Agree. The AT&T mob were not hammered in court for finding a flaw, they were hammered because they attempted to use the flaw to extort money.

that's a valid complaint

some scientific discoveries go against conventional wisdom and are originally ridiculed. for example, some australian scientists discovered stomach ulcers are caused by a certain species of bacteria in the 1980s. they were rejected, laughed at, people got angry at them. the belief at the time was acid and spicy food formed ulcers. wrong. eventually they won the nobel prize for medicine for their discovery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

but this process is mediated by serious researchers who, adhering to the scientific method, are compelled to reverse themselves in spite of their preliminary reactions

meanwhile, we have antivaxxers, moon landing deniers, GM food ignorance, creationists, climate change deniers, fluoride fearmongers, 9/11 conspiracy theorists babbling about burning airplane fuel and steel, etc... assorted douchebag crackpots who are absolutely, undeniably factually wrong, and oftentimes dangerous (to public health, for example), but enthusiastically keep spreading their lies nonetheless

stupid shitbags like this for example are working very, very hard to kill children:

http://njvaccinationchoice.org...

not they they understand their efforts only work to kill children: they're ignorant braindead assholes, pridefully arrogant in their lack of education

so they need to be shut down in other ways. your freedom to be a moron ends when your beliefs put my life and liberty in danger. so thank you, google

google's algorithm would downplay revolutionary new scientific evidence, like the ulcer causing bacterium, indeed. but this is a short time period, squarely in the realm of brand new scientific research, where, after enough weight, change would come quickly, and so to google's algorithm, if it gets its signals from solid peer reviewed journals that present genuine science

meanwhile, lies and idiocy are not peer reviewed and grow like fungus in the dark and will never, ever change

so they need to be buried at the bottom of google as the brain numbing, sometimes genuinely dangerous puerile prideful ignorance they are

"Fact" engines such as Watson normally produce several results (facts) with a confidence rating on each and can show their "reasoning" step by step. The step by step reasoning is much more useful as a confirmation method than the source code. Source code won't help you much unless you have a solid background in statistical analysis.

No, and that's the point.

Search is already neutral, it's the order of results that upsets people because by definition, ranking cannot be neutral. An intelligent search engine such as IBM's Watson gives a confidence rating on it's "facts", it can produce multiple answers each with a confidence ranking. They can also explain in excruciating detail how they arrived at the answer, and they can do it better than humans. Technology is a tool, a hammer that can be used to build or destroy a civilization.

Speaking of style over function, I take it the new phone is not using LiquidMetal for it's metal. They teased a liquid metal ad last week. But it looks like just polished metal to me. Or is it? Apple's exclusive rights purchase for liquid Metal technology I beleive ran out a week ago, making it possible this could be a liquid metal phone case.

Yes, up until Henry Ford doubled his workers wages, introduced a 40hr week, and proved the Scrooges wrong.

Yeah, that's what they said when Henry Ford used it.

I'm sure those on the other side of the debate would argue that it's just as political and arbitrary to claim that it *is* a planet, beyond pure inertia (i.e. because it had always been called a "planet" until then).

Precisely.

Now I think you're trying too hard to rationalise the "haters" label. As I said, you don't have to agree with their opinion, nor the way they went about getting the result they wanted.

But that doesn't change the fact that dismissing their opinions and actions purely as "haters" was quite silly.

If the argument had started to become too personal, then this sort of concerted attempt to justify that way of thinking simply makes it worse. As you said, two wrongs don't make a right.

intolerance itself

intolerance of intolerance

not the same thing

pointing a gun at a man

pointing a gun back

not the same thing

if you really can't tell the difference between who initiates a transgression and who defends against it, you're not worth the time. you lack fundamental social and moral sense

He's not talking about the ACTUAL dress, he's talking about the photographic portrayal of a dress is the crappily exposed and presented JPG that everyone is looking at. The dress, as recorded in the JPG, is a barely-blue-tinted light grey, and the black elements have a demonstrably uneven RGB that makes them look gold (because that data represents a color low on blue ... which is to say, it's a golden hue).

Yeah, that's right. They were "Pluto-haters". Not just people who happened to hold a different opinion he doesn't agree with.

That's not to say that you have to agree with their position, nor the way they went about having Pluto stripped of its status. But to ascribe their actions to the fact they personally "hated" Pluto- rather than simply believing that it couldn't justify its status as a planet- is somewhat childish.

I don't know if he meant "haters" in present-day sense (i.e. with its "haters gonna hate" connotations et al), but I've always had contempt for that usage. It's a cheap and easy way to counter anyone you don't agree with, to depersonalise and dismiss them in as people who hate purely because they're "haters". To make it a personal beef and a partisan issue rather than one of simple disagreement on a particular matter- one which would require legitimately addressing what they're actually saying instead of trying to puff yourself up in the cod-macho bullshit "them versus us/me" manner of an adolescent who's either immature enough to see things in that light, or has nothing to say beyond the convenient "haters gonna hate".

Seriously, step away from the gangsta rap and stop acting like a f*****g fourteen-year-old.

when you're working, can you do it in the middle of a concert hall? the middle of an interstate highway? in between a screaming fighting couple?

or do you benefit from having a private room/ cubicle?

same principle

the wide world is full of nasty chemical interactions and potent free radicals ready to destroy anything they touch. rooms help immensely

not only do they protect, they isolate. a self-replicating process can sputter out if not restricted to it's own products

go pour a little soap/oil in some water and shake it

congratulations, you've "made" micelles

micelles are self organizing. you don't "make" sea foam, it's a simple product of natural wind and wave with sufficient chained carbon compounds

micelles occurred naturally in the early earth out of non organic processes that produced simple hydrocarbons

then the rudmientary self-replicating processes also occuring naturally in that time period, and sputtering out, uncontained, joined up with micelles and sustained. because now they have a safe container to continue in

thus the first cell, from which all the rest has sprung

i've laid out my reasoning intelligently and convincingly. all you've done is bounce one empty unsupported insult reflexively. you haven't reasoned with me at all, you've made no argument. because you have no argument. when someone is left with nothing more than sputtering insults, they've lost the argument

if you're not the same AC (anonymous COWARD), as the other one i'm responding to, then here is genuine reasoning for your education:

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

good luck on opening your mind and understanding your problem