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Comment Re:the information has been PUBLICALLY presented.. (Score 5, Informative) 273

This is research that has a military application and as such should perhaps have been more restrictive to start with.

Arguably, most research can have military application. If we start asking all such projects to self sensor themselves, the scientific process gets cut off at the knees. The dividing line between civilian and military applications is vacuous at best (think Internet).

Comment Re:You don't understand the Major in Major depress (Score 1) 344

So denying that claim based on photos is harsh, but possibly tenable.

Using the photos as a basis for further investigation is tenable, relying on the photos as the only evidence is jumping to conclusions. I never said it was the wrong conclusion, but it is effectively making a choice with little and incomplete information. Much like we don't know what she told Manulife about her illness, Manulife also don't know the circumstances surrounding the reason she was at the beach. There are many beaches in Quebec, for all we know, this could have been in her back yard on one of her good days.

Comment Re:That bank would be bankrupt fastly (Score 1) 344

Everybody that uses social networks

I think this phrase effectively summarizes the problem with this approach: are banks going to refuse to offer service to someone who doesn't have a Facebook account? If not, then cancel your account before applying to a loan or lie; thus rendering the practice useless. However, if the banks do refuse service to people without social media accounts (completely, not selected services as mentioned in TFA), we'll have effectively created a world where if you don't exist in Google, you don't exist.

and they won't jump to conclusion that fast.

From TFA:

in 2009 a woman in Quebec stopped receiving disability payments for major depression after Manulife decided, based on beach vacation photos on Facebook, that she seemed happy enough to work after all.

There's no mention of any further investigation, but this sounds like jumping to conclusions to me.

Comment Re: The way things are supposed to be. (Score 1) 472

Perhaps the collapse of the society began before it became matriarchal. The patriarchs might have just fouled up the whole system and given up. The fact that societies collapsed shortly after becoming matriarchal does not mean the two are causally related. There is not sufficient evidence to do more than hypothesize about it.

Comment Re:Welcome to real world (Score 1) 542

They already host it, deliver it, take care of all billing. It's not like there aren't app review sites all over the web already.

Charging $99 for this service might seem less problematic if it wasn't the only channel by which you could distribute apps. Not to say that it's not a valid model, but it surprises me that hard core capitalists aren't ripping on this as a circumvention of the mechanisms that make the free market work. Having to pay the $99 dollars to distribute the app is not the problem. Being required to do so is.

Comment Re:Summary is incorrect (Score 1) 420

Of course using wood extensively as a construction material as a way of doing carbon sequestration has a big risk factor associated with it (See the Great Fire of Chicago). Seems to me it would be less risky to periodically cut down the fast growth lumber and send it into the sun. Then again, that sounds slightly James Bond supervillain insane (I say this while petting a white cat).

Comment Re:Einstein replied "Check your measurements, son" (Score 1) 1088

Physics was presented with evidence of the lack of causality almost 40 years ago, it's just that until now we haven't had any real evidence.

You realize that's a contradiction? If we haven't had any real evidence until now, then we weren't presented with any 40 years ago. If we were, then it's not true we haven't had any until now.

The evidence showed up 40 years ago as a result of this experiment. Because the neutrinos went faster than the speed of light, they traveled back in time and were observed in 1970. Incidentally, right around the time of the beginning of the Unix epoch.

Comment Re:What you call optimize, they call cooking? (Score 1) 285

I'd hate to say this, but company $A having an algorithm that might be tuned however they damn well please does not constitute cooking... unless, there is a master defined algorithm that every search provider must follow.

It might be considered cooking if the algorithm is found to process results relating to a particular party differently than those relating to every other party. A search algorithm should be mostly input agnostic, however, suppressing SPAM, for example, is a legitimate reason not to be. The line between tuning and willful introduction of bias, or flat out censorship, can be quite blurry. My head hurts just thinking about it.

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