excellent start to the flame war!

not sure about 8, because I immediately updated to 8.1 from 8... There is a way to just use old school local accounts, not tied to MS account in any way. The only downside is that you can't download (even free) Apps on the Microsoft Store until you create/link an account, but you can run any of the Win7 and earlier "Desktop" apps.
(Unless you have Win 8 RT, in which case, sorry you're SOL because it has no Desktop mode)

counter-point: OS X Yosemite broke many things from Mavericks. I still run Mountain Lion on my main Mac though. I don't sync to iCloud either.

I do believe that "None of the above" is a fundamental democratic right.

The downside of no-one being elected to write more laws, is that there's also no-one to repeal existing stupid laws.

What also makes me vomit is how it was eventually presented as some kind of humanitarian gesture of offering up a new technology to people, expanding our horizons thanks to this philanthropy, woe be unto the wheel for we give you all the gift of ... electrodynamic levitation, which has been around since the early 1900s. It's just more cost effective and this douchebag knocked one together.

I could make one.. the only downside is where and how to store the energy required to run it.

I hate on most superhero films but I enjoyed this one immensely. It's got lots of humour, the writing is pretty tight and this scene was a great highlight.
Only downsides are Jennifer Lawrence and Dinklage, both of whom are vastly overrated.
McAvoy and Fassbender are excellent. Good acting like that really elevates the whole film.

I'm not really concerned if someone is an addict or a criminal. I'm simply concerned with the repercussions of hard drugs being made readily available for anyone to use. The prohibition did increase crime, sure, but the availability of liquor since then has caused far more deaths and ruined many more lives. Hell, in 2010, alcohol killed almost as many people in the U.S. as guns did. Tobacco causes more than 5 million deaths worldwide each year. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it isn't harmful. The widespread availability of liquor and tobacco has caused more damage than the entire war on drugs.

As for education, I don't think that's the root of the problem. Everyone knows that smoking is unhealthy and that alcohol is addictive and that driving while drunk is incredibly dangerous. The problem isn't lack of awareness. The problem is apathy. People know these things yet do them anyway because they just don't care. The momentary relief/pleasure derived from liquor and cigarettes is more important to them. If all drugs were legalized, I have no doubt that more people would use them because they'd be easier to get and people don't really care about the downsides.

The only problem i have with GM food is that the cultivation process on foods we eat now has happened over decades and millenia. GM allow shortcuts and we have no idea how those shortcuts affect nature. Or us when new substances are being inserted like pesticide resistance. When it happens slowly, there is more time to notice the downsides of those new traits. Other than that, it just the same process that happens in nature, we are the animals that eat the plant and are essential to it's propagation, nature doesn't care how.

I love GATTACA, phenomenal and valuable film.

Aside from that your argument is flawed, because it assumes that human will is not part of its genetics. While I completely agree with the message that the film GATTACA has, because any intelligent, responsible human should immediately recognize the downside of inequality and prejudice, human will, feelings and drive can be as linked to a person's genetics as much as their physical makeup.
This is why mental illness, dementia, autism and all the perceived negative emotional and behavioral disabilities are as readily passed between relatives and lineage as physical traits. People just haven't advanced to the point yet, or just haven't been paying attention enough, to realize and allow this into our collective realm of awareness.

Ah, Billo is surely talking about the possibility of calling the Presidents office the Ovary Office.


Joking aside, the downside of having a female President is that the US joins other nations in the 21. century in that respect at last.
But one can get the impression, as an outsider, that the last thing alot of mouthbreathers want to be is in the 21. century.

i didnt get a smart phone until recently; my mom gave me her old one. I enjoy having the internet in my pocket..dont see much downside to that. Straight talk for 45 dollars a month is not too expensive either. I make it a policy not to use it when I am talking to other people and not to do too much social media on it. I also try not to get sucked into my own electronic world. I used to listen to music all the time..whenever I could get a spare minute I would have my headphones on and that isnt very healthy, psychologically. Now I may listen to sermons or some music but only to a limited extent. Also try not to take pictures or video of everything and just experience what is in front of me. I read something which said that people who chronicle everything on their cameras have more trouble remembering those things.

One of the downsides of jury nullification not mentioned in the video is that it doesn't afford higher courts the opportunity to correct defects in the law.

In the UK an eleven and a twelve year old boy set fire to some newspapers, which unknown to them spread to a wheelie bin, which spread to another wheelie bin, which spread to a shop and eventually caused ~£1 million damage. They were convicted of arson despite an extremely reluctant jury and even judge, because while it was acknowledged that the boys didn't foresee the risk of the fire spreading the standard of recklessness at the time (which had persisted for around two decades) was an objective one referring to the judgement of a hypothetical reasonable adult.

It took their conviction, and the Court of Appeals upholding that conviction, for the House of Lords to reexamine the bad precedent they'd set in an earlier case and finally revert the standard to a subjective one of the defendant's actual capacity.

It may take thousands of nullifications before legislators even notice that their terrible laws aren't being enforced, while one unsound conviction can make a difference. So your strategy as a juror may be to convict in obviously stupid cases (unconstitutional ones in the US, say), but nullify where the law appears to be functioning as intended but conflicts with your conscience.

Sure, there's downsides, but this seems like a pretty awesome product.

This is perfect for jobs where the item to be cleaned has many crevices and corners. The only downside is that you'd need an air supply or you'd be breathing cancer fumes.

That is what training is about. If you listen black box recordings of planes that are few seconds from certain crash and most likely death of the pilots, they are like the receptionist from a hotel lobby. "here's you room key and complementary..." "check the flaps, turn the fuel injection off.. " silence. It's the most precious physical quality in the cockpit as the more calm you are, the better judgements you make. Also when you are following that kind of routine, the desperation doesn't incapacitate you. The downside is that they rarely get to send their farewells to family, that's not in the checklist.

Have to send congrats to this pilot, he acts exactly like one should. It's really admirable.

The types of mass produced production shown in this movie are the only reason that we can sustain an opulent lifestyle where it is rare that people starve and exercise is needed to fight over-nutrition.

Producing food "organically" takes much more time and money to create the same amount of final product. It also creates more waste.

Monoculture crops and warehoused livestock are ways to more efficiently create the resources that people crave thereby optimizing profit for those who create and sell the final product. The downside of these production techniques is that they are very sensitive to disruption by disease or pests.

If we didn't have mass produced farming, food would be more expensive and more people would be starving.