DS9, bad as it was, did a MUCH better job of showing the implications of Utopia, especially in the Sisko-extended-family story line.

er,.. Linux was aping Multix and other *nix. It came out pretty original.

While I do wish the kids would go outside and play, it's not minecraft that's the problem, it's just the way kids are in the time of "playdates". Minecraft however is such a great game for them. It basically replaces the hours I spent with lego. I find hardcore first person shooters psychically disturbing so I'm greatly relieved when they find shooting sheep with enchanted diamond bows or building cat fountains amusing. Its similar to the way I used to build lego things that I could smash. Even better with things like raspberry pi, you can write in your own python code to build stuff or launch other people in the air when they come into your house.

The very best feature of minecraft is that there is no objective at all. Again like lego. it's up to you and your imagination. It just gives you an organized platform for creating.

What will MS do? I was afraid they might shutdown the python API on raspberry pi but they just released Windows for free on the new raspberry pi, so it looks like they might embrace it even more. I think Microsoft is finally re-learning how they became successful by being the low cost alternative to apple and IBM. they want the love again. Market share uber alles.

I suspect they might pervert it the way lego has been perverted by selling specialized kits that just build one thing. So they might sell pre-built minecraft worlds with various happy-meal like themes. Or hook it into microsoft live where you gotta pay the man a subscription to live in the microsoft amusement park. I would really resent that because kids come and go from their toy interests and so a subscription for something they are not using would hurt.

You should have immediately contacted the FCC and FTC and Better Business Bureau!

Their model basically assumes that you - the person who read the study - would be the only one who would flee to some location where you expect to be safe, and everyone else would stay where they were. If humans really were like that then by all means, follow the advice. But of course, many other humans would react to a zombie apocalypse by fleeing to the country. Quite probably, some would bring infected (still asymptomatic) victims along, which would infect others in the "isolated" sanctuary. How many residents from LA would drive to Death Valley because it seems like a place where zombies wouldn't be? Well guess what: That immigration wave is exactly how zombies get there. A better model would account for this predictable human flight behavior before arriving at a final recommendation.

I LOVE your similitude! I'm using it everywhere, from now on.

"Cheerios? Man, that is the "Thomas Kincade" of breakfast cereals."

Alabama and Oklahoma have orgasm.

Speaking of style over function, I take it the new phone is not using LiquidMetal for it's metal. They teased a liquid metal ad last week. But it looks like just polished metal to me. Or is it? Apple's exclusive rights purchase for liquid Metal technology I beleive ran out a week ago, making it possible this could be a liquid metal phone case.

Plus 1,000,000!

Plus 10,000!

Plus 1,000!

I'm not sure anybody is afraid that an AI can kill everyone on earth by mere thought alone. The fear is that AI will kill everyone on earth with guns, bombs, poison, biological weapons, nukes, or perhaps by bashing in our skulls.

Old fashioned methods of killing people that are proven to be effective and NOT MAGICAL.

So no - it is NOT equivocal.

I can think of a zillion loopholes by which this will be evaded.

Is there a definition of what is THE internet? surely comcast can create a parallel construction and sell however they wish like a private toll road. It could have discrete points where it could tap into the "real" internet. Thus amazon or netflix or whomever could connect into this autobahn on the goes-into side and pop out into "the" internet at some Comcast hub in the customers town.

Picture it like FED Ex, transporting a package 90% of the way, then mailing it. the postoffice might not charge differently for different customers and Fed Ex might not either (or they could) but only customers with valuable deliveries would be willing to pay the cost of the combined service, which would be dominated by the Fed Ex high speed service.

That's effectively what companies like Akamai sell already and those are not part of the discussion of Net Neutrality.

It might be easy to regulate comcast if comcast is the parent company of both halves of this real and shadow internet. But if these services are split into two companies then what? Even if the shadow company is privately held by comcast this is going to be hard to regulate.

Eventually the shadow compaines won't even bother with their own hardware. They will lease a certain number of dedicated switches from Comcast for their own uses. these will be cut out of the real internet.

An alternative way around this is by selectively enforcing the tragedy of the commons. In principle Netflix could prioritize its packets on a neutral interenet by emitting 100 times as many packets where each packet is sent 100 times. the receiver ignores all but the first one of the redundant packets. This of course would be retaliated by others now squeezed out doing the same thing resulting in 100x the traffic for the same data and no gain for anyone. COmcast would come down hard on these miscreants but would it be selective?

In chrome, why does slashdot header get cut off in half, behind the toolbar?

Fix your CSS