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Earth

Drilling Begins At Lake Hidden Beneath Antarctic 131

New submitter stonetony writes with this excerpt from the BBC: "A team of 12 scientists and engineers has begun work at remote Lake Ellsworth. They are using a high-pressure hose and sterilised water at near boiling point to blast a passage through more than two miles of ice. The aim is to analyse ice waters isolated for up to 500,000 years. The team of 12 scientists and engineers is using sterilised water at near boiling point to blast a passage through the ice to waters isolated for up to half a million years. The process of opening a bore-hole is expected to last five days and will be followed by a rapid sampling operation before the ice refreezes."

Comment Re:Absurd (Score 1) 580

First I didn't put any words into anyone's mouth. It sounded to me like he was suggesting that more porn=less rape inferring that the production and distribution of child porn would reduce child molestation. I asked him if that is what he was saying.

Second because of your rude and nasty reply I must assume that you are either mentally challenged or have anger management problems. Either way I doubt you will be able to understand what I have just explained.

Comment Re:Absurd (Score 0) 580

In the summer when the weather gets hot and people eat ice cream the cases of malaria go up. Should we make ice cream illegal?

There is no evidence that the increase in porn is related to the number of rape cases.

Are you suggesting that we should encourage video taping of the molestation of children in order to reduce child molestation?? That is just stupid.

Comment Absurd (Score 1) 580

From the article:

It would not be effective, and possibly counter productive, in catching child molesters.

This statement starts with a false assumption and ends in an erroneous conclusion. The assumption is that the ultimate goal is to catch child molesters. It's conclusion is that it is not effective and may actually make it harder to catch child molesters.

The laws that make child pornography illegal is a separate but related issue to child molestation. It is related because in order to create child pornography a child must be molested. It is separate in that it can stand on its own. The idea that for child pornography to be illegal it must aid in the apprehension of child molesters is absurd.

The author then invents a fairy tail where a person with eye glasses with a built-in camera turns a corner and records a child being raped. He then makes the erroneous conclusion that video recording a crime in process would be a crime itself. It would be illegal if the person who caught it with his camcorder just walked away and didn't report it or worse yet posted the recording on the Internet. People on this guys web site have brought this to the authors attention but he chose to double down on dumb by saying that child pornography is illegal no mater how you get it period. However, if turned over to the police it would NOT be pornography it would be evidence of child molestation. It would only become pornography if it were kept by the individual.

Even if this guy were correct the law could be changed to exempt those situations. Again using this fairy tail as an excuse to legalise child pornography is absurd!

The entire article is filled with this pseudo logic and erroneous conclusions. Not really worth the read IMHO.

Comment Re:Not possible! (Score 4, Insightful) 519

I really don't know what Romney gives a damn about. It seems like he's been on both sides of every issue so who can tell what he believes?

I do know that he is surrounding himself with neocons and that is disconcerting. Without his own convictions he will just go along with whatever his advisers tell him. We are already hearing them beat the drums of war with regards to Iran.

I predict that if Romney gets elected we will see a repeat of the Bush years. There will be more unfunded wars. We'll see a loosening of regulations that are already too watered down. After the next banking bubble forms and bursts due to the lack of regulations, we will enter into another gilded age. We are already seeing the beginning of a gilded age now with the massive corruption in our government. The common people are no longer being represented. Only a few very rich individuals and powerful corporate powers control our government.

Comment Re:Not possible! (Score 1) 519

It is a common practice for a candidate to drift more to the centre in order to win the undecided vote. The reason people are undecided is that they don't adhere to either party line.

Romney would like to grab these votes but the Republican Party's position is to fundamentally change Medicare and Social Security. They want to control the cost occurred by the government by issuing vouchers that the recipients would use to obtain private insurance. That would ensure that the cost to the government would be predictable and controllable. It would do little to control the cost of medical care for the recipients particularly for the elderly who tend to have serious medical conditions. That group may not even be able to find insurance that would be fully covered by the voucher.

Obviously if they clearly and truthfully explained their plan they wouldn't win many votes so they make statements to deceive people into thinking that their plan would be a good thing. i.e. They claim that they are the ones who will "save" Medicare. What they don't tell you is that they will make it useless to the most vulnerable and thus kill it. It would be "Medicare" in name only.

Comment Re:Anthropogenic Global Warming (Score 1) 370

You first.

That is the problem. Everyone wants *everyone else* to deal with. As long as they can still drive to work with cheap gas and get a shiny new smart phone every year, its clearly other peoples real problem... if only they would deal with it right?

So what are you doing to deal with it?

Not sure about the parent specifically, but I would guess that most of the people trying to draw attention to the problem already *are* "dealing with it". Many of the folks that are so concerned about the problem already have taken steps to do their part in ways more significant than "Don't buy a smartphone" - the real issue is convincing the disbelievers that they should act as well. He can't very well save the world by composting/recycling/bicycling while you're delivering pizza in your H2, now can he?

You make it sound as if hipsters are the ones warning us of the crisis. Well, you got the first three letters right anyway...

Comment Re:WTF is this doing on MY slashdot? (Score 5, Insightful) 757

I think you are living in a fact free zone.

The Republicans are not offering real solutions. All they want to do is give tax breaks that will mostly go to their rich cronies and privatise everything, again for the benefit of the richest.

They are in the process of killing the U. S. Postal service by requiring that they fund their retirement system 75 years in advance. They want to sell off our national treasures and they don't mind rigging elections to get that done.

Right now they are enacting voter suppression laws that will primarily suppress voting in areas that would tend to vote for Obama under the guise of preventing voter fraud even though voter fraud has never been a major problem.

They create gridlock like little children throwing a tantrum. Can you say filibuster, filibuster, filibuster? Sure you can! And then claim that Obama can't get anything done. Well no shit Sherlock. Remember that they admitted that their number one priority was to make Obama a one term President! THERE NUMBER ONE PRIORITY! Screw the economy, screw anything else. And they announced their evil little pin head plan right from the start.

The American people cannot afford to allow these cheating low life scum bags to stay in office. They almost destroyed our country during the eight years that Bush and his cronies ran the country and we just can not afford to have a repeat. Oh, and isn't it curious that Bush didn't even really win the election but the Republicans suppressed the recount which later showed that he lost!!

Get ready folks. These bastards are gearing up to steal the election again. They have already voted in Iowa to extend the voting period for Republican leaning counties while shortening the voting period for Democratic leaning counties! That's right! Make it harder to cast your vote if you live in a primarily Democrat county and easier if most of the people would vote Republican!

Is it any wonder people are getting pissed off?

Comment Re:why on earth would they want to do that? (Score 1) 316

So you are accusing the kernel team of unethical behaviour? Really? What proof do you have that they would do something like that? Yes there are purists but it would require someone who had the power to change the API to break things as you suggest and I don't see the kernel team doing that.

Comment Re:Hidden behind the scenes... (Score 0) 297

This post is rife with ignorance and false statements that I don't have time to dispute.

I will mention this: Human nature is all we have. I suppose perhaps the poster thinks he is some super-being, but he isn't. The errors of human nature are magnified by governents, which shield those in political power from the consequences of their actions.

Statements like "human nature is no longer good enough" are merely soundbytes with no meaningful prescriptions.

Comment Re:Summary hole (Score 1) 319

Why does he need to disclose he is a shareholder when publicizing a lie the CEO told about his resume? Either the CEO does or does not have the CS degree.

If a major shareholder wants him gone that much, it seems like a good idea that he should be gone.

Games

Valve's Steam & Games Coming To Linux 224

An anonymous reader writes "Valve's Steam and Source Engine-based games are coming to Linux. Michael from well known site Phoronix.com has been invited to Valve's office and was able to spend a day with the developers and Gabe Newell himself. He is confirming the rumors about Linux ports from Valve, and has been able to play the games and work the developers himself. Attached in the article are pictures from Valve's offices with games running on Linux."

Comment Re:American Culture (Score 1) 274

Yes, it can be a random mutation. However, when you deliberately grind up the carcass of a cow with said mutation and feed it to other livestock, you are then transmitting this mutation. Then it becomes an infection. Lather, rinse, repeat... we have an epidemic.

The math isn't hard here.

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