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Comment Re:Subject to the whims of the masses... (Score 3, Informative) 225

Motivation for Facebook or Google: maximum time on website. The most profitable reputation engine is one that feeds the user his or her own preferences back to them (Judging by my news feed Yahoo is doing this). This is exactly how Fox News or Huff Post works except that instead of self-selecting news that supports my worldview it is being done without any internal processing. You might could get away with expert truthfulness on some issues. However, the scariest thing for me is that things that are opposing opinions will have an assigned truth value and the best metric would be popular opinion.

Comment Re:Keyboard (Score 1) 165

Well my yellow-eggs-and-ham prototype started out pretty well but by the time we got to the green-eggs-and-ham stage most of the focus group users couldn't stand having it on their desk anymore...

Comment Re:About time (Score 1) 417

I'm in Huntsville, our leaders are watching very closely the politics of Chattanooga's rollout as they figure out a good fiber solution for the city. Our existing industries would very much benefit from fiber, but our leaders have been very hesitant to roll it out through Huntsville Utilities. I suspect this is due to the political problems that Chattanooga has experienced.

Comment Re:About time (Score 4, Interesting) 417

I live a couple hours from Chattanooga, TN. I know that this specifically deals with a problem they are having. As I understand it, the utility company rolled out fiber as part of their smart meter transition and they offer fiber internet through those means for the metro area. It has been so successful that state legislators have been in a frenzy to write laws to keep them from expanding service to their customers that aren't in the city.

Comment Re:Of course I scoff. And I'm worried too. (Score 1) 46

Some of my coworkers have kids who are have specialties like programming, robotics, cybersecurity, or pre-engineering. When I was in high school, I would have jumped at the opportunity for that but looking back I think it would have been too young to start down a path. I knew several people who long before that made it to senior year of college or beyond and said I don't really love this thing I've been specializing in. I can't imagine where I would be if I'd made that decision at 14.

Comment Re:Of course I scoff. And I'm worried too. (Score 1) 46

I'm with GP. Through my exposure to my coworkers' children, I'm seeing career specialization being encouraged during early high school. At that point in my education, I had zero formal introduction to what my career would become. To me and I think to GP, the phrase "cradle-to-career" doesn't mean that my daughter will pursue a career, but based on some "tests" my daughter might come out of the cradle with a specific career path to pursue.

Comment Re:Insteon (Score 1) 189

I'm wanting to build my automation system over time. I've been wondering what is the best hub to take advantage of discounts in hardware. Does anybody's hub do everything, and if it does is it a piece of crap because it is trying to do too much? Am I just better off waiting and rewiring everything (from manual control) in a unified standard when I've saved a pot of money for automation?

Comment Re: Fuck the Nanny State (Score 1) 319

Laying aside for the moment that mass casualty events are rare, this very article is about MI-5 saying that even with super-strict gun laws and super invasive surveillance, they cannot prevent every mass casualty event. The schools and cinema shootings are just hyper-emotional events used by gun-control advocates to drive change. Controlling for the real problem (that we treat our poor like animals) by discounting cities whose numbers are driven by poverty and criminal gangs that thrive in poverty, the US has a very low homicide rate even lower than some European countries. Further, comparing the numbers worldwide, gun ownership does not correlate to homicide unless you choose to specifically look at firearm homicide. Guess what vehicle homicide rates correlate to vehicle ownership too.

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