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FCC Warned Not To Take Actions a Republican-Led FCC Would Dislike 338

tlhIngan writes Municipal broadband is in the news again — this time Chief of Staff Matthew Berry, speaking at the National Conference of State Legislatures, has endorsed states' right to ban municipal broadband networks and warned the (Democrat-led) FCC to not do anything that a future Republican led FCC would dislike. The argument is that municipal broadband discourages private investment in broadband communications, that taxpayer-funded projects are barriers to future infrastructure investment.

Comment "new" research (Score 5, Informative) 185

New Research Suggests Cancer May Be an Intrinsic Property of Cells

No shit, really? Because all the knowledge of cancer-blocking genes (like p53) which trigger apoptosis (programmed cell death) wasn't a giveaway that runaway growth might actually be an intrinsic property of life? The whole point of these genes is to keep cells in a multicelled organism from defeating the ability for a given multicelled organism to live.

but I didn't read the study, so maybe this is saying something that isn't already obvious.

Comment Re:Mythbusters show just how impaired you are at . (Score 1) 996

Erm, no one has a right to drive let alone to have a certain amount of alcohol while driving.

Driving is a privilege earned by proving you have significant competence in controlling a two ton missile. It is a privilege revoked once proof exists to justify that you don't have that competence anymore. Adding an additional condition indicative of a lack of competence behind a roadgoing vehicle (regardless of how arbitrary one might think it seems) is within the bounds of the law because driving itself is a privilege.

Sorry to burst your utopian bubble there.

Comment There was a post on /. (12/19) that answered this. (Score 4, Insightful) 430

"How Experienced and Novice Programmers See Code

From one of the links:

I’m excited to see what else Mike’s research uncovers. One aspect he’s interested in is how the approach of inexperienced programmers differs from that of experienced programmers. For example, there seems to be some evidence that following variable naming conventions helps experienced programmers understand the code much quicker, while breaking these conventions leads to a severe penalty. On the other hand, inexperienced programmers seem to take about as long regardless of how the variables are named.

-Eric Holk

Comment Why? (Score 5, Insightful) 218

But if you're not going to give anyone permission to use your code, why post it on GitHub in the first place?"

Lets say I stumble across a fantastic utility, and the source is open for me to view. I'll dive through the code and make sure I'm comfortable with its functionality (i.e. it's not doing anything I don't want it to do) before grabbing the tool.

I'm not using the code for my own projects. I'm just vetting the code. Plenty of developers throw code for small utilities up for exactly this reason, and the vast majority of the world is totally cool with it.

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