That's probably what the algorithm should return, just to avoid the possibility of offending anyone. Just label any photos of intelligent hirsute bipedal mammals as "Hominids" and call it a day.

Who knows, maybe the term will even catch on in the larger culture. "Machine learning" doesn't mean we can't learn from our machines.

Not only that, we are apes. The algorithm in question is already smarter than a large percentage of churchgoing Americans.

Looks sharp. They need to hire a Marketing Dork to come up with a name that either means something to someone besides Mrs. Kotlin, or is otherwise snappy and memorable. Otherwise, it's going to be hard to gather any mindshare.

The Brits should treat those bogus cell towers the same way they treat speed cameras.

Be that as it may, WOW would either not have existed if it hadn't been for UO, or would have been different to the extent of being unrecognizable. UO is the one that belongs in the hall of fame.

There is little or no room for debate, to those familiar with both.

For example, one must apply to the Ministry of Communication to be accepted into the UIC and the application form asks about membership in political organizations like the Communist Party or Young Communists League along with technical qualifications

From the article: "... Stallman submitted his application without citing any formal association with the Communist Party, but instead described his pioneering work with the FSF and authorship of the GPL. Unexpectedly, however, his application was declined. When asked to comment on Stallman's rejection, a UIC official responded, 'What kind of organization does he think this is? We're Communists, not a bunch of (expletive deleted) radical ideologues!'"

Patents are basically intellectual land mines. Sure, they're 'defensive' in nature... until one day the war ends, the land changes hands, the maps are lost, and somebody builds a preschool next door.

Hey, shape up with that attitude or we'll put Amanda Knox on trial again!

Not only that, but an excerpt for discussion purposes would certainly qualify as fair use. This whole "copyrighted test" complaint sounds like a giant smokescreen.

What would be an example of college-level material on a 6th-grade test?

Of course it does. If you're productive, and people are actually using your code, then you're effective.

VB6 has enabled a lot of people to get a lot of useful stuff done. This is widely considered (on Slashdot at least) to be a Bad Thing.

Area man still remembers a couple of guys named Pons and Fleischmann.

If the USPTO actually applied the required standards of nonobviousness and nontriviality, these stupid patents would never have been granted.

Unfortunately, their incentives are diametrically opposed to common sense. There is literally no downside for a USPTO examiner to rubber-stamp everything on his or her desk. They get to go home early to beat the traffic, while productive society is left to deal with the legal fallout. The net effect is to devalue legitimate IP while rewarding the trolls.

This, I think, is what really needs to change. Somehow, the feedback loop has to be closed in a way that incentivizes the examiners to throw out vague, egregious patents on abstract concepts.

No, Christians aren't to blame for the acts of personality cults. It's just a different exploit for the same mental bug. Fix it, and both problems -- religion and totalitarianism --- will go away.

Communist personality cults aren't atheistic. The leader is an explicit God-substitute.

Try peddling atheism in North Korea, see how that goes for you.