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Government

New Bill Would Repeal Patriot Act 188

schwit1 points out a new piece of bipartisan legislation that aims to repeal the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act, which the NSA has used to justify broad domestic surveillance. House Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) introduced the bill yesterday, calling it the Surveillance State Repeal Act (PDF). Pocan said, "This isn't just tinkering around the edges. This is a meaningful overhaul of the system, getting rid of essentially all parameters of the Patriot Act." The bill also attempts to dramatically strengthen whistleblower protections, so situations like Edward Snowden's and Thomas Drake's don't happen in the future. This legislation is not expected to get the support of Congressional leaders, but supporters hope it will at least inspire some debate about several provisions of the Patriot Act coming up for renewal in June.

Comment Re:I hope "semantic" != "annoying popups" (Score 1) 68

I'm not sure I really follow your argument, but the open source community seems like a reasonable example. Linux is paid for - big companies sink billions of actual dollars into it, and contributors put in even more value in time. Quality, in the things that are important to the people contributing to it, is high. Quality in the things that are not important to contributors, but are important to many of the people who do not contribute? Not so high.

Quality is also high in ad encrusted click bait sites - in the eyes of the people contributing to them. But that's not you.

Comment Re:Author vs. content (Score 1) 522

Everybody gets stereotyped in film. Stereotypes let the audience feel familiar with characters they don't have time to get to know. Sometimes a movie will take one or two characters and write them out of their stereotype in order to tell a story, surprise the audience, or win an Oscar.

Longer running formats, like TV series, like to start with stereotyped characters everyone can become familiar with quickly and then do episodes that focus on their "other side."

Comment Re:Here's MY test (Score 3, Interesting) 522

That's actually a more interesting fact than you might think. Males are actually more likely at birth, and outnumber females until the age of 30 or so. But in the > 30 demographic females are in the majority, and that majority increases with age. Why? Because males die at a higher rate. Being male has a higher risk of death than being female.

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