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Comment Re:Although unused, not useful (Score 1) 213

Sure, but there are a few differences. For one, a manned plane will have at least one person (the pilot) with a serious interest in it not being one of those that crashes and kills people. Even if his employer is willing to risk it, he has the final say and it's his ass on the line.

The little hobbyist craft are small and light weight, There is a serious limit to the amount of damage they might cause. Not so much for a 50 pound commercial drone.

Comment Re:Christian Theocracy (Score 1) 1168

The only hate in this discussion is held by people who don't want to treat others as normal human beings because their religion teaches them to despise others for being who they were born.

But you can twist it in to some sort of attack on "the right" if you wish - it only serves to make you look rather foolish and encouraging the very hate you pretend to not like.

So then you're in favor of skinheads and Westboro Baptist-style nutjobs forcing LGBT and ethnic owned bakeries to provide cakes with Nazi/KKK/skinhead themed cakes.

Be very careful what you wish for. A law forcing people to participate in, enable, and/or advocate for things they are fundamentally opposed to have historically demonstrated a nasty habit of being turned around and used against the very people who thought they were a great idea.

You're a special kind of stupid. The kind that enables tyranny.

Strat

Comment Re:Is no one blaming Lucas? (Score 2) 360

The real test will be if the Disney+Abrams films live up to the originals, but the prequels have probably cast their immutable shadow over the entire franchise.

Fortunately, the Abrams 'Star Wars' time-travels into an alternate timeline where the prequels never existed, and Tatooine is destroyed by a rogue band of Ewoks.

Comment Re:Christian Theocracy (Score 1) 1168

Your examples need to be equivalent and the same thing: hate speech is not protected speech last time I checked.

"Hate speech" is a completely arbitrary, subjective, politically-driven, and constantly-changing standard, meaning it is no standard at all.

As I said above, bake them a cake, sure. But, to *force* a person under threat of deadly force to include symbols/symbolism, slogans, etc which convey support for or against any religious, ideological, political, or ethical subject/topic/party/etc to which they are fundamentally opposed is WRONG.

No matter the motive, it is wrong.

The next time there's some Bill or Proposition seeking to restrict rights of a protected class like LGBTs before a legislative body over which there is much contention, would it be OK for some anti-LGBT group to force an LGBT baker to provide them a cake with the graphic symbol being used to self-identify by that group? Like a swastika, maybe?

Sorry, you cannot force free people to participate in and/or advocate for things they fundamentally oppose. That's one of the reasons people came to colonize America, to escape exactly such tyranny by the churches and the monarchies of the Old World.

Only an ideological Luddite would want to turn history back and destroy basic pillars of individual liberty and freedom that so many have died for.

Strat

Comment Re:Maybe because the movies were not that good? (Score 5, Insightful) 360

More specifically, the actors weren't so great. Hot grits are happy to note that Natalie Portman has had plenty of roles in movies since then, but she was one of the best actors in the series (not great, but still). Same with Harrison Ford: he was in a league above everyone else in Star Wars 4-6.

I don't think the summary is right either....what actor launched their career from Harry Potter? What actor launched their career from Twilight? What actor launched a career from Transformers? It seems like blockbuster movie series normally don't launch huge acting careers, so how is Star Wars really different? Maybe because Carrie Fischer wrote a book about how her career didn't take off?

Really though, #firstWorldProblems. Actors have trouble becoming 'stars,' have trouble making millions. This is so sad I'm about to cry.

Comment original used non-union actors (Score 5, Interesting) 360

Lucas and Spielberg made the decision to use non-union actors in the first movie because the union demanded certain types of intro-credits which was believed would spoil the feel of the movie.

So the rest of the industry informally blacklisted the actors. The only actor to survive the blacklist was Harrison Ford because Spielberg also used him in Indiana Jones, and the industry wasn't going to balk at a guy that could bring in hundreds of millions for every movie he was involved in. Even Billy Dee Williams, who already had made a rather big name for himself, couldn't survive the blacklist.
Google

Google Unveils the Chromebit: an HDMI Chromebook Dongle 50

An anonymous reader writes: Today Google unveiled a new device: the Chromebit. It's a small compute stick that contains the Rockchip 3288 processor, 2GB RAM, and 16GB of storage — much like a low-end Chromebook. It connects to a TV or monitor through an HDMI port. (It also has a USB port for power and plugging in peripherals.) Google says the Chromebit is their solution for turning any display into a computer, and it will cost under $100. Google also announced a couple of new Chromebooks as well. Haier and Hisense models will cost $150, and an ASUS model with a rotating display will cost $250.

Comment No, not just YOU (Score 0) 114

Well, for starters, civil forfeiture is about your non-living stuff, and the 4th Amendment applies to YOU

By that logic, attaching a GPS-tracker to your car would not fall under the Amendment either.

No, the Amendment does not just cover your person, but also "houses, papers, and effects". How can those be taken away by a cop without not only a trial, but even a Judge-issues warrant, I do not know... It is just so glaringly unconstitutional, it boggles the mind.

And of course, our hopey-changey President insists on making a prosecutor, who made herself particularly infamous using such confiscations, into a new Attorney General...

Comment Re:Obligatory xkcd (Score 1) 124

Related to that link, a quote from the article:

Some of the ingredients, such as copper from the brass vessel, kill bacteria grown in a dish – but it was unknown if they would work on a real infection or how they would combine.

So they were trying to take it a step beyond 'killing bacteria grown in a dish.' They used it on mice skin (still not a human trial, of course).

Funny quote from the article:

Sourcing authentic ingredients was a major challenge, says Harrison. They had to hope for the best with the leeks and garlic because modern crop varieties are likely to be quite different to ancient ones – even those branded as heritage. For the wine they used an organic vintage from a historic English vineyard......Bullocks gall was easy, though, as cow's bile salts are sold as a supplement for people who have had their gall bladders removed.

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