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Comment Re:Not likely (Score 1) 308

Let me help translate that for you:

"For young people who use the internet, their top suggestion is the legalization of MJ. But who the hell cares because those losers don't vote anyway. Nor do they give campaign money. So... throw a few platitudes their way, and move on. We REALLY don't want to upset the older people who *actually* vote and are still stuck in the 'just say no' mindset."

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Comment Re:Moral of the story... (Score 3, Interesting) 180

I think this is the real issue here. It all has to be coming from problems with skype's security and nothing else. Skype should take this as a huge warning and encrypt their packet information NOW. I don't care what this is used for, people sniffing packets and being able to tell who someone is on a program like skype that is often left on 24/7 is a huge security risk for the person involved! This should NOT be happening and it's all skype's fault.

You guys are getting to hung up on the bit torrent aspect of this and should realize that it's really a major skype fuck up.

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Comment Re:Bitcoin (Score 1) 709

Too true. If you're looking for something to convert your money into to give you something that you can barter for the apocalypse, buy a big gas tank and bury it in the ground somewhere. Hell, that might even make you rich in a few years even without the apocalypse!

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Comment Re:Purely out of curiosity (Score 1) 692

So I use voice stuff on android... but the thing I've found most useful for using it for is addresses, and I want to do that while looking at the phone, not while it's attached to my ear.

*go to map program... hit the voice input button... "home depot in San Jose"... wait a second, and it pops up.

I've actually been pretty surprised at how accurate Android's voice recognition is. It gets names that I would have thought it'd fail at... for example it grabbed "Xilinx" exactly right the other day. IMHO, anyone who thinks Android's voice commands suck either speaks with a thick accent or simply has never used the previous generations of voice input.

So far from what I've hard, Siri sounds like catch-up tech that doesn't take it beyond what Android's is, so I expect the same performance and limitations. I'm not trying to dog on Siri or say "my phone is better than your phone". I'm just saying they sound equal thus far.

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Comment Re:The 1% are insulated (Score 1) 1799

Corporations interjecting themselves into the political process is bad.
Legalized corruption (i.e. campaign contributions) are bad.
Massive wealth inequality is bad.
Unequal/low quality education options for low income kids is bad.
Worshiping profits and our pocketbooks more than education and the environment is bad.
Propaganda journalism is bad.

However the truth is that these are all gray area issues and IMO the pendulum has just swung so far in one direction it's not worth pointing out the nuances.

The only real "simple" solution is simple in action, but very difficult to implement with our current political process. The simple solution is in campaign finance reform. The reality is that whoever pays for a politician is making an investment in said politician. The person who pays their bills has leverage over them and that leverage should be from the people, not from the elite or from companies. If you make politicians accountable to the people then overnight you'd turn around the government of the US. For example, if you said each and every person has $100 (pick the number) to give to any politician or politicians running for office and that was it ... no corporations, unions, political groups, etc are allowed to put in any money...then overnight the government would less corporate friendly and more people friendly.

The world is nuanced, but details don't make for good chants at rallies.

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Comment Re:The 1% are insulated (Score 1) 1799

MSFT is a company... the communist party in china is a government. You go ahead and try taking down the government of the USA and see how you do, if you want to compare apples to apples.

Every country has a 1%... I mean that's stupidly obvious. It's like saying "there will always be people who are above average!" Nobody is arguing that we shouldn't have wealth classes in the US, what we're arguing is that the separation shouldn't banana republic large (which it is today).

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Comment Re:Why replace? (Score 1) 462

... but EIDE cables are always unshielded. They should have some checksum to validate the integrity of the data. Also, magnets wouldn't effect data traveling over data cables. If you had moving magnets that could generate noise on the cables, but stationary magnets won't do anything to data transmission.

(The reason it effects your HDD is because it's a magnetic platter, not because of the electronics inside.)

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Comment Re:This isn't anything new. (Score 2) 220

Wow... i've grown used to cynicism and ignorance on the internet... but I've got to say your post is really quite depressing. Your post has a combination of cynicism, ignorance, and intelligence all at the same time and it's sad to see.

"Milk is good for you" is you repeating an advertisement. It has calcium yes, but it's also a high fat drink and it's health benefits are debatable. But I agree with your main premiss that corporations sponsoring PSAs are not intrinsically bad, except that it can lead to slanting of the truth to benefit said corporation. It most cases if you allow this, the corporation will just turn the PSA into an advertisement designed to sell their product. If some unbiased group controls what "truth" is told, then it's cool, but if the corporation controls this "truth", then we're in trouble.

Corporations are not your friend. Corporations are tools and they see you as a tool, "a resource". Each resource should be replaceable with another resource. People are only useful as long as they provide labor. The environment has little value. Profits are everything. Fairness, ethics, loyalty, responsibility are not expected or desired. Corporations are sociopaths by nature. This is the way they are designed. However... if properly harnessed with regulations to prevent abuses (such as not dumping toxic waste in their own back yard), and properly put into direct competition with other such corporations, they can produce benefit for all society.

The idea that "many decisions of the government being based upon what corporations want is not entirely a bad thing" is mind bogglingly stupid. If allowed corporations will make laws that only benefit themselves. They will push as many expenses away from themselves and toward citizens. They will capture regulators so they don't have to play fair. They will make laws so they don't have to pay for what they use, put in safety features, or properly dispose of waste. They will create monopolies. They will give themselves tax breaks, tax advantages, and make decisions that are only beneficial to the people in control of the corporation (these people are known as the top 1%). Their only goal is to make money.

As I said, corporations are sociopaths, so while they do good a lot of the time, you don't want to turn your backs to them and leave sharp objects lying around, and then tell them they can't do something. Government needs to be controlled by the people because that is our defense against and our control over the corporations that already control so much of our lives.

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Comment Re:which patents? (Score 1) 331

???

This isn't playing like babies, this is playing like the big boys. (although in this case I'll admit it's the same thing.)

Patents are nukes. If you get in the way of some large company's business by throwing a few patent lawsuits around, they will retaliate. This is Samsung's way of getting leverage and forcing a negotiated settlement. If you call out companies like Samsung this is exactly how you'd expect them to respond. This is not in the slightest childish.

This is not childish, this is business.

Unless you're calling Apple childish for dropping the first patent bomb. I think their lawsuit was stupid... but they simply thought they had a strategic advantage and that Samsung couldn't hurt them much in return. Samsung has responded by pulling an ace out of their hand and dropping it on the table. In theory, a critical patent like this is supposed be licensed in a fair and non-discriminatory manner as agreed upon within a standards body, but I don't know how legally binding the standards bodies agreements are. In any case, it would probably be settled in court AFTER they got an injunction against apple, and this would mean years of Apple being blocked from whatever market they could get.

Wait a minute... why doesn't apple have a license for 3G patents already? The standards bodies say you have to license them in a fair and non-discriminatory manner... so if apple had a license already, everything would be cool because they'd have a contract stating their rights. But if they don't have a license... then they ARE violating the patents. Why wouldn't Samsung have approached them way before this and said "hey, license our tech or we'll sue"? Hm.... some part of my understanding is not correct here....

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