Just how legally binding are privacy policies in the first place? I've taken the time to specifically look for privacy policies on many sites, only to discover that they either don't have one or have one that is completely inscrutable by anyone not a lawyer. What are they designed to do in the first place? Protect the user? Protect the owner of the website from legal action from a user? Does anyone ever actually read a privacy policy?

Isn't the old saying: "Any publicity is good publicity?". The fact that they are the subject of any articles will help push them up to the top of the heap of google search results.

Now we just have to find a bunch of mini humans to try these out on ... I mean, we have to have clinical trials, right?

To be honest, my first reaction to watching the video was "wait, the headline said "human powered", but they are clearly pulling this with a car....

The wing flapping motion is quite striking to watch, I'll admit, and it is very cool that they have constructed something on this scale, but I was somehow expecting more based on the description in the article.

While I'm still skeptical of the widespread practical use of this mode of flight, I applaud the creativity and technical genius that must have gone into the conception, design, and execution of this project.

Besides the "gee-whiz" factor, why is time being spent on this sort of research? Will any flapping-wing aircraft ever be as efficient as a modern jumbo-jet for transporting large loads of cargo and people? I'm no aerospace engineer, and I'm not saying that a jet is the model of efficiency, but I don't see how a flappy wing mode of transport would be better.

The author seems shocked to read a news article that did not receive enough research from the reporter before being published. Why is he upset about this? It happens all the time.

Maybe I'm just jaded, but I always approach news stories as only containing a grain of truth, with a heavy slant towards the agenda of the reporter / reporting agency.

This is brilliant.

And, it will never, ever happen.

from TFA:

"Furthermore, I would assume that there is a large turnover of ticketing agency employees in 4 years – can every single employee since then up until now have gained access to this data? What about passwords – were they even changed during this time period? And a very important question – who has access to the data. Did every employee have access rights to the sensitive data?" Shulman added.

Fear!
Uncertainty!
Doubt!
While I think the media does all they can to sensationalize everything maybe in this case it is warranted?

Now I have to be suspicious when my bread pops up that maybe my toaster is trying to trick me into eating a slightly under-done breakfast!

Fresh out of school with my CS degree I went to work on a project for my employer that involved partnering and working directly with folks from NG. The original deadline for shipping the solution was something like 6 months after I started. The complete and utter incompetence of the NG side of things wound up stretching this out more than 18 MONTHS longer, and the final delivery lacked a lot of the original stated requirements.

Being the newbie to the whole corporate culture, I was shocked that people were not bothered at all by blown deadlines, missed estimates, and huge cost overruns. Shortly after the project finally delivered, I bailed to work for a much smaller company (fewer than 10 employees) where I discovered that I really love the smaller, more dynamic environment that only small companies can provide.

Working for huge corporations just sucks.

I thought John Mayer was the go-to artist to show up at Apple events....

Perhaps it has more to do with the hacker mentality that seems to be prevalent (or was when I was earning my CS degree) amongst first year cs students. Aren't they just gaming the system for maximum benefit with minimum work?

The only issue is that the cs depts are able to detect this more easily....

Not only should they be taking careful notes, they should be making a lot more public noise about the huge success of this project. I fear the general perception amongst Americans is that NASA is a bunch of brainiacs with too much money and little to show for it. Seems like they don't tout their successes well enough.