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Comment Twitter may be right, even though... (Score 1) 154

Twitter itself is becoming an advertising / corporate platform, perhaps not the social media magnate it once was. I'd argue that, if Glass is dead, so is twitter - or at least heading that way, and that perhaps while their assessment holds true, maybe they need to rethink their own business model.

Comment Re:Open-source Seeds....kill Big Ag (Score 1) 377

It's not programmed for one generation - it degrades, though, with successive generations, ultimately meaning if you want to have reasonable yields, you need fresh seeds. The biggest problem is that to plant normal seeds after switching to GMO, farmers typically need to wait ~7yrs. For many farmers, that's financially impossible - so they're even more locked into buying new seeds annually.

Comment Re:Open-source Seeds....kill Big Ag (Score 1) 377

Do some research before you make stupid statements that show you don't understand the issue.

If farmers do want to go back to normal seeds - *once their contract with Monsanto is up* - they typically have to wait an average of 7 years and use a lot of round-up on the soil before growing non-GMO. That's pretty much locked in, no?

"any time they choose" -- not in this reality.

Comment Open-source Seeds....kill Big Ag (Score 1) 377

A few years ago, this was started: http://www.opensourceseediniti...

For some reason they haven't spread into Africa - but are all over North America/Europe in a large way, someone needs to start providing higher quality seed options for the poorest farmers of the world rather than leave the door wide open for obvious pillagers like most of the shameless extortionists in the Big Ag industry. Once they convince people of the higher yields and lock them in, ah.. one of the saddest things in the world - and seeing it happen in the poorest nations just compounds that feeling. These people need food. Technology can help make that happen. The technology that will make that happen - must not be patented and created with self-degradation causing forced-repurchase as a 'feature'.

Comment Execs in this case know what they're doing... (Score 3, Interesting) 164

Many people will complain about this. I initially thought along the same lines as many of the above posters when reading the blurb about what's about to happen - and also think it's terrible. What will happen, though, is the extremity and sleaziness also strikes enough interest that people _will watch it_, even if they hate Discovery channel while doing so. They'll get the viewers. They'll get attention. It'll be passed around. They surely know already that they have a reputation dive akin to GT Advanced's stock dive, so when you're deemed a channel with momentum diving downward so quickly I suppose they thought along the lines of: Embrace It...there are enough people who eat this shit up that it'll likely be their best ratings in recent memory.

Comment Compare to the world's own "rich endeavours" (Score 1) 165

Mt. Everest.. Mt Blanc.. a large part of the 'club' is being someone who can afford - and otherwise thinks themselves above the likelihood, of cheating the statistics. There is a certain lackluster cheating death and being above the rest arrogance that goes with these types of adventures, and there isn't necessarily anything wrong with that. There is also a lot of jealousy and resentment amongst the crowd who sits in their chairs at home criticising those who choose to try something different - without that kind of investment and spirit, humanity on whole would not be better off.

Comment Thank Goodness... (Score 3, Insightful) 189

Welp, they got him! Don't we all feel so much safer. After all, the heinous crime of "assisting in making copyright content available" surely warrants the international manhunts. I can walk downstairs and buy a stack of any movies or games or, well, anything I wish in the open in China..good thing countries like the US use grand tools like embargos to press the Chinese government to do something about it!

It's easy to pick a famous name - or create symbols for these 'wars' and spend ridiculous amounts of money on the behalf of old-style big business with lobbyists and donations...but the solution to piracy is to change the business model employed by the companies or artists who are being hurt by piracy. Louis CK famously sold $1mil in a week worth of $5 specials on his own website, why? Because he put out a great product and said: You don't need to sign up with a bunch of information or provide me with a bunch of details, or opt into some kind of marketing scheme, you can give me $5 and get a product, and watch it anywhere on any device you want..or pirate it.. do whatever you like - but I'm trying to provide a quality product and hopefully you'll appreciate that.

The alternative is to fall into the game, music, and movie big industry problem of pushing out a massive amount of shit at high 'standardised' pricing to audiences who are tired of spending too much and getting too little, and as a result, driving people to simply pirate and try things before deciding what they really want to support. Personally I pirate most of my games, I also bought legitimate consoles and buy legitimate copies of games I *really* want, or buy authentic DVD/sets when there is something I really like out there - 100% of which I have already seen.

They'll get the hint, someday, or crumble eventually. For now, people like Gottfrid need to be admired for what they've contributed to making change happen.

Comment Yawn, minuscule in so many ways... (Score 3, Insightful) 143

So the tech giants are donating ALMOST as much as the clownface Ballmer receives in tax breaks from purchasing a sports team? Great job guys! Let us gather and praise the fractions of tax deductible gifts which pale in comparison to the profits earned by manufacturing in poverty stricken countries and shirking domestic tax responsibilities, because it is the only salvation to clean you're otherwise amoral-yet-wretched corporate souls.

Comment Security vs. free market (Score 1) 229

This is a common discussion when using other tangents - like government control vs. individual freedoms...and this is the crux of the discussion at hand.

On one hand, we have claims of "Forced sandboxing kills many applications" -- to which the comparison of the Android market vs. the App Store has metrics which show the benefits vs. risks (how many app store apps have propagated major malware?), on the other we have claims of preferring security and legitimacy over copies and extremely poorly written malware ridden apps? Personally, from a customer perspective, I'd like to think what I download onto my PC (or phone) has been vetted and behaves in a relatively secure way over simply rolling the dice, and I think the complaint in the topic above has a lot to do with being unable to write a program with true consumer value that meets coding standards. To that, I say, OP, cry more, cupcake..or come up with something original and learn to code.

Comment Disastrous home remedy? (Score 1) 135

So we'll have a bunch of idiots reading this type of article or seeing it somewhere in the news, and immediately start feeding their sick family members their own shit to save money. This spells disaster all over it. Rather than "Please Wash Your Hands" signs, people will expect "Please Poop On Your Hands" signs in their place -- for health reasons, of course.

Comment Just more nonsense statements looking for a budget (Score 5, Insightful) 104

"We roughly know who they are. If we can take them out of the equation then the rest will fall down,"

The same rhetoric is encouraged by the military industrial complex to start wars that benefit their bottom line. This is no different.. "give me the resources and I'll finish it up" -- yeah, just like the War on Drugs, too, right? Nonsense. You can't attack something without the centralisation and infrastructure of stable nations or organisations, which is why things like "Bomb Isis!" fail so miserably. This dude is just making monkey statements to get funding for his department, to which even if he succeeded in taking down "the hundred kingpins", nothing would ultimately change as others would rise in 'their' place.

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