Comment Unique? (Score 1) 78
By "as unique as fingerprints", I assume then mean "not very unique".
Comment TV channels are not what people want (Score 4, Insightful) 294
What people want from a streaming service is every movie, every TV episode, and every piece of music ever made at any any point in history, anywhere in the world, at a modest fee.
Netflix certainly wasn't that, but it was trying to be. If it's going to stop even trying, then they're just driving people back to BitTorrent. Because that's what BitTorrent is, and it's free.
Until people are given what they want at a fair price, they will continue to find it elsewhere.
Comment Re:Have it your way! (Score 3, Funny) 105
I think that counts as two toppings.
Comment They're right about one thing (Score 1) 1007
"Natural selection is not evolution" is actually correct. Evolution is the observed fact that species change over time. The fact that evolution has occurred is not really open to debate, unless you're prepared to entertain loony notions like "God put those fossils there to test our faith."
Natural selection is the mechanism that Darwin proposed to explain why/how evolution happens.
Comment Banning CNC would be utterly pointless (Score 4, Interesting) 651
An AK-47 receiver made out of a rusty shovel:
http://thechive.com/2012/12/06...
Perhaps the problem is that the receiver is the legally-controlled part of the gun. Everything else is spare parts. Making receivers is easy now.
I'm no expert, but it seems to me that making a barrel is the hardest part. Why isn't the barrel the controlled part?
Hospitals Begin Data-Mining Patients 162
schwit1 (797399) sends word of a new and exciting use for all of the data various entities are collecting about you. From the article: You may soon get a call from your doctor if you've let your gym membership lapse, made a habit of ordering out for pizza or begin shopping at plus-sized stores. That's because some hospitals are starting to use detailed consumer data to create profiles on current and potential patients to identify those most likely to get sick, so the hospitals can intervene before they do. Acxiom Corp. (ACXM) and LexisNexis are two of the largest data brokers who collect such information on individuals. They say their data are supposed to be used only for marketing, not for medical purposes or to be included in medical records. While both sell to health insurers, they said it's to help those companies offer better services to members.
Why Games Should Be In the Public Domain 360
Robotron23 writes "Rock, Paper, Shotgun writer John Walker shook a hornet's nest by suggesting old videogames should enter the public domain during GOG's Time Machine sale. George Broussard of Duke Nukem fame took to Twitter, saying the author should be fired. In response to these comments RPS commissioned an editorial arguing why games and other media should enter the public domain much more rapidly than at present. 'I would no more steal a car than I would tolerate a company telling me that they had the exclusive rights to the idea of cars themselves.' says Walker, paraphrasing a notorious anti-piracy ad (video). 'However, there are things I'm very happy to "steal," like knowledge, inspiration, or good ideas...It was until incredibly recently that amongst such things as knowledge, inspiration and good ideas were the likes of literature and music.'"
Comment Re:Money Laundering? (Score 1) 330
Sure, I can hide the origin so it's not obvious where the money came from. So, if I'm a high-school chemistry teacher, and I used this bit-coin trick to "launder" the millions of dollars I made selling meth, then can I just go out and buy a mansion and fleet of Lamborghinis, and expect to stay out of jail? I think not...
Comment Money Laundering? (Score 1) 330
Perhaps I just don't understand what "money laundering" means, but I don't really see how bit-coin is of any use whatsoever for money laundering.
Money-laundering, as I understand it, means to disguise the true origin of ill-gotten funds, so as to make the income appear legitimate.
I think there's confusion in the two different means of the word "disguise". In one sense, it means simply to hide or obscure. In another sense, it means to make something or someone appear to be something else.
Bank robbers wear a disguise in the first sense. A bank-robber doesn't wear a Richard Nixon mask because he wants people to think Richard Nixon robbed the bank. He just doesn't want to be identified in a line-up. This is the same kind of disguise that bit-coin offers. And even in that, it doesn't really stand up.
But I think people interested in money-laundering are using the other sense of the word: they want to be able to actually spend their ill-gotten gains without arousing suspicion. They need to make it look like legitimate income. That is why Walter White bought a car-wash.
Merely obscuring the true origin of your money is useless. If the government is even a tiny bit curious about the true origin of your money, you're already well and truly fucked, whether or not they can ever figure it out.
Comment Re:Resistor (Score 4, Informative) 216
Your joke is too subtle without a reference.
Comment Re:Isn't this what the Taiwanese believe as well? (Score 2) 262
In another sense, China is a province of Taiwan. It just happens to be under the control of a band of rebels at present.
Comment Obligatory (Score 1) 93
There are no La Brea Tar Pits in Scotland!!
Comment It all makes sense now (Score 1) 296
So, in Iceland accidentally sleeping with your cousin in a very real danger. That explains some things... like Bjork.
Comment No link? Then research it again. (Score 2) 335
And you'll keep on researching it, until you give us the answer we want.
Comment Why the lower receiver? (Score 1) 528
I don't know much about gun technology, so maybe somebody can explain why the lower receiver is the controlled part. Why not the barrel? It seems to me that the barrel is the heart and soul of a gun. You can make a gun with just a barrel and nothing else: it's called a cannon.
Furthermore, I would think the barrel would be the hardest part to manufacture, given the forces and temperatures it must endure, and having to be perfectly straight, and rifled. I would imagine that 3-D printed barrels are probably a long, long way off.
3-D printed receivers are already here, and only going to get better and cheaper. If they don't change the regulatory framework to start controlling the rest of the parts, then soon anyone that wants to will be able to make a gun at home and all the gun control laws in the world will just be so much pissing in the wind.
