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Comment Re:Soon to be a felony in Illinois (Score 1) 515

It doesn't. However you would need to be convicted of the crime and then appeal with the hope that maybe a higher court would look at your case. So basically you might sit in jail for 4 years before they ever even decided to look at it.

And even once you are out of jail, you would be a convicted felon unless you managed to get your case to a court that overturned it.

This will create a chilling effect on people recording the police at a time when allegations over police wrongdoings are on the rise. (No matter which side you are on the Ferguson/etc debate, saying "You can't record the police or we'll arrest you" sends the completely WRONG message.)

Comment Re:freedom 2 b a moron (Score 4, Informative) 1051

My son has Autism/Asperger's as do I. Please stop spreading the "vaccines cause Autism" myth as it has been proven false more times than I care to count. The only study linking them was withdrawn, the author (Wakefield) found to have essentially made the whole thing up to sell his own MMR replacement vaccines, and then the author was stripped of his medical license.

To quote Penn and Teller, though, even if vaccines did cause Autism - WHICH THEY DON'T - not vaccinating to avoid autism would still be BS. You're possibly condemning kids to contract fatal diseases to avoid a condition that they can live with.

Comment Re:Vaccines are totally safe (Score 5, Insightful) 1051

I think the biggest weakness of vaccines is that they were/are so effective. Do you think the anti-vaccine movement would have the strength it has now if polio, whooping cough, measles, etc were as prevalent today as they were pre-vaccines? Of course not. If there was a big threat that your kid could get these diseases at any moment and wind up dead or seriously injured, there would be lines to get vaccinated.

Right now, we're dealing with small outbreaks of disease thanks to the anti-vaccine movement. Sadly, I think it will take a major epidemic before some people accept that vaccines not only prevent disease but that the disease is worse than any imagined "toxins" in the vaccines. I fear that many kids will need to die before the anti-vaccine movement goes away.

Comment Re:(In that Counter Strike voice) Terrorists Win (Score 1) 184

In the case of Israel, there is an actual, ongoing threat. If you have security theatre there, it *will* be compromised and the politicians *will* be taken to task for not implementing real security.

In the US, there isn't a big actual threat of terrorism. Yes, we have an attempt every now and then but the actual threat level is very low. However politicians want to 1) cover their rears and 2) award juicy contracts to companies that lobby them. So we get fancy new machines that aren't really effective but help the politicians say "I fought terrorism" during their re-election campaigns. Win-Win for the politicians and companies. Lose-lose for us and actual security.

Comment Re:Nope! (Score 1) 184

TSA? No, but basic airport screenings (pre-911 levels) are useful. You don't want someone bringing a loaded gun on board. The only post-911 security improvement I'd keep would be the locked, reinforced cockpit doors (and the passenger mentality of "take down anyone who causes trouble" versus the pre-911 "cooperate and nobody gets hurt").

Comment Re:This isn't really surprising at all (Score 1) 176

Exactly. His view is that you trade in every 3-4 years to always have the newest model car and likely least mechanical issues. My view is you drive your car 10+ years and get a new car when you start getting major mechanical issues. I don't drive many miles and take good care of my car, but problems do happen. I had a muffler/exhaust issue a couple of months ago that cost me about $600 to fix. This is only about 2 car payments, though. The car has been paid off for about 11 months, so even paying for a "2 month car payment" fix leaves me ahead financially.

Comment Re:PRIVATE encryption of everything just became... (Score 1) 379

Don't worry, the encryption problem will be handled by the Terrorist Encryption Prevention Act. Since we all* know that only terrorists use encryption, obviously banning it or allowing law enforcement backdoors is the sensible thing to do.

* Where "we all know" should be read as "Congress members know".

Comment Re:Trying to control a market they no longer own.. (Score 1) 270

I agree. Keurig is trying to sell Keurig 2.0 which has limited selection since you can't use "Keurig 1.0" pods in it. I'm guessing somebody will make a Keurig 1.0 compatible coffee brewer (if they haven't already). This will immediately have a large selection of pods that can be used in it, thanks to Keurig 1.0's success. A couple of years from now, talking about making quick cups of coffee might refer to SOME_OTHER_MAKER machines and not Keurig.

Comment Re:Someone has (Score 1) 270

We have a Keurig (which we won... didn't buy it) and were concerned about waste. My wife bought a reusable K-cup and buys coffee in bulk. She scoops in the appropriate amount of coffee into the reusable K-cup, brews her cup of coffee, and then dumps the grinds/washes the reusable K-cup. Every so often, she runs the reusable K-cup in the dishwasher.

Of course, Keurig 2.0 would flag her reusable K-cup as a non-allowed K-cup and wouldn't let her brew coffee. This is a big reason why we won't be buying a Keurig 2.0.

Comment Re:This isn't really surprising at all (Score 2) 176

We're doing the same with our cars. I got my new car in 2009 when my old car (a 1999 model IIRC) began having major problems. My wife's minivan we purchased before our first son was born in 2003. Both of our cars are paid off now and we're "basking" in not having car payments. (Where "basking" really means the money gets drained out of our bank accounts in other directions like home repairs.)

My father questioned why we wouldn't just replace our cars with newer models. He seems to think any car over 3 years old needs to be traded in for a new model otherwise you don't get the best trade-in value. I'm more of the philosophy that I use my car as much as I can before getting a new one. Yes, we might lose out on a couple thousand in trade-in, but every month without car payments is a month we don't have to pay around $300 on a car loan. A few of these months more than makes up for no trade-in.

Comment Re:Correcting the crappy summary (Score 1) 183

Don't worry about the big media companies. They'll get some government grants to help them stay in business (in exchange for lauding how wonderful the current government is). Smaller publications who are more critical of the government won't get these grants and will go out of business. To quote mcvos: "Win-win for big corps and the government. Lose for the people and the small independent press."

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