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Submission + - Volunteer work for for-profit companies is illegal in California

billrp writes: It seems it's illegal to provide volunteer work for a for-profit company in California. You must be compensated for your time, and of course taxes must be withheld. Here's a story about a small winery that was recently busted: http://www.wine-searcher.com/m...

But what about all the user data that is collected by Facebook, Google, etc.without compensation and then sold to advertisers?

Comment Re:Kinda funny how taxes set back the internet (Score 1) 324

I don't agree. People need their internet/need their connectivity and they will pay whatever they have to. Dumb phones are way cheaper than smart phones to buy and to run, but Apple just sold 39 million new expensive smart phones in 9 days. Many people will go without other basic needs to be internet connected as much as they want. I don't understand it myself (I like to vacation in places with no internet/no cell phone service), but I see it in others.
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Submission + - Your typing style is now, or could soon be, big data (tandfonline.com)

turning in circles writes: Some researchers have developed algorithms that equate the way you bang the keyboard with how you are feeling at the time. They demonstrated about 87% accuracy with joy, 81% accuracy with anger, and less accuracy with other emotions. The researchers describe how this could be helpful for computer interactions with users (since computers don't identify emotions very well) or possibly online therapy sessions. But if I were an employer who had people on keyboards all day, I'd want to know their emotional state of being (especially if they were in customer service, think The Circle?). Hi employees! Here's your new keyboard.

Comment Re: The world we live in. Police/ Fraternities (Score 1) 595

Hi, Personally, I want a much higher fraction of gun wielding, baton-toting, chokehold knowing police officers to be good people doing good things. 5-10% of the police force is a lot of bad apples, given their ability to cause mayhem. Teachers - they may not teach you, they may pick on you, but they won't kill you or beat you senseless. Probably.

As for fraternities, It is just incorrect to call fraternities wholesome things with adult oversight from local volunteers. Seriously? To solve the problem, though, instead of nail polish you could simply avoid going into fraternities or off-campus parties altogether. Especially freshman fall.

Comment Correlation does not prove causation (Score 1) 1

Seems much more likely to me that smart people get faster internet - either by moving to places with fast internet or implementing it - and they tend to have smart kids. So I don't think the fast internet is making the kids smarter, but rather that people with smarter kids demand faster internet. Of course, neither is likely causative of the other.

Submission + - What is this $41.8 Million of Ice Buckets going to do for ALS 1

turning in circles writes: The New York Times reported that donations to ALS topped $41.8 million. This is great for raising awareness about this horrible disease. The disease is horrible because not only does it have no cure, no one really understands the causes of it. I have heard pharmaceuticals abused for not producing a cure, but they don't know how. Sorry to throw cold water on this party (ahem), but aren't there other worthy charities that are a little closer to actually helping people right now, or soon, that would be better to donate to?

Submission + - States with faster Internet speeds have smarter people, study shows 1

An anonymous reader writes: The numbers—first crunched by the Internet provider comparison site HSI—show a distinct trend between faster Internet and higher ACT test scores. On the high end, Massachusetts scores big with an average Internet speed of 13.1Mbps, and an average ACT test score of 24.1. Mississippi, on the other hand, has an average speed of just 7.6Mbps and an average score of 18.9.

In between those two states, the other 48 fall in a positive correlation that, while not perfect, is quite undeniable. According to HSI's Edwin Ivanauskas, the correlation is stronger than that between household income and test scores, which have long been considered to be firmly connected to each other. The ACT scores were gathered from ACT.org, which has the official rankings and averages for the 2013 test, and the speed ratings were taken from Internet analytics firm Akamai’s latest report.

Comment Re:Or (Score 2) 82

It's Delaware. Give it a few years and there will probably be a form such as an electronic power of attorney, akin to a medical durable power of attorney, that will explain to the next of kin the rights and limitations of what can be passed on, and how to access the information. Probably other states will follow suit as soon as the wrinkles are worked out (and it is made clear what cloud-stored information is inheritable and what is not).

Comment Re:Moisture? (Score 1) 62

Beaverton, Oregon, is near Portland, and it can get very humid there, so adding the additional humidity inherent in evaporative cooling could cause a potential problem. Of course, since there is no air conditioning, you don't have a condensation problem. I looked at some other sites that use evaporative cooling to cool servers, and the systems only need to cycle on ten minutes in thirty, even in 100F weather, so you could use the fans to mitigate humidity to some extent.

However, that being said, I don't see this idea working in really hot and humid climates, such as Alabama.

Comment Re:Attractive females even more likely to get fund (Score 1) 98

No no no! It's a communal/national bias? belief? also held by Google , the NSF, and other organizations, that there is a value in increasing women's participation in STEM and therefore gives money to projects that preferentially train/enable women in the sciences.

I don't believe Google and the NSF are run by women, and yet they share the bias. Also, at least for NSF, you don't have to submit a photo, so it's not just hot chicks . . .

Comment Re:Easier option (Score 1) 158

It's as easy to teach a dog to sniff money chemicals as cocaine - they are trying to make the system much cheaper by using solid phase microextraction to collect chemicals in the air or on clothing near the suspected subjects and then run gas chromatography/mass spec. Instruments are cheaper to maintain than dogs. Presumably while there may be trace amounts of cocaine in the bills, there will be lost of other chemicals in higher abundance so the Instruments will be able to find them with higher sensitivity.

I think if you wrap the cash in plastic and then take a shower and wash your clothes, you can outwit this - so if you know there is a cash-sniffing instrument, you just take a few extra steps and bypass this whole process. The only one happy is the engineers who got paid to develop the (soon to be out of date) cash-sniffing instruments.

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