, and they'll use it; just because they can. It only takes one of such a person if the technology is available to everyone. I have a deep and terrifying fear that this is the reason the universe appears so empty of intelligent life. I'm hoping we just haven't looked hard enough, and that the ashes and fossils of millions of dead races don't liter the cosmos, entombed on long-barren hellscapes once lush as Earth.

Since I don't, I wouldn't expect anyone else to do so either.

You take life itself too seriously. Have you considered that?

In a society so interconnected and interdependent, no one's hard earned money is entirely their own. We all rely on each other in myriad ways. If you really think you're an island of rugged individualism, please go find an actual island to live on and prove it.