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Comment Re:The advertising is okay (Score 1) 250

We paid Comcast to bring broadband to us in the first place. That they haven't done it yet means we'd only have to pay twice to get it if we went the municipal route, whereas we won't get it at all from Comcast.

Even if we did "get" the broadband, they've shown perfect willingness to simply refuse to upgrade their networks to allow bandwidth to flow from Internet companies they don't like. (*cough*Netflix*/cough*)

Comment Re:Sounds like the Drake equation all over again. (Score 1) 133

IIRC, the Drake equation was also a 'spitball' solution whipped off the cuff to address an inconvenient interviewer question. Subsequent tweaks have made it as accurate and reliable as when it was first spat out upon the world - and about as useless.

At least the Drake equation attempts to count something. I think people are missing this important fact about this bullshit compression rating: It isnt counting anything.

Comment Re:Real life is complicated (Score 1) 511

Hmm, factory workers aren't really comparable to soldiers invading a foreign country, are they? The former makes useful things for people at home and the latter signed up voluntarily to go kill people who were not invading.

Look, you may not like people in the military (no clue why), but to say they deserve what they get is naive and stupid. Historically and currently, joining the military has been one of the most sure ways for intelligent, motivated people born into poor circumstances to raise themselves up the ladder of success.

Given the relative abundance of rich entrepreneurs vs rich veterans, I think a citation may be needed there.

Comment Nobody wants them enough (Score 1) 544

Seriously. Nobody is willing to pay the necessary premium to bring this to market. Indegogo, Kickstarter, etc. provide a way to get funding, but even then you don't see keyboard phones popping up, though everybody and their brother seems excited to build another 3D printer.

What would you pay for a slider, and could you find 1000 people willing to put their money where their mouth is? Android is open(ish) so you don't even have to make your own OS. With a couple thousand people you might be able to get the cost down to $5000 a piece.

Comment Re:Institutional hypocrisy (Score 1) 186

They could sit on their thumbs doing nothing. While this option pleases the anarchist in us, you cannot expect a lawmaker to ignore lawbreakers

What law breakers? This new "law" that was invented by the courts with zero debate is so vague that whether someone is breaking it or not is entirely debatable and thus eminently ignorable.

Comment Re:Correct yet misleading (Score 1) 186

Then companies that routinely exclude qualified candidates because "shit some HR lady found on google" will start to suffer and die as their stupid hiring process systematically excludes 99% of all people alive?

You know what? Smart companies, like Google, do not determine who they hire by what they find on Google. But if someone has a burning need to work for a company that is not smart, they are welcome to upload lots of cool content about themselves and/or explanations about why their previous acts are no longer relevant.

Comment Re:Or maybe you're not so good at math (Score 5, Informative) 512

My memory is a bit foggy, when was the IRA importing mass shipments of long range artillery rockets from Iran and firing them at the UK?

They never did. They got the shipments from Libya instead.

Note that these weapons included rockets propelled grenades, surface to air missiles, flamethrowers, explosives and lots of machine guns.

By the way, a big source of IRA funding and support was the USA. But everyone has conveniently forgotten that post 9/11. Given the constant US wailing over the funding of terrorism, it'd be impolite to recall the open IRA fundraising activities that occurred in places like Boston.

Comment Invisible Pro-peace Israelis (Score 2) 512

From mainstream news, you would think this is a conflict Muslim Palestinians and Jewish Israelis. While that element exists, there are a lot of Israelis who do not support the actions of their government. There are massive demonstrations in Israel right now and a very strong contingent of JATO (Jews Against The Occuppation)

http://countercurrentnews.com/...

In my opinion this is a conflict between pro-peace people and pro-war people.

Comment Re: Like China och USSR (Score 2) 512

Chinese sites remove comments themselves too. They get "guidance" from the government on what to remove. Sounds like the French situation is exactly the same: the government lays out laws saying what is and is not acceptable speech and apparently, virtually all comments on this particular conflict are unacceptable.

I think the censor here is great for revealing what's going on, but his diagnosis seems odd. He thinks there's something different about this conflict in particular that results in more comments being taken down due to their content, but simultaneously admits that it's due to laws about anti-semitism which is specific to Jewish people. Perhaps if there were laws specific to Arab people and an Arab nation started doing what Israel is doing they'd see 90% takedown rates on those stories too.

Anyway to answer your point, I'm actually struggling to see the difference between this and what happens in China. The mechanisms and underlying logic are identical. It's actually quite shocking. I had no idea moderation rates would be that high.

Comment Re:Slippery Slope (Score 1) 186

If Google is censoring their results, they could do so no just on the basis of which version of Google receives the request, but on the basis of the requesting IP address.

Google blocks it by domain. Domain is specific to country by registrar. If someone in the UK goes to google.com instead of google.co.uk, it's up to the UK to dick with their ISP and DNS results to force redirect them into the UK legal sandbox where the content is controlled.

You know, just like China.

Legally forcing a commercial entity to act as part of your own implementation of "The Great Firewall of China" is not the same thing as not being censorious dicks yourself. An unfunded mandate to force someone to do your dirty work for you does not make it any less your dirty work.

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