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Comment Since No One Has Pointed It Out Yet (Score 5, Informative) 348

'What do we get for that DRM?'

Did "we" vote on this? Let's look at their members list: Apple, AT&T, Facebook, Csico, Comcast, Cox, Google, Huawei, HP, Intel, LG, Netflix, Verizon, Yahoo!, Zynga and ... The Walt Disney Company. Seriously, are we really so daft that we sit here scratching our heads wondering why a consortium of those players and THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY ended up including DRM? REALLY? There is a bill known as The Mickey Mouse Act in regards to excessive copyright that was passed into US law. And we're wondering how Disney might have influenced DRM as an option in a standard ... they're on the list, folks! Pull your heads out of your asses!

And those are just the companies I recognize that have a serious amount of money to be made on DRM (hello, Netflix?!). If I examine closer, there are much smaller players like, say, Fotosearch Stock Photography and Footage that sound like they would gladly vote for DRM in order to "protect" their products/satiate content owners.

Comment I Thought It Was Clear (Score 3, Informative) 324

only about 1 trillion tons of carbon can be burned and the resulting gas spewed into the atmosphere. Just over half that amount has already been emitted since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and at current rates of energy consumption, the trillionth ton will be released around 2040

Do they honestly believe there is some total quantity of emissions that can be tolerated? I mean as opposed to a rate of emissions - like annually. We know that the system recycles carbon taking it out of the atmosphere, and we know that the rate it's removed increases as the concentration increases. So if we assume there is a limit, it should be on the rate of carbon emissions and not the total emitted over time.

If you read the "Summary for Policymakers" PDF document linked in the summary, there is no talk of "total quantity of emissions tolerated" or any of this trillionth ton idea. Instead it appears to be talking about . In fact, it appears to reside solely in that New York Times article that very clearly says:

To stand the best chance of keeping the planetary warming below an internationally agreed target of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels and thus avoiding the most dangerous effects of climate change, the panel found, only about 1 trillion tons of carbon can be burned and the resulting gas spewed into the atmosphere.

Just over half that amount has already been emitted since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and at current rates of energy consumption, the trillionth ton will be released around 2040, according to calculations by Myles R. Allen, a scientist at the University of Oxford and one of the authors of the new report.

(emphasis mine) So to answer your question: The trillion tons is an estimate of what we would need to burn in order to hit an internationally agreed limit that would likely produce the worst effects of climate change. The number of tons we burn is even an estimate. It's all estimates because we don't have parallel Earths where we can keep controls and change one variable to see what happens. If you don't accept the ability of making estimates with levels of certainty, there is no way to make any statements about the effects of putting carbon into our atmosphere on a global scale.

These guys are looking dumber all the time.

I suppose it would appear that way if you only get your information from The New York Times and throw away everything they're actually saying.

Submission + - Russia Proposes Banning Foul Language on the Internet (pravda.ru)

eldavojohn writes: In a country where it's illegal to insult a government official, State Duma Deputy Yelena Mizulina has proposed an amendment to ban swearing on social networks, bulletin boards and all websites. The website would be blocked if the offending material had not been removed within 24 hours. The name of the law this would be added to? "On the protection of children from information harmful to their health and development." Mizulina's title in regards to this legislation? Chairwoman of the Committee on Family, Women and Children (No joke!). Of course, Yelena Mizulina is no stranger to unwarranted censorship as she was behind the law banning gay propaganda to minors and invoked laws to try to silence critics on twitter. The article also notes, 'United Russia deputy Vitaly Milonov put forward a similar initiative on 25 July. He proposed to tighten control over social networks and allow people to dating sites through their passports.'

Comment Apples to Oranges (Score 5, Informative) 158

If it wasn't for all the false reporting about conditions at Foxconn, I might take this seriously.

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

"All the false reporting" was one nutjob who was confusing journalism with stage performance. A stark difference between Mike Daisey and China Labor Watch is their falsifiable report that, unlike Daisey's heart wrenching anecdotal stories, can be checked.

Examples:

At Pegatron, over 10,000 underage and student workers (interns), from 16 to 20 years of age, work in crowded production rooms, doing the same work as formal, adult workers. But some students are paid lower wages because schools deduct fees for the internship, while other students will not have their wages paid to them on time.

CLW’s investigations revealed at least 86 labor rights violations, including 36 legal violations and 50 ethical violations. The violations fall into 15 categories: dispatch labor abuse, hiring discrimination, women’s rights violations, underage labor, contract violations, insufficient worker training, excessive working hours, insufficient wages, poor working conditions, poor living conditions, difficulty in taking leave, labor health and safety concerns, ineffective grievance channels, abuse by management, and environmental pollution.

Did you read the report? It's got hard numbers and straight up accusations with defined conditions that can be checked. It's not like "I met a little girl who polished my iPhone." Instead it's like "A dorm room at Pegatron can accommodate 12 people. From Monday to Friday, residents have to clock-in within 24 hours or else they will be considered checked out of the dorm." or "The Pegatron factories had a list of discriminatory hiring practices, including refusing to hire people shorter than 4 foot 11 inches tall, pregnant women, those older than 35, people with tattoos, or people of the Hui, Tibetan, or Uighur ethnic groups."

Comment MSRP of $62,400 Though? (Score 4, Insightful) 452

For all the whining and moaning about rich people, that seems to be how society advances often. A rich person's fad then becomes a commodity.

Yeah ... but I mean to call the Model S no longer a rich person's fad is stretching it. Their MSRPs for a 60 kWh car is $62,400. $72,400 for an 85 kWh and $87,400 for the 85 kWh with upgraded features. Is this really affordable? I thought I was living a pretty average lifestyle but I spent $6,600 on my current car ... Of course, if you're calling it the iPhone in that everyone else is buying it and I'm laughing at how much money they're spending on phones then, yes, it could be called the iPhone. Still very much a rich person's car though.

Comment Two Other Outspoken Politicians (Score 4, Insightful) 424

Mod parent up. We need more brave politicians to finally speak their minds about this instead of fearing the surveillance machine.

What are you talking about? There are plenty of politicians speaking their minds about Snowden -- but I don't know if I'd call them "brave." Looking at just the previous administration, George W. Bush:

I think he damaged the security of the country

And Dick Cheney:

I think he's a traitor

Of course, as another poster mentioned, they've got nothing to lose same as Carter.

Government

Jimmy Carter Calls Snowden Leak Ultimately "Beneficial" 424

eldavojohn writes "According to RT, the 39th president of the United States made several statements worth noting at a meeting in Atlanta. Carter said that 'America has no functioning democracy at this moment' and 'the invasion of human rights and American privacy has gone too far.' The second comment sounded like Carter predicted the future would look favorably upon Snowden's leaks — at least those concerning domestic spying in the United States — as he said: 'I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial.' It may be worth noting that, stemming from Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, Jimmy Carter signed the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 into law and that Snowden has received at least one nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize."

Submission + - Jimmy Carter Calls Snowden Leak Ultimately "Beneficial" (rt.com)

eldavojohn writes: According to RT, the 39th president of the United States made several statements worth noting. Carter said that 'America has no functioning democracy at this moment' and 'the invasion of human rights and American privacy has gone too far.' The second comment sounded like the Carter predicted the future would look favorably upon Snowden's leads — at least those concerning domestic spying in the United States — as he said: 'I think that the secrecy that has been surrounding this invasion of privacy has been excessive, so I think that the bringing of it to the public notice has probably been, in the long term, beneficial.' It may be worth noting that, stemming from Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, Jimmy Carter signed the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 into law and that Snowden has received at least one nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Comment Yahoo! Mission Statement (Score 5, Funny) 91

What exactly does Yahoo sell? Do they even have a mission statement?

From several investor calls she has said:

“Yahoo is about making the world’s daily habits more inspiring and entertaining,”

Which is a little more positive and slightly better than Yahoo!'s previous mission statement:

"Now open up all your little fucking birdie mouths because Papa Yahoo!'s got a big juicy unwanted browser toolbar to slam down your goddamn throats."

Comment 'Gone Their Own Way with Android'? What? (Score 1) 42

More recently, Chinese companies have gleefully gone on their own with Android,

What are you talking about? From that article they made a few comments about how they wish to move away from Google's Android. And actually here's the exact quote that sentiment was extrapolated from:

"Our country's mobile operating system research and development is heavily reliant on Android," according to a white paper from a research division of China's tech regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. "Although the Android system currently remains open source, the core technologies and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google."

That's a quote from some Chinese Ministry, not even a group of Chinese developers. I hear that more like "Chinese are reluctantly still installing Google's Android on most of their phones. Google's Android use still rising sharply in China with no end in sight." Can you point me to the Chinese repo for the forked source to android? Surely if it's widely distributed it must also make the source available?

'Gleefully gone their own way'? Yeah, tell you what, fork Android for China and let's compare the two code bases for support and worldwide use one year later. I suspect the glee will be entirely one-sided and it's not going to be China's Android.

Comment Re:Who Cares? (Score 5, Interesting) 1448

Your objection is that it has a message you disagree with. In that sense, I agree with Card. It is intolerance. And closed-mindedness. If you refuse to listen to any argument against what you believe in, you must believe in a lot of things that aren't true.

But I've read all his arguments. I've actually read them all. I went from being a huge Card fan to deciding he shall no longer see a cent of my money and I will no longer read his work. That's not closed-mindedness. He's had his pedestal for quite some time and I'm done with him. I'm not stripping him of his first amendment rights, he can go to the town square and scream himself hoarse for all I care. What I'm stripping him of is my hard earned money that he uses to spread that message on the internet and in his community.

Would you buy fruit from a KKK vendor? Would you pay for magazines spouting racism just to make sure you are covering all your bases and hearing all arguments of the issue? No. Because that issue is settled in your mind and you no longer want to financially support the other side. I feel the same way about homosexual marriage. And from what I've read he's not providing any original viewpoints on this issue. So the guy's not getting one more ounce of my resources and on top of it, I'll let anyone know who brings him up what he's said in his newsletters and websites about equal rights of United States citizens.

Believe it or not, KKK members cannot offer you much better arguments for racism than they could a hundred years ago. And for that I'm not stupid enough to accuse you of being closed minded because you ignore their message today.

Comment Re:Who Cares? (Score 5, Insightful) 1448

In my head, what youre doing to him is on par with what he is doing to homosexuals. Similarly you also have the "i do it because its right"-justification.

Is that a joke? He has a right to his religion. I get upset when that belief infringes on other people's rights. The Federal government has over a thousand laws referring to marriage. Many of those laws benefits couples living together like social security benefits, inheritance rights, etc. I am advocating this from an egalitarian standpoint that those people who are in love with each other are treated like any other pair of human beings consensually in love with each other. And yes, I think that trumps Mr. Card's horseshit religion or his lack of his ability to sit down with his dumbass children and say "Look, two people can love each other no matter what sex they are." But because he's afraid some bearded cloud God is going to fire and brimstone us, I cannot promote equal rights among human beings?

My justification isn't "I do it because it's right" you idiot, my justification is I do it because these laws are ridiculously unfair to a subset of the people who have done nothing wrong in the eyes of a secular government.

If you want to call it a "civil union" or whatever, that's fine. But I don't want employers or government offices calling some people "married" and other people "civil unioned" because that can lead to "second class" treatment and promotes discrimination among employers. In the eyes of the government, two humans should be able to marry each other with equal treatment and equal labeling.

Calling me intolerant on this issue makes no sense. I support freedom of religion but I'm not going to stand for some Christian version of sharia law in what claims to be a secular government.

Capitalism suffers from a lack of responsibility to know what you are supporting. A small group of people boycotting this movie is merely informing people what they are supporting. Just like I would boycott a company that pollutes.

Comment Re:Who Cares? (Score 5, Insightful) 1448

If I cared about the views of the people behind the movies, or the actors... I wouldnt be able to watch any movies. I look forward to seeing this one, whether the author likes or dislikes gay people.

The primary problem is when he uses his artistic medium and influence to spread this message. Which he most certainly has:

In the first place, no law in any state in the United States now or ever has forbidden homosexuals to marry. The law has never asked that a man prove his heterosexuality in order to marry a woman, or a woman hers in order to marry a man.

Any homosexual man who can persuade a woman to take him as her husband can avail himself of all the rights of husbandhood under the law. And, in fact, many homosexual men have done precisely that, without any legal prejudice at all.

Ditto with lesbian women. Many have married men and borne children. And while a fair number of such marriages in recent years have ended in divorce, there are many that have not.

So it is a flat lie to say that homosexuals are deprived of any civil right pertaining to marriage. To get those civil rights, all homosexuals have to do is find someone of the opposite sex willing to join them in marriage.

Translation: "Your entire life has to be a lie because I'm ignorant." And no, I do not go see Tom Cruise movies because he uses his stardom and money he gets from those movies to push a very dangerous religion! There are some issues where I flat out draw the line. I'm not boycotting Clint Eastwood because he's said some politically stupid stuff but there are some issues like homosexuality where I feel like I'm promoting ignorance if I promote those who think homosexuals should not have the same rights as heterosexuals. It's an egalitarian issue in my mind and I'm not going to see Ender's Game nor will I read the rest of the Shadow series.

Comment The Original Research (Score 1) 126

I found this paragraph particularly fascinating: "The environment minister's admission came as a new study claimed that severe air pollution in northern China had slashed life expectancies there by more than five years compared to the south, potentially robbing 500 million Chinese of a total of 2.5 billion years of life"

Why stop there when the original research paper is fully available to all*?

* For values of "all" outside of China where it's probably considered "disharmonious."

Comment What About the Ministry of Censorship? (Score 5, Interesting) 126

What are your list of the other three most embarrassing departments in our world?

Surely the Environmental Ministry cannot be as harmful as the Chinese Ministry preventing this quote from being carried in Xinhua, China Daily or any major news source in China?

Tell me about the uproar that must have erupted from North of the Huai River when it was announced that the lack of environmental compliance has reduced life expectancy on average by five years in the northern half of China. Show me the state sponsored news source that ran that story. Go ahead, compare that article with with this one. The latter makes it sound like it was second hand smoke as the primary source of limited life spans. It's like reading two completely different health reports!

Solve your censorship problem and you will solve a lot of your other problems. Just be prepared to see high turnover in your leadership -- something that has been needed for a very long time in China.

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