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Comment Re:The comment may also be complex.. (Score 2, Funny) 660

Sir, your attitude is a breath a fresh air. Any programmer who doesn't submit a formal and rigorous proof of every algorithm they write to a peer reviewed academic research journal is an incompetent hack who couldn't program his way out of a cardboard box.

Programmers who pick and choose their development practices based on the specific requirements of the project at hand are ignorant fools who reduce the beautiful and perfect art of programming to a mere act of common labor. It's disgraceful, I tell you!

Comment Prepare for a "Blizzard" of frivilous lawsuits... (Score 0, Troll) 200

It looks like the bots must be built using BWAPI, an open source API layer for Starcraft that uses ChaosLauncher, an unofficial Starcraft hack. Seeing as how Blizzard is a super litigious bunch of assholes (read up on bnetd [1], WOW Glider [2], and Scapegaming [3] for a sample) won't they just file a baseless lawsuit against the people responsible for this competition? Given their past behavior, I can't imagine that they would be able to restrain themselves.

<rant>
Honestly, Blizzard makes great games, but they have always fought against free speech, intellectual, and technical freedoms. I hope that Starcraft II falls flat on its face for forcing Internet registration to play the single player game [4] and disabling LAN play [5] in the hopes of increasing profit. The sooner that company fails, the better.
</rant>

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bnetd#Blizzard_takedown_demand_and_lawsuit
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOWGlider
[3] http://www.rfcexpress.com/lawsuit.asp?id=51340
[4] This has not yet been announced, but it's naive to think that it won't be the case
[5] http://kotaku.com/5304113/no-lan-play-for-starcraft-ii

Comment Re:OpenDNS (Score 1) 180

Nope, not making up the censorship claim:
Read more here.

Sure, you can turn off the NXDOMAIN redirection, but why would I want to use a DNS service that has it enabled by default, censors political speech, and is slower than my ISP's existing DNS?

You realize what OpenDNS is, right? Essentially, a bunch of investors bought the OpenDNS project and said to themselves "How can we squeeze money out of this?", completely discarding the goal that brought the project into existence: AN OPEN DNS SYSTEM. Today, OpenDNS is open in name only, and exists only to profit from people who are foolish enough to willingly hand over their private information (essentially, a list of every site you ever visit).

Comment Re:OpenDNS (Score 1) 180

OpenDNS is garbage.

They hijack NXDOMAIN results to provide ads. They host DNS servers that are farther away (hop-wise) than your ISP's probably are (despite their misleading claims to the contrary). They censor certain domains and redirect others. Given that they do all of the above, they probably practice the "industry standard" of selling NXDOMAIN logs to domain squatters. Anything to make a buck, huh?

No thanks. Just because it has the word "Open" in it, doesn't make it a good thing.

Comment Re:Simple Solution (Score 1) 423

But maybe living in Brooklyn has made me bitter.

Yes, it sounds like it has. Bitterness is like a poison pill, prepared out of anger, that you swallow yourself. When you define yourself by who (and what) you hate, you succumb to crass tribalism and limit your ability to make decisions logically and dispassionately. Who cares what the "shaggy haired guys" are doing? Only the man who is dissatisfied with his own life.

To me, it sounds like you have surrended choice and control over your own life to the false short term ideals of mainstream society. If you had control over your own life, you wouldn't feel that repressed anger that all slaves feel when they see someone who is truly free. That anger leads to the frantic desire to control others, as you've demonstrated with your posts.

Sincerely,

A shaggy haired guy who's hair you'd love to cut

Comment Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright (Score 1) 423

Personally, I think the real story is that two noblemen (Warner Bros & News Corp) have acted to ensure that commoners (in this case, Edwyn Collins, but really any non-corporate entity) cannot own property. Of course the nobility believes that only a nobleman can own property! If a commoner claims to own property, he's obviously lying. Commoners cannot own property. Welcome to Feudalism 2.0(TM).

Comment Re:No (Score 1) 616

And what exactly was my point? Let me quote myself:

After a little reading, the issue is not as clear cut as you seem to think it is.

Original poster seems to think ELF's claims are patently impossible, there exists conflicting and ongoing research on the issue, therefore issue is not 100% clear cut. QED.

Comment Re:No (Score 1) 616

Yes, but this kind of garbage is symptomatic of the larger bout of anti-intellectualism that's afflicting our society.

That's a silly thing to say considering the number of scientific studies that have shown an increased risk of childhood Leukemia for kids living near AM transmitters. After a little reading, the issue is not as clear cut as you seem to think it is.

Comment Re:Frankly (Score 5, Interesting) 319

Nope. There's a famous historical anecdote about this very issue.

Twice a year a celebrated Misereri by Allegri, an early seventeenth-century composer, was performed by the choir, but the work, which existed only in MS., was so highly esteemed that to copy it was a crime visited with excommunication. Young Mozart nevertheless determined that he would secure a copy, and after two hearings he had the whole thing so perfectly on paper that next year Dr. Burney, the musical historian, was able to publish it in London.

Mozart had to worry about excommunication as punishment for his piracy at the time. If the RIAA were functioning in Mozart's time as it is today (100+ year copyrights), he would have been prosecuted.

Source: http://www.music-with-ease.com/mozart.html

Comment Re:Scandalous (Score 1) 340

It doesn't have to be called a constitution nor have "constitution" written at the top in big letters in order to be a constitution.

Correct. But a constitution does have to provide a foundation for the law of the land. A whole bunch of disparate court rulings and royal edicts do not meet the definition. There is no legal definition or agreement for what is or is not part of the UK constitution. These components of the "constitution" can be easily overridden.

You are arguing that the amorphous legal traditions of the UK are its constitution. This is silly. You might as well argue that English common law is a "constitution" as well. It's equally as silly.

Of course, arguing definitional semantics is pretty silly in and of itself... :)

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