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Comment Re:Notsotoughbooks (Score 1) 225

by Shooter28 (#29995272) Attached to: Dell Rugged Laptops Not Quite Tough Enough
You miss the point. Even if Panasonic didn't have accidental insurance (they do), you still want the better product. Toughbooks and those like it aren't about getting your computer replaced if it breaks. It's about having the most reliable and durable product you can have, because under harsh operational conditions you need your shit to work without having to wait for your replacement to be mailed to you overseas, or keeping a stock of backup laptops that you have to transfer new data to daily and hope you can salvage whatever data you lost that day.

You want whatever product will hold up the best so you don't lose data/time/resources to mishaps.
Privacy

Submission + - Facebook to change privacy policy (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by Retardical_Sam
Retardical_Sam writes: Facebook has agreed to make changes to protect users' personal information on the social networking site, including the way data is accessed by third-party developers, Canada's privacy commissioner said Thursday. Canadian officials have been negotiating with Facebook since the Office of the Privacy Commissioner released a report a month ago that argued the social network breaches Canadian privacy law. Facebook agreed to make changes dealing with third-party applications like quizzes and games, deactivation of accounts, the personal identification of non-users and accounts of users who die.
Earth

Submission + - Climate change? There's an elephant in the room.

Submitted by Morlenden
Morlenden writes: Whether or not climate change is caused by human activity, there are several other ecological problems caused by a increasing human population. A constant focus on climate change leaves these other problems un-addressed, perhaps leading to problems ahead where the carrying capacity of the Earth is reduced by ecological damage even while the human population continues to increase.
Medicine

Depression May Provide Cognitive Advantages 512

Posted by CmdrTaco from the see-it's-an-advantage dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Paul W. Andrews and J. Anderson Thomson, Jr. argue in Scientific American that although depression is considered a mental disorder, depression may in fact be a mental adaptation which provides real benefits. This is not to say that depression is not a problem. Depressed people often have trouble performing everyday activities, they can't concentrate on their work, they tend to socially isolate themselves, they are lethargic, and they often lose the ability to take pleasure from such activities such as eating and sex. So what could be so useful about depression? 'Depressed people often think intensely about their problems,' write the authors. 'These thoughts are called ruminations; they are persistent and depressed people have difficulty thinking about anything else. Numerous studies have also shown that this thinking style is often highly analytical. They dwell on a complex problem, breaking it down into smaller components, which are considered one at a time.' Various studies have found that people in depressed mood states are better at solving social dilemmas and there is evidence that people who get more depressed while they are working on complex problems in an intelligence test tend to score higher on the test (PDF). 'When one considers all the evidence, depression seems less like a disorder where the brain is operating in a haphazard way, or malfunctioning. Instead, depression seems more like the vertebrate eye — an intricate, highly organized piece of machinery that performs a specific function.'"
Space

Submission + - Astrophysicists find planet that should not exist (latimes.com)

Submitted by SpuriousLogic
SpuriousLogic writes: Scientists have discovered a planet that shouldn't exist. The finding, they say, could alter our understanding of orbital dynamics, a field considered pretty well settled since the time of astronomer Johannes Kepler 400 years ago. The planet is known as a "hot Jupiter," a gas giant orbiting the star Wasp-18, about 330 light years from Earth. The planet, Wasp-18b, is so close to the star that it completes a full orbit (its "year") in less than an Earth day, according to the research, which was published in the journal Nature. Of the more than 370 exoplanets — planets orbiting stars other than our sun — discovered so far, this is just the second with such a close orbit. The problem is that a planet that close should be consumed by its parent star in less than a million years, say the authors at Keele University in England. The star Wasp-18 is believed to be about a billion years old, and since stars and the planets around them are thought to form at the same time, Wasp-18b should have been reduced to cinders ages ago.

Comment Re:you are of course legally correct (Score 1) 476

by Shooter28 (#29174971) Attached to: Model Drops Lawsuit After Outing Anonymous Blogger

and completely morally bankrupt (in your argument here, not in general, no personal attack)

if the first amendment is not vigorously protected from idiotic legal decisions, the entire basis of the society upon which this might legal code rests begins to decay

my use of the term "fiduciary duty" is still 100% fine in this situation, since the use of term is not beholden to a purely legalistic interpretation. all businesses have, indeed, a fiduciary duty (not in legal terms) to protect and foster the trust of their clients, just as you note. that i am not using the term with 100% legality is besides the point, because there is a larger legal issue here in play that must be fought, however shoddy the ammunition

the legal code has no meaning if it corrodes the principles upon which it stands, which, in this case, it obviously does (the first amendment). despite all polemics and verbose gyrations to the contrary, despite the (supposed) legal preeminence of whomever is authoring such polemics

i respect no legal decision that obviously abridges the first amendment, and i expect no one else to either. of course, who the hell am i to declare my moral preeminence here over the decisions of those far more legally learned than myself? lots of people believe in such self-grandiosity, from al qaeda terrorists to morons who shoot abortion doctors. you would and should retort that this is a dangerous position for an obvious legal buffoon like myself to take, without a firm understanding of the subtleties involved. leave the legalities to the professionals

i would respond that normally, yes, it is not my position to speak, but when vital concepts are abridged, it is my duty to speak. the questionable opinions of legal buffoons like myself are moot as long as the legal structure and those charged with upholding the essential principles of the country actually do that job, and do it zealously. they haven't done so here

for the common people such as myself may not be legal scholars, but we're not idiots, and we will not tolerate a clear and obvious stray from a clear and obvious directive, which the ruling that compels google to divulge the identity of blogger obviously violates the spirit of the first amendment, if not the minuscule and mechanical letter of the law

most of the time those declaring their moral ascendency over legal rulings are deluded quacks. but every once in awhile, the system is in error, and the common layperson actually has it right. that is the case with the decision to divulge the blogger's identity: the legal system has failed to hold the most important principles up. and so we legal buffoons take notice, and we should take notice. the stakes are too high not too

so be careful that your fine tuned legal interpretations do not provide you cover for ignoring the most important principles in play here. not that you are doing such a thing, but someone in the system here obviously is. it effects us, and it is important to us, when the first amendment is grossly violated as is the case here. the first amendment should be important to you to

not that i am saying it isn't, but if you think that the use of the term "fiduciary duty" is incorrectly used in the fight against a completely bogus legal decision that obviously, even to a legal buffoon, goes against the first amendment, i would simply ask that you mute your objection in the name of the more important principles in play here

Maybe if you used punctuation I'd read this. You may have good points, but by refusing to use capital letters, you're telling me you are either lazy or stupid.
Windows

Submission + - China Jails Four for Microsoft XP Piracy (pcmag.com)

Submitted by adeelarshad82
adeelarshad82 writes: Chinese court has jailed four people for spreading their bootleg "Tomato Garden" version of Microsoft's Windows XP program, in what the Xinhua news agency called the nation's biggest software piracy case. Off the four men Hong Lei, the creator of the downloadable "Tomato Garden Windows XP" software, was jailed for three and a half years by a court in Suzhou in eastern China, Xinhua.

Comment Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft (Score 1) 520

by Shooter28 (#29148257) Attached to: Ask Blizzard About Starcraft2, Diablo III, WoW, or Battle.net

That's the past. Death Knights, as you know, start playing open world content at about level 60.

I don't play WOW, but is there an option for Death Knights to start at level 1? For example, a new player might wanna be a Death Knight, but may not want to skip all the early content.

No there is no option for a death knight to start at level 1. You cannot, however, be a death knight until you have leveled another character to at least 55.

So for a new player to create a Death Knight, he still has to go through 55 levels with another character, and therefore gets to see the old world content still.

Comment Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft (Score 1) 520

by Shooter28 (#29148025) Attached to: Ask Blizzard About Starcraft2, Diablo III, WoW, or Battle.net
Go run heroics. The problem with your argument is that others have already done heroics, worked to 10 man, then on to 25 man raids. New players hit 80 and think they can raid immediately. It's so easy to get some badge gear and then pug some Naxx runs. Seriously, don't expect people to carry you though Trial of the Champion just because you hit 80 2 weeks ago.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - SPAM: FCC won''t find wireless world very submissive

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "With word that the Federal Communications Commission will next week begin to take a broad look at the wireless industry and how it is regulated, one wonders: What took so long? The Government Accountability Office pretty much wondered the same thing in June with a report on the FCC's handing of the wireless industry. That report, which was none-too-popular at the FCC, said the agency needed to reexamine its handling of a number of growing problems. The key areas of concern include billing, terms of service, customer service...and the list goes on. [spam URL stripped]"
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