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Comment Re: Atheism is NOT a belief system (Score 2) 315

As an actual atheist, I would like to correct you here. I do not "beleve there is nothing". I "do not believe there is something" because all the claims of something have failed to convince me. If a jar is filled with pebbles, and you make and a unsubstantiated claim that the the number is even, you are an "evenist". If I say I don't believe you, then I am an "a-evenist" who "lacks a belief that the number is even", not an "oddist" who "believes the number is not even".

Comment Re:Year of desktop Linux is more remote than ever (Score 1) 29

Anyone capable of understanding and using traceroute is capable of typing "apt-get install traceroute" or "yum install traceroute". If you want an O/S that does not change, here is a list for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... If you don't like the way Linux is developed, don't whine on Slashdot, get involved. Systemd does not claim anything. It is code. Can you pick and choose? Of course. "systemctl disable ". Show me a single developer who said something was rewritten "simply because [it was] old."

Comment Re: quick glance (Score 1) 34

I work for one of the listed companies. I support the law. We collect official criminal records and give them out to prospective employers. "Personal" data should not be trafficked without explicit consent. "Public" data, such as egregious criminal convictions, should be available to those whom it affects. (Determining what are "egregious criminal convictions" is not well defined, and should be publicly discussed and legislated.) A small proportion of criminal records are wrong. Some are disseminated by courts despite the fact that the records are sealed by a judge. Some are attributed to the wrong people. We give our reports to the person being looked up, so that they can correct it before we give a final version to a potential employer. We remove all racial and ethnic identifiers from our reports. Only one state law requires that, but we apply it to all records, as it seems like it is unnecessary and likely to be abused. The law is frequently laxer than we would be. For example we don't report on any old, minor convictions over, even when a state law specifically allows it. (Texas lawmakers, I am talking to you.) Bottom line: even though I believe my company is a good company and acting ethically, no company is in itself a moral actor. It depends on the people in the company. And since I can imagine my company with other people in it who are more willing to make a buck, I support the regulation whole-heartedly.

Comment Re: Humans can do this without the machinery (Score 5, Insightful) 136

Let me think of a way to say this gently... you're an idiot. I think I failed. Sorry. Telepathy as generally defined by people is Not Real. Nor is homeopathy. Nor god. You can come up with a vague general sort of something that might pass for telepathy that you could claim was real, but the thing the common man calls telepathy does not exist. Thank you for your attention.

Comment Both EFF and ACLU think CLOUD act is a bad idea (Score 5, Insightful) 116

Both the EFF (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/new-backdoor-around-fourth-amendment-cloud-act) and the ACLU (https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/consumer-privacy/proposed-cloud-act-would-let-bad-foreign-governments-demand) think the CLOUD act is a bad idea.

Comment The problem is special access for Google. (Score 1) 234

I think people agree that having these orphaned books available would be a good thing. The problem then becomes that we don't want Google to have some special privilege to access them. What if the books were available through some public service, and Google was merely a consumer of that service? Amazon, Google, and Joe's Random Website could all have equal access to these books.

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