https://www.linkedin.com/pub/m...

She provides plenty of reasons for the research there. Moreover, the article says nothing about the Smithsonian paying for this research. She just happens to be a world expert on these squirrels and is working there, likely because they have a collection of preserved specimens that she is using in her studies. Given that the Smithsonian is providing their collection of preserved specimens from this species for her research, I wouldn't be surprised if what the universities and research institutions tied to this effort have to offer are the funds to engage in the expeditions. You'll be pleased to know that neither George Mason University nor the research station based in Spain are US federal government institutions.

Mind you, I'm not attempting to make any sort of political statement with this post, I'm merely seeking to point out the lack of a factual basis for most of your assertions.

Wait...82F? Did you mean 92F or 102F? 82F is a pleasant Spring day where I'm at. The A/C would probably kick on at some point, but only for a few minutes each day. I'm enjoying the fact that where I'm at now our highs are only in the 90s right now, since last year at this time we had six weeks straight of highs over 100F.

Even when I lived in the only tropical zone in the entire continental US (i.e. south Florida), it only got into the 90s during summer, and despite the high humidity, the breezes tended to be pretty nice down there, so it was never too bad. Not to mention the near-daily rain showers.

I understand why places like Houston have the highest energy bills in the nation, given the combination of insane humidity (it's known as "The Bayou City" for a reason) and high temperatures (100F is normal in summer), but if you're only dealing with 82F, you have nothing to complain about. If you allow yourself to do so, you can acclimate to temperatures like that VERY easily.

I agree, these users were blaring their stereos, but I disagree with your characterization of Google's actions. They didn't just hear what was said passively. What they were doing was actively listening to, recording, and transcribing everything that they heard. That's a night and day difference, and that's why people are offended. If I was offended every time my WiFi traffic got picked up by someone or something else, I'd be a raging inferno of umbrage, given that WiFi devices do that all the time, but simply disregard the stuff they receive that isn't intended for them, much as we might filter out other conversations when we're in public and talking with someone else.

If you go back and listen to executives from the music or film industries talk about when they started to get approached by folks from Apple, Amazon, or others from the digital era, you'll hear similar stories. There was a lot of distrust between the sides, and what was needed was someone who could bridge the gap, speak both their languages, and help each side appreciate the problems of the other. People in many other industries think that technology is magical and that anything is possible, so they won't accept excuses or explanations to the contrary. People in Silicon Valley have a tendency to think that everything else is trivial, and fail to recognize the value in doing things in a different way...kinda like physicists.

This isn't about arrogance or bad attitudes. This is simply about two companies from different worlds, trying to get on the same page, and it's no surprise that they'd have these sorts of difficulties. They'll eventually start talking to each other, it's just a matter of when and under what conditions.

Does it matter what the source is, so long as it presents a testable claim?

Besides which, their argument was mischaracterized in the summary. It's not a rebuttal of the ROI period, which is what the summary seems to suggest. Rather, they took issue with the overly-broad statement that seemed to suggest that each turbine would replace the need for traditional power sources for over 500 homes, which is, as far as I can tell, an accurate claim. Obviously, there are lulls in the wind, so while it may on average provide that much power, the lulls would mean that the traditional sources will still need to be used. What was left unsaid is that they would be used in lesser quantities.

Yes, it's a "well duh" sort of thing, but it's also accurate. And if you don't think it is, feel free to disprove them. It wasn't exactly a complicated argument, nor a particular meaningful one, but that's also a bit of a "well duh" sort of thing, given the source. ;)

You got some stuff right, but you also loaded in a load of simply untrue stuff. Where to start?

Aperture hadn't been updated since 2012. They merely announced that they won't be updating it any longer so that people know to not bother waiting around. It's been poorly supported from the start. No one was left in the dust here. Lightroom has been doing the same job better for years now.

Spaces? It's still around as a part of the bigger Mission Control feature. They even made it more powerful than it used to be, since you can now control Spaces on a per-monitor basis, though they admittedly did remove the ability to configure them in a two-dimensional virtual space.

With Pages (and other iWork apps), it auto-saves as you go along, as you said, but what you neglected to mention (or perhaps were unaware of) is that it auto-saves non-destructively. Even if you don't have Time Machine enabled, OS X keeps local backups of files that it auto-saves, allowing you to rollback to earlier versions at any time, just by clicking on the name in the title bar of the document's window. Until you actually go and explicitly save the file yourself, those auto-saves won't destroy anything, and even then, they generally won't immediately, since it'll hang onto them for awhile. Moreover, when the new versions of Pages, Keynote, and Numbers came out, Apple knew some users wouldn't like the "upgrade" (myself included), so they left the old versions installed, meaning that you can keep using those documents as you always have if that's what you want.

And yeah, Apple has never been particularly friendly towards the enterprise. That hasn't changed. Their focus is consumers, for better or worse, and that means changing their software with changing expectations from consumers, who, as we all know, are a rather fickle bunch.

Not really, since that's an orthogonal issue, though I could have phrased it better to make that distinction clearer. I was getting at the concept as a whole, that is, what rights a person even possesses, rather than how it's put into practice on the ground or in what cases it may be infringed upon lawfully. I have no expectation or belief that my rights will always be respected, even if I rightfully possess them.

To restate the line you quoted in a way that hopefully makes my point clearer:

Basically, I was trying to assert that everyone has a right to privacy, and that if anyone disagreed with that assertion, that their disagreement would disintegrate in the case that the person was actually innocent. That said, just because someone has a right to privacy doesn't mean that they're exempt from lawful searches conducted by the government. As you said, if I don't look innocent, that may be something that comes into consideration, but, once again, that's a separate issue. I was merely pointing out to the OP why it is that an innocent person may want to take steps to protect their own privacy. Obviously, if I look less-than-innocent, I should have even more reasons to do so. ;)

I've been watching The Wire since it came out on Amazon Instant last month too...

Hi there. Typical Slashdotter here. I don't think all cops are out to get me. In fact, I've been friends with a number of cops over the years (always socially, admittedly), and I'd trust any of them to act fairly and justly. Most of the cops I've interacted with on-duty have also been pretty swell folks who seemed interested in doing a good job and putting away the actual bad guys.

However, I also strongly believe that I have a right to privacy, which should be especially obvious when I'm innocent. I also believe that if we fail to exercise our rights, they will, over time, be lost. The fact that I'm not engaging in any crimes (other than the three felonies a day the average American engages in) means that they have no valid reason to go rooting around through my stuff, so I will make them work if they want to go through it. I'm polite and firm in my refusal to let them search anything, but at the same time, I hold off on the "am I free to go" stuff until they initiate the dickishness. After all, they're probably just trying to do their job, and I don't need to give them a hard time in going about the stuff that's perfectly legal and sound.

Anywhere.

VERY true, and something I realized I forgot to mention the moment I hit the button to post that comment. Thanks for bringing it up.

In fact, there are multiple ways of handling schemes such as that. Different passwords may decrypt to partitions that are empty, only contain your benign data, only contain your incriminating data, or may erase everything. Decrypting a partition that is empty or erasing everything is a pretty obvious ploy, but if you actually keep your benign data on a partition separate from the incriminating data, it'd be a lot harder for them to prove anything.

Here's the actual decision text: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-461_l537.pdf

It's "publicly transmitting" inasmuch as the people it is transmitted to are "unrelated and unknown to each other", to quote the actual decision. Netflix very likely would be considered to be publicly transmitting as well, but because they've worked out licenses with the content owners, they're not running into any of these problems.

Mind you, I'm not suggesting by any means that I agree with the decision. I'm merely providing it.

Disclaimer: IANAL.

How is what they do any different than renting a DVR and antenna and installing them in your own home? Aereo offered an individual antenna for each customer, as well as data that was kept separate for each customer. The only thing different about it than standard equipment rentals was that they kept the devices at their location, rather than at yours, so the cable connecting you to your rented devices was a bit longer.

We already accept that equipment rentals are perfectly legal. Making the cable longer shouldn't magically make them illegal. That isn't a legal loophole or trying to rely on a literal interpretation. That's just common sense.

At least with Contra, you pressed Select before Start if you wanted local multiplayer (I say "local" as if there was a viable alternative back then...).