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Comment Re:Translation (Score 2) 85

Exactly right.

The incentive for people to contribute to a closed source project isn't all that much. Remember that open source isn't a gift by your company to the public, it is an offer of trade -- you let the public have the source, the public provides you with feedback (bug fixes, enhancements, etc.) and gets its suggestions provided back to it. It's a circle.

What you are suggesting sounds like you want the benefit of that deal, while negating the benefit for those who are doing work for you. Psychologically, it's a hard sell to say to someone -- "mow my lawn for me and I'll sell you a lemonade afterward at full price --- um yeah, I'd also sell you the lemonade at full price if you don't mow my lawn." You aren't going to get many takers for that deal, and the ones who do take it will have questionable motives (scoping out the property) or will just be naive and gullible (not a great foundation to build upon).

Comment Re:Likely misdemeanor mishandling of classified in (Score 1) 434

The statute the sent Oliver North to prison might apply here. https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...

Paragraph b, aside from other punishments, bars a person from holding public office.

The way I see it, the emails were filed with a public officer of the united states as required by par. a (HRC was a public officer so the emails sent/received were filed with her personally) and by deleting the emails, they were certainly "mutilated, obliterated, or destroyed". If deleting emails filed with the SOS is illegal, then that's good for 3 years in the pokey.

Next, under par. b, it is clear that HRC had custody of the records and again, destroyed them. If she is found guilty of par. b, she simply can't be president -- she couldn't be dog catcher. She'd be fully and finally retired.

Comment Re:Likely misdemeanor mishandling of classified in (Score 0) 434

The Rethuglikans are freaking out about Hillary. Absolutely losing their shit in a big way.

Let's be clear hear. HRC is a warmongering neo-con wallstreet cocksucker on the Democrat team. Some warmongering neo-con wallstreet cocksuckers on the Republican team hate her because she is on the other team.

I hate them all because they are war mongering neo-con wallstreet cocksuckers. I don't give a fuck about what team they're on -- I care about what they stand for.

Submission + - Men who harass women online are quite literally losers, new study finds

AmiMoJo writes: The men most likely to harass women online are the men most likely to have their own problems. That bit of validation comes courtesy Michael Kasumovic and Jeffrey Kuznekoff, researchers at the University of New South Wales and Miami University, respectively. For their latest study, published in the journal PLOS One last week, the duo watched how men treated women during 163 plays of the video game Halo 3. As they watched the games play out and tracked the comments that players made to each other, the researchers observed that — no matter their skill level, or how the game went — men tended to be pretty cordial to each other. Male players who were good at the game also tended to pay compliments to other male and female players. Some male players, however — the ones who were less-skilled at the game, and performing worse relative their peers — made frequent, nasty comments to the female gamers. In other words, sexist dudes are literally losers.

Comment Re:There's Very Few Things (Score 3, Insightful) 80

You are conflating a world that is becoming warmer with a world that just *is* warmer. It may be true (I take no position) that a world that is 4-5 C warmer is better for certain classes of poor people (e.g., subsistence farmers). But a world that is changing rapidly is a calimity to poor people tied to the land, especially in a modern world with national boundaries and private property where you just can't pick up and move like our paleolithic ancestors would have.

Comment Re:So your life is determined by a couple of tests (Score 1) 162

The high school level is a recommendation that is based on the teacher's evaluation, not on a test. There is a test, but schools can only adjust their recommendation upwards if a student exceeds expectations on the test, they cannot lower it if the student does badly. Not all schools will let you enroll at a level exceeding the recommendation, but some do if they feel grades and performance are sufficient. Some high schools that teach at multiple levels have a "bridge year" which is the same for everyone, after which they perform their own evaluation. So the system isn't as rigid as it seems. Even so, I do agree that the UK system is better if it can accommodate all those students taking classes at their own level (no idea how that works out in practice).

I'd like to add that I have never heard of anyone being viewed in a negative light for having climbed a level or two, on the contrary. First of all, it's not public knowledge and employers do not need to know. Second: going that route demonstrates perseverance... which is probably why not a single person I have ever met was hesitant to admit that they got a lower recommendation and later made up for it.

Comment Re:Technology to deliver personalized lessons (Score 1) 162

In the Netherlands, we have had something like that for a long time now. After elementary school (at 12 years), children receive a recommendation for one of the various levels of high school: from lower vocational education (VMBO, 4 years) to pre-university (VWO, 6 years). It is possible to go from one level to the next, by graduating and then enrolling in the last-but-one year of the next level. That means you lose a year going up each level, which gives you an idea of the difference between the levels. Some schools that teach at multiple levels will allow you to switch during your education, sometimes with some remedial summer school being necessary.

From what I understand, the schools in the UK teach each subject at various levels, and you can sort of decide for yourself to what level you want to take each subject. That could be even better if the class roster is flexible enough: good students could race ahead to the more advanced levels for some subjects, while taking the stuff they have more difficulty with at the regular pace. In a flexible system like that you do need to have strong and continuous guidance: some kids need a lot more structure and hand-holding, and for that age group you need to have some rules in place to ensure that each kid picks the classes and levels that they can cope with, and realises their maximum potential (instead of just coasting on an easy selection of subjects that isn't worth squat).

Another advantage of such a system is that a student does not need fear they'll flunk and are held back an entire year; if they get inadequate scores on a few subjects, they can just repeat those the next year and continue to level up in their other subjects.

Comment Re:Seriously... (Score 2) 245

Same thing happens in business and government. That's what you get if you let MBAs run things: management by the numbers. Insight is replaced by spreadsheets, performance is measured on pretty dashboards and delimited by SLAs... and the funny things is: in the end, those managers / politicians get exactly what they asked for. Too bad it's not what they wanted though.

Comment Re:Investigating if laws were broken (Score 1) 312

Ignorance of the law is not and has never been an excuse.

This is a legal principle that literally goes back to Greek antiquity.

How Heller-ishly convenient. There are so many criminal laws on the books, it is impossible to know them all (ask the ABA, they tried to simply count them, which is much less than _knowing_ them, and failed: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB... ). And yet an individual person without ranks of lawyers to do the research, is presumed to know each and every one. This is extremely dangerous because it gives those in power the ability to lock up anyone they don't like, which means that an individual's freedom and liberty -- core American values right? -- are subject to the whim of any dickweed with a little power.

Comment Re:No! (Score 1) 227

When I worked on defense stuff, cell phones and cameras were forbidden (most people left theirs in the car). Private laptops and any other device with storage on it were outlawed as well. And the penalty for bringing it in was to have the equipment (or at least the disk) crushed; as happened to a contractor who was not aware of the rules and brought in his laptop.

Phones didn't work anyway as we worked in TEMPEST rooms. We had internet but it was heavily controlled as well. Even so... smuggling out a teensy thumb drive wouldn't have been too hard.

Comment Re:Fix It Again Tony (Score 1) 173

I've worked for a bit on my girlfriends W126 (a 500 SEL, it was her dad's car, bought in '82). It's a nice mechanic's car and easy to work on even for novices like myself; if you want a "project car" that offers plenty of comfort, and if you don't mind the crappy milage, then I would recommend the Benz. Just check for rust in the usual spots.

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