the GOP stopped Congressional oversight of NSA back in 2004. They knew that what was going on was illegal.

Bush Sr. wasn't successful at not invading Iraq.

Do you mean that he made a decision not to remove Iraq's head of state?

What matters is not if an app can tell where you are in the store, but if and when the app shares that information with a server. I don't care what information an application collects, if the data stays in-app.

Of course the great likelihood is that an app that collects that information will probably send that to a server, at the very least to query for specifics around you... but a smart app developer could provide a privacy option for users while still gaining benefit from iBeacons and the like.

Not every hunter-gatherer got crushed by a mastodon either - that doesn't mean it wasn't a selective factor in tribes that hunted them.

A lot of us do, but when both NK and China have nukes, it's a tricky proposition to effect change. Would China happily leave NK out to dry, or would they send their tanks in? If their backs were up against a wall, would NK retaliate by sending over a nuke in a shipping container to one of our port cities? Also, with a recent look at our history, freeing up the Iraqi people hasn't gone all that swimmingly, what with the Islamic State forming their own little territory and chopping off every westerner's head they can.

It's great to say "we need to help them", but what you're saying is "we're going to send a lot of young American men and women into harms way, and many of them will end up dead or maimed. It's something that needs to be weighed very, very carefully. Despite our military and economic power, we can't simply march in and right all the wrongs in the world. I wish we could... I really do. But the world isn't that straightforward.

But it does raise a serious issue - they're studying changes that don't necessarily reflect the selective pressures of present-day life.

Think about it: what are the leading causes of death for people in the prime breeding age (15-34)? Car accidents - by a good margin. So isn't this significant selective pressure to beef up the neck against whiplash, the skull against forehead impact, survival during significant blood loss, etc?

#2 is suicide. I don't know how this rate has changed over time or whether the methods modern humans choose for attempts are more effective than would have been chosen in the past. For example, while men commonly turn to firearms, which are a very effective way to commit suicide, women more often turn to prescription medication overdoses as a method, which overwhelmingly fails.

#3 is poisoning. While humans have always been around poisons, the sheer number that we keep in our houses, most of types that we didn't evolve to, suggests that this may be a stronger selective factor now than it was during our agrarian days, perhaps comparable to that when we were hunter-gatherers or worse.

#4 is homicide. We've definitely gotten a lot better at that, a person is far more likely to die from an intentional gunshot wound than a beating or stabbing. Selective pressures: surviving blood loss, mainly. Stronger, thicker bones may help in against low velocity penetrations.

#5 is other injuries. Again, we're not as likely to suffer from, say "crushed by a mastodon" as an injury, but we've developed plenty of new ways to get killed or maimed in our modern lives.

Then it gets more complicated on the basis that the issue isn't just about survival of the individual, but their social group as a whole, so even nonbreeding members can have a major impact...

Because as everybody knows, all Apple employees are special little snowflakes whose precious little lives

They are human beings who deserve a break from a rough work schedule, and again what is even the point of serving Sony's 11th hour demands when a release next week has essentially the same effect? Are you truly so daft as to imagine the physical act of release means anything next to the symbolic act of simply saying the release will go ahead?

I somehow get the sense you are that daft, and perhaps far dafter than can be discerned at first glance... I'll let you have the last response as you are quite simply batshit insane and not worthy of further correspondence.

Yeah, what the hell is this, HackerNews? :-)

To make a political statement? Since when was this "a political statement"? It was an attempt to stop a movie that made fun of the Great Leader. An attempt that mostly succeeded. Which was done after previously threatening Sony about the issue.

What, exactly, is to gain by admitting culpability? Is that usually what criminals do? "Why, yes, officer! I threw the brick through my ex's window to get back at her and scare her. I'm telling you now so that you can go ahead and punish me!"

Because the world is just full of people who would hack a company to blackmail them not to release a movie about Kim Jong Un. Because everyone loves the Great Leader! His family's personality cult^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HVoluntary Praise Actions only take up about 1/3rd of the North Korean budget. And I mean, they totally deserve it. I mean, did you know that his father was the world's greatest golf player who never had to defecate and whose birth was fortold by a swallow and heralded by a new star in the sky?

No, of course it wasn't North Korea. Clearly it was the work of America! Because America wants nothing more than a conflict with North Korea right now. Because clearly Russia and Syria and ISIS aren't enough, no, the US obviously has nothing better to do than to try to stir up things out of the blue with the Hollywood obsessed leader of a cult state whose family has gone so far as to kidnap filmmakers and force them to make movies for him. It all just makes so damn much sense!

Cue the conspiracy theorists in three, two, one...

I know, write? Who gives a flying flip about an app to track a jolly magical man with an eating disorder.

Now, if someone would make an app to track the Yule Cat, Grýla, and her progeny, then that I would have interest in!

Because if they don't, they will be viewed as cowards?

How so when it will simply come out next week. Sony already owns Coward, the other companies will put up the movie as soon as they can.

Anyway, you exaggerate the level of effort required by Apple to do the right thing.

In my world the "right thing" is not to have an Apple Employee have to take even TWO HOURS the day before Christmas to serve Sony's fickle whims.

Here's some real Tough Love - sometimes people on vacation should get to stay on vacation. THAT is the Right Thing.

And even if they were the same, I love how /. is so fixated on one mistake one department made over a decade ago.

How about the repeat three years ago?

And let's not forget about "OtherOS" four years ago.

Or profiteering from Whitney Houston's extremely convenient death two years ago.


No, Sony's PR problem doesn't come from "one mistake one department made over a decade ago", it comes from their entire corporate ethos, which their latest woes merely exemplify. They pretty much have made it a holiday tradition of shoving their foot up our asses on a yearly basis, and then expecting us to just smile and ask when the next gen of Playstation will come out so we can re-buy our entire game library that doesn't work on their empty promises of backward compatibility.

"Conservatives are hesitant to change things, so they don't screw things up."

Your description would paint Bush as a liberal. What with his pet project to fix Iraq, bailouts for failed corporate ventures, trying to sovle all the problems in the world through big government military, spying and toruture programs, expansion of American powers in the bedroom, and bolstering the profiteers of a nearly wiped out American milddle class.

Liberals like Bush should mind their business, focus on domestic affairs like the failures of healthcare. Conservatives like Obama, with strong focus on small government, reduction in military, long term thinking for healthcare, prudent fiscal policy and expansion of jobs and the economy once again kickstart a broken economy, and lead the U.S. to record job creation and growth.

You just need to look at the DJIA to see who's got the right numbers.

"Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my partâ

Why should Apple make people work Christmas (most core Apple employees have the week off) because Sony finally came around to the ethical course of action? Sounds like a great thing to have decided WEEKS AGO.