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Comment Re:Whats wrong with US society (Score 3, Interesting) 609

The rockets and shells I believe are regulated.... It sounds really dumb but frankly I just do not see people using any of these to commit crimes.

Gee, I wonder if one of those has anything to do with the other.

Hey, while we're on this logical path, make all guns legal, for anyone, anytime, anywhere.

Just regulate the bullets.

Comment Re:Point was made but wrong (Score 1) 409

Good, here's one that shows average height gain from ages 20-74.

The report, Mean Body Weight, Height, and Body Mass Index (BMI) 1960-2002: United States, prepared by CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, shows that the average height of a man aged 20-74 years increased from just over 5'8" in 1960 to 5'9½" in 2002, while the average height of a woman the same age increased from slightly over 5'3" 1960 to 5'4" in 2002.

http://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/r041027.htm

Now I suppose you could try and tell me that we've gained another inch between 2002-2015, but I'd like to see a source for that, just as I'd like to see a source for the OP's opinion that we gained 2 inches overall.

Comment Re:Not relevant? (Score 1) 89

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943

From wikipedia: Although Watson is well known for his alleged 1943 statement, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers", there is scant evidence he made it. Author Kevin Maney tried to find the origin of the quote, but has been unable to locate any speeches or documents of Watson's that contain this, nor are the words present in any contemporary articles about IBM. The earliest known citation on the Internet is from 1986 on Usenet in the signature of a poster from Convex Computer Corporation as "'I think there is a world market for about five computers' —Remark attributed to Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board of International Business Machines), 1943". Another early article source (May 15, 1985) is a column by Neil Morgan, a San Diego Evening Tribune writer who wrote: "Forrest Shumway, chairman of The Signal Cos., doesn't make predictions. His role model is Tom Watson, then IBM chairman, who said in 1958: 'I think there is a world market for about five computers.'" One of the very first quotes can be found in The Experts Speak, a book written by Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky in 1984. However Cerf and Navasky just quote from a book written by Morgan and Langford, Facts and Fallacies. All these early quotes are questioned by Eric Weiss, an editor of the Annals of the History of Computing in ACS letters in 1985.

Comment Re:Surprised those edits weren't reverted (Score 1) 121

They do, in fact, have different levels of protection for different types of pages. For examples, biographies of living people are afforded far more protection than an article, on, say, the World Trade Center. However, when it comes to topics like the Pythagorean Theorem, the encyclopedia tends to err more to the side of openness, rather than lockdown, and trust that the community will revert any vandalism-type edits, thus also allowing easy access to anyone that has anything of substance to add. The whole idea is to make it simple for anyone to edit.

Comment Re:Surprised those edits weren't reverted (Score 1) 121

This is obviously the wrong place for that suggestion, mainly because Wikipedia has an excellent system in place for any user to submit a suggestion of that nature. If you cared enough to take the time to do it, you could end up starting a discussion there and if enough editors agreed with you, that type of major change might actually happen. I encourage you to take part and start the process.

Comment Re:Deal With it. (Score 1) 121

Probably because even though it's rarely practiced in reality, we'd like to think our elected leaders are held to a higher standard of honesty than the random population typing away edits at home. This article at least sheds SOME light on that behavior when it's coming from a place we'd rather see it not come from.

Comment Re:Surprised those edits weren't reverted (Score 2) 121

Maybe. It would be even easier to just ban IP edits entirely. Of course, that's not the idea that drives Wikipedia -

Anyone with Internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles, except in limited cases where editing is restricted to prevent disruption or vandalism. Users can contribute anonymously, under a pseudonym, or, if they choose to, with their real identity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Comment Re:Surprised those edits weren't reverted (Score 5, Informative) 121

Well, that may be true if an editor gets involved in a protracted edit war with another editor. For anon IPs, such as the ones doing the edits described in the summary, it's trivial to revert the edit, and if anon IPs continue to remove sourced material, the IP addresses tend to get blocked for a few days, or a week, or a month, depending on the individual circumstances surrounding the edit war. An administrator is going to back a registered editor over an anon IP pretty much every time, so there's no danger of getting banned.

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