If that were true, then she should say that.

Apparently 50%+ of the people on slashdot think she is lying to her husband about why she wants the gaming PC out of the living room.

The algorithm is dumb. Explaining it is smart. We had to do thousands of long division problems when I was a kid, and it was utterly useless after, say, the first hundred. Boring as hell. Math should be fun.

That being said, most people don't do math--not because they're incapable (I refuse to believe that many people are so congenitally stupid)--but because they're not trained well and they don't *have* to do it. So if you don't spend time teaching math that they're not going to use anyway, you could wind up with a lot of extra time to teach life skills.

Or more useful math. Let them graduate knowing how to deal with the time value of money and needing a calculator for long division--that would be a net gain.

Failure to communicate is on both parties. Therapy may help, but so can talking.

Try making the critique in a way which doesn't put half of everybody down. What specifically would have been a better system for you and why?

The system isn't "against you." It just evolved not understanding you. So make it better.

I think we've determined who should never, ever write grant proposals.

Maybe it's a very roundabout plot to tax heating. Diesel works in place of heating oil, right?

Not being invaded by Germany!

They didn't bankrupt him; he did that. He could probably have hired less experienced lawyers to represent him. My guess is his lawyers were up-front about the rates and he decided to keep using them anyway.

It's a bad system, and his choices sucked at the point where he had already committed what is technically a pretty major crime, but he still had choices.

Pretty much everyone I've ever met--with a very few exceptions--believe that copyright violation should get noncommercial violaters no more than a small civil violation. Basically a ticket with no criminal record and a small fine.

But this is commercial infringement. It's a big deal. The system still sucks, but is anyone claiming he's actually an innocent guy getting railroaded?

Probably they get to write it up as a victory in their funding request. Either that, or somebody drastically overestimated the effect it would have--But they got it wrong in a few ways. (I will not speculate on exactly how. Certain discussions are better not shared with, you know, the Syrian Electronic Army when they happen across slashdot.)

There are lots of targets that would be really smart to go after if you wanted to get the attention of the average american and/or hurt the US markets. But this op... not so much.

It actually sounds like Xinhau broke some kind of law or agreement here, just from the way this went down.

Specifically, they disclosed the company by describing it without ever saying its name. They knew everyone would figure out who the company was. But they never would have done that unless they were prohibited from telling you the company. So they broke whatever was prohibiting them from doing that.

It's unlikely Microsoft will sue them for it (not impossible, but unlikely), but no Western company will ever trust that agreement or law again.

This is a classic example of a really *Stupid* move to make yourself seem good in the short term that makes other people less willing to deal with you in the future.

#GOP has just become a top-10 target for US Offensive cyber-operations...

Found *no* probable cause. Can we get an "edit for typo" button already?

No, the grand jury found on probable cause. So it was not more likely than not that he was guilty, based on what they heard.

That does *not* mean it was a cut and dry case of justifiable self-defense, or that the officer was innocent.

The real trick is in maintaining the right amount of edge. An unrestricted arms war costs the world economy trillions of dollars and results in destructive capability that is even more disproportionate to our ability to use it responsibly than there is now. During the cold war, America was sold on the idea that the Russians had nuclear stockpiles that were much bigger and more advanced than the reality turned out to be, and as a result America spent an ungodly fortune making more and more nukes. If both sides had made a few hundred nukes each, that would have been all you needed--instead there are many thousands of devices, which not only wasted money to build but which mean the world is inherently less safe.

Unfortunately, robots are harder. Once they get good enough they can create a decisive advantage in a variety of land, sea, and air combat scenarios. There are not a lot of comparable military advances that have come about in the last few centuries.

As importantly, they decrease the political risk in war-making for superpowers. If you are risking none of your own people when you invade a country, you are much, much, much more likely to invade.

Stuxnet.