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Comment Re:Just to be Clear... (Score 4, Informative) 133

These private collages, such as university of phoenix, result in 90% of the student loan defaults while they service less than 10% of students. That staggering percentage is why the Government is going after these institutions. There are MANY private schools that aren't targeted because they don't have these problems.

Comment Re:The project known as F-35 (Score 1) 843

If it's a kill with a missile it's not dog fighting. This tendency to call any kill within visual range dog fighting is inaccurate. The maneuverability becomes pretty irrelevant once the missile(s) locked on target. Your only real countermeasure at the point is flares, chaff or ECM depending on missile type.

Dog fighting as it's being referred to in this article is chasing down and trying to hit them with a cannon. It just doesn't happen anymore, the last time a plane was shot down with another planes cannon was during Vietnam. Bullets are absolutely worthless unless you are pretty close together and moving at subsonic speeds. A plane like the F-22 or F-35 with supercruise can simply gun the speed and a bullet will never hit them because it can't close the distance before gravity takes it, unless the one firing the cannon is 20' behind them.

This effort to define dog fighting as any fight within visual range is just BS to try to harm the F-35 program. I'd rather buy F-35's at this point because they are cheaper than an F-18 to build (current build costs on the F-35 are 80 million while the F-18 costs well over 100 million). And their electronic capabilities far exceed everything else, and those capabilities are what will win the next war.

Comment Re:Yes dogfights still happen (Score 2) 843

The "dog fighting" in the wiki article is including planes shot down with missiles. I personally recall some of those downed aircraft and they were downed with missiles not guns. Dog fighting in reference to the this article and the "report" is in reference to fighting with cannons, not missiles. Missiles have made dog fighting a thing of the past. Modern aircraft (except for the A-10) don't even carry enough bullets to pull the trigger more than once or twice, and that includes almost every fighter plane in the world still in service.

Dog fighting is a top gun myth, it doesn't exist and hasn't for a long long time.

Comment Re:The project known as F-35 (Score 2) 843

There hasn't been a dog fight between aircraft since Air-to-Air missiles such as the sidewinder appeared (IIRC it was around Vietnam that the last dog fight occurred). With the F-35 the air-force made a tactical decision that missile technology had made dog fighting a thing of the past.

Missile tech is so good these days that fighters can kill each other without ever seeing the other plane. And the missiles are so good they are very difficult to evade once locked in.

Comment Uber has demonstrated contempt for the law (Score 5, Interesting) 334

Regardless of whether the laws as written are correct (I would argue that the very existence of a "medallion" that costs more than the filing fee is evidence of collusion between the taxi authority and the taxi's) Uber has shown direct contempt for the rule of law. Their CEO's frequently ignore court orders, not only that but they frequently do the exact opposite of what a court has ordered. In Korea the authorities were forced to start fining drivers record amounts, in Germany the authorities had to threaten to seize cars and fines in excess of $25K. None of this should be necessary as Uber should have shut down their platform in the area when the courts ruled against the legality of their service. If they didn't like the ruling they should have complied while challenging the ruling.

I've said all along the only way to get Uber to comply with the law is stop arresting drivers and start arresting executives for facilitating breaking the law. I'm happy to see the French are finally going to follow through at least partly, I doubt targeting these executives will do the trick the Uber corporate executives will simply let them burn, though the seizure of communications may give them the evidence they need to really get the law breaking to stop, that is to issue InterPOL red notices (warrants) for the CEO and heads of Uber corporate. I firmly believe that Uber acts in total disregard of the law because of their CEO and that the only way to get it to stop is directly go after that CEO. Once he's looking at a jail term I suspect Uber will suddenly become a law abiding business.

IMO Uber acts as a corrupt organization with contempt of the law and should be targeted under RICO statutes.

Comment I fail to see how this matters (Score 3, Insightful) 133

Google can never be a traditional monopoly. If they abuse their status people will simply use different search engines. There is exactly zero cost to use a different search engine. This idea that we need to treat Google like ATT (who is a actual gateway to people they serve) is absurd on every level.

The problem for these people is that they haven't been able to convince others to use different search or haven't even bother trying. There should be no case for anti-trust actions against an actor that has zero cost to switch.

Comment Re:Those took constitutional amendments (Score 1) 1083

The government and the courts have a LONG history of ignoring what the 14th amendment says because it's inconvenient to actually take it at it's word. The expanding recognition of the power the of the 14th amendment to restrict government action is good for EVERYONE. There are still many areas where people are treated differently by government based on arbitrary and often capricious criteria. This country will only gain in freedom as those laws fall and the power of the legislature is reined in.

There are far to many laws on the books of the federal and state's code that should not be there. Such as the recent raisin ruling that revoked the ability of the state to seize peoples assets without payment. Or this law that said two people of one type are more important that two people of a different type. Or the laws that proceeded it like those that made it illegal for a two people of different ethnic backgrounds to marry.

This country gains much by this decision expanding the recognition of the powers that are restricted to the people alone by the 14th. The 14th should easily be in the top 5 most important amendments to the constitution but the courts have willfully ignored the restraints it places on government. This ruling finally places into precedent the power of the 14th.

Comment Re:How is this news for nerds? (Score 1) 1083

The majority opinion most certainly states, numerous times, that this is about equal protection under the law. (the 14th amendment). It is the entire basis of the opinion. You are falling for the snowjob Scalia tried to pull (he does so in nearly every fucking ruling he dissents on) and you didn't even bother to read the verdict.

Stop trusting what the press is telling you the ruling says and read it for yourself for once.

Comment Re:Another great Scalia line (Score 1) 1083

You are completely incorrect. In the Gore/Bush ruling the supreme court over-ruled the supreme court of Florida that had already ruled and ordered them to do something else entirely that was NOT in Florida law.

The only correct response, in that it would have abided state rights as you claim, from the SCOTUS to that suit would have been to simply refuse to hear the case because it was up to Florida and Florida alone to decide and Flordia's Supreme court and already ordered a recount.

The SCOTUS completely walked all over state rights with that case.

Comment Re:Flexible Automation is Hard (Score 1) 45

That was my impression as well. You got some CEO spouting buzz words about automation because Chinese wages are rising so fast that they are nearing 50% of the west. So he claims he's going to automate it all but he didn't realize how hard automation actually is. I remembered the interviews, he was going to build a robot factory and turn out 10K robots a year. The numbers were ridiculous, I just figured he was as full of shit as western CEO's.

Comment Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score 1) 591

This wasn't a 5-4 split, it was 6-3. We have these splits because some judges play partisan politics and there are sometimes genuine disagreement about meanings.

To rule as Scalia would have liked would have made a mockery of the other 2500 pages. You had a single sentence, nay a single word that was incorrect against 2500 pages that said the exact opposite. To take this one word as paramount over the remaining 2500 pages is the real mockery.

This is EXACTLY what Roberts said in the opinion. The one word is an error, and because of that it's clear the meaning is ambiguous when you consider the totality of the law. Because of that ambiguity they then turn to the intent of the law per their own precedent and the intent is clear, particularly in the rest of this rather large law. To take this word as paramount over the remainder of the law would have required them to rewrite entire chapters of the law.

There's nothing partisan about this ruling. If the ACA was going to fall it should have fell with the first ruling. Bringing in a typo from a single sentence to eviscerate a law that spans 2500 pages is insanity and that would have been partisan.

Comment Mars is stupid (Score 5, Interesting) 136

Mars presents untold challenges because it's so bloody cold, it's atmosphere is so thin and it's magnetic field is non-existent. We should be FAR more interested in Venus. I'd love to see what would happen if we dumped a canister of extremeophile bacteria into Venus. They could remove the sulfur from the atmosphere in time and actually allow the heat that makes Venus a hell to escape into space. And it would be FAR easier to manipulate Venus into loosing atmosphere than it would be to gain atmosphere on Mars. Venus also has a strong magnetic field like the earth. We'd also have the advantage on Venus of being able to live in the clouds. Normal earth air and earth pressures would float in the Venusian atmosphere. Not only that but if we can learn to slow the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus it would only help us on earth.

We like mars because we can land on it without problems but it's devoid of life for a reason. Venus is far more interesting in my opinion. We have microbes on earth right now that could easily survive on Venus. This isn't true with mars because the UV on mars will kill even microbial life.

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