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Comment Re:April Fools stories are gay (Score 1) 1482

If a company axed a low level employee for donating to a pro-gay campaign, people would crap a collective brick at the prospect of firing an employee over their private political actions. This isn't about criticizing someone for their views, this is about actively trying to get someone fired over their private, away-from-work political actions. That's wrong, and hateful. We try to ruin people's lives over a bad political choice or donation, we reason with them intelligently and kindly, with love and care. This whole "death to those who oppose pro-gay-legislation" is warped and wrong. Even gays I know are fed up with how hateful the pro-gay movement has become. Back, the hell, OFF. Your hate and cruelty is not making things better for gays.

Comment Re:again with the assumptions. (Score 2) 108

But the conspiring forces can't know what the quasars are sending off! That's the point. Nothing is capable of containing information pertaining to what the quasars have sent, because it's impossible to have made a round trip to find out ahead of time. Therefore, even if the forces can influence the scientist's choice of quasar, the mysterious force still has no idea which quasar will say what, so it can't rig the experiment.

As an analogy, imagine there are three settings: A, B, and C. The mysterious force wants to rig the experiment by forcing the scientist to select setting B. The scientist, to get around this, allows three quasars to select a setting. One of the quasars will pick A, one B, and one will select C. The scientist will then pick one of the quasars to set the settings. The mysterious force can choose which quasar the scientist will pick, but the mysterious force doesn't know which quasar will send which setting, therefore it can't force the scientist to pick B.

Comment Re:again with the assumptions. (Score 2) 108

All experimental evidence suggests that the transfer of information faster than the speed of light in a vacuum is impossible. Scientists understand full well that there is always a possibility some new discovery could upend even the most fundamental view of the universe, but until evidence to suggest otherwise comes along, scientists can only work with the experimental data they have -- and so far, all of that suggests FTL transfer of information is impossible.

Therefore, drawing from the incredible amount of experimental data, it is reasonable to conclude that such stars could not have conspired with phenomenon on Earth, since the information would need to have left Earth, reached the star, then returned. The universe simply isn't old enough for such a round trip to have happened. If the max speed you can travel is 1,000 miles in an hour, and the universe is one hour old, then it is impossible to make a round trip to a destination 1,000 miles away. Therefore, if someone arrives from that destination, we know it is impossible for them to have conspired with someone from where you are at, since such a round trip would have taken at least two hours, and the universe is only one hour old.

Comment Re:3d-printed-exoskeleton LINER (Score 2) 41

This isn't entirely accurate. The 3D printing is important because it enabled a custom tailored design which prevents injury. Hence the "more fluid components" were 3D printed -- They just scan the person, and the computer prints an appropriately fitting shell. This is a major boon, since otherwise engineers would need to create custom molds everytime a new shaped leg came into the office.

Comment Re:Third-rate devices (Score 1) 141

My first Android device was a G1. Honestly, it was junk. The iPhone of the day blew it out of the water. It served as a showcase in the broader market for what Android could do, and helped Google gather real world usage data. This is arguably a "public beta" of sorts, from a development perspective.

Comment I think most of us figured this one out already. (Score 1) 37

There's always "those two" who start posting on each other's walls, obviously as just an excuse to chat, and then when they finally hookup they stop posting because they're too busy making out. Usually the Facebook mingling accelerates slowly -- The guy posts, the girl responds (or doesn't respond, so the guy takes a hint.) Etc. When marriage finally ensues, and the two live together, they leave Facebook almost entirely. Of course this is a reflection of the general social behavior of people. When we're young, we mingle with a lot of people until we find a mate, then drop out of the social sphere partially or fully. I've long suspected the highly social nature of teenagers and young adults is (partially) a social function to find romance, even if it's unintentional. Most people who have ran in various social circles will find there's some pseudodating within coed friend groups, where one pair will spend a bit more time with each other, which then either escalates into a real relationship, or the peliminary psuedodating fails and never progresses to real dating -- I.e. they start "posting on each others walls" a lot, until they drop out of the social circle (Facebook.)

Comment The /. community is causing more damage than Beta. (Score 0) 98

I used to really enjoy coming to /. -- even with Beta, even though it stinks. Now the entire comments section has just devolved into complaints. The real threat to /. isn't Evil Corporate Overlords, it's /tivism gone wrong. R.I.P. awesome comment community, you will be missed. :(

Comment Re:Why? (Score 1) 578

The problem is that a single company has control over the Olympics, and they are using that position to promote unreasonably priced services. The Olympics is a global event meant to bring nations together, and NBC has a strangle hold on watching that event -- And they have misused that privilege. It's pretty twisted to think that you can pay off the Olympics so people can only watch it on your overpriced Cable station. That's like Verizon paying off Facebook so you can't access their site from other cell carries. "Who said you're owed free service?" No one! It's just twisted a company can get away "owning" the Olympics in the first place, and more twisted they would abuse that power.

Comment Being realistic, Beta is salvageable. (Score 1) 2219

The primary problems are not in the overall look of the new site -- honestly, the new site looks pretty similar to the old one. Green, black text, white backgrounds, nested comments, different stories. In my personal use with the beta, it wouldn't be so bad if the width-spacing, and comment management were more like the old system. (And the horrendous frame needs to rot.) The actual look and aesthetic, as well as many of the new features, are not actually all that bad. If the comment rating, UID, sort order, and screen real estate usage were tweeked, the Beta site would be very similar to the current site. The addition of Javascript may make some older browser users unhappy, but realistically speaking, at this point even cell phones can run it without choking. The current site codebase has long standing issues which needed a rewrite, and it's reasonable to take that opportunity to introduce updates. As much as I hate some of the new changes, it isn't so bad it needs to be thrown out the window.

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