Comment Yeah! (Score 5, Insightful) 537
Millions of children in China learn Chinese every year, without even really trying! And you think it's so difficult
Comment Re:Current Dramatization of Only Known Lead (Score 2) 399
Plausible, but I think the evidence suggests that Auric Maplefinger might be involved.
Comment Re:Not surprised (Score 1) 93
Collecting was never fun for me. I never saw the point. When I was a kid, my dad tried to get me interested in coin collecting. He saw it as good "father and son time", but I hated it. We could have gone hiking or fishing, he could have taught me something useful. He was an electrical engineer, but he never taught me anything about electronics (I learned it all on my own). But instead of any of that, we spend our time going through bags of pennies looking for a rare 1939D. Bleh.
Now that I have kids of my own, we do active outdoor stuff, we build things, we do science experiments. My daughter has a great collection of Barbie shoes, but I was not involved in that (other than as a source of funding).
30 years from, your kids will be posting on slashdot (via direct neural interface) about how their father always dragged them out for stupid fishing trips (what was the point? Anyone could have foreseen that trout would extinct by 2017) instead of doing something useful with them like collecting valuable items.
Comment Re:Kleptomania is a mental disease (Score 3, Informative) 535
As this article illustrates, the root of kleptomania is a desire for revenge upon a world that the person feels has treated them unfairly.
The article you linked to says absolutely nothing of the sort. In fact, citing the DSM, it says the following about diagnosing kleptomania: "The theft is not due to anger, revenge, delusions, hallucinations or impaired judgment (dementia, mental retardation, alcohol intoxication, drug intoxication)."
So I'm not sure what you were reading.
Comment Screw the math stuff... (Score 1) 59
...I want a car that doesn't have friction or inertia. 0 to 60 in 0.0 seconds!
Comment Re:The old days are gone (Score 1) 387
Yeah, the problem with the Internet is that there aren't enough libertarians making sarcastic comments. Also, why can't I find a good cat photo anywhere?!
Comment Re:Soviet Russia jokes overload (Score 1) 320
The hard part is making the Nietzsche jokes.
New Samsung TV Watches You Watching It 320
CanHasDIY writes "Straight out of 1984, Samsung has unveiled a new series of televisions with integrated cameras and microphones, complete with facial and voice recognition software. Best of all, there appears to be no physical indication of the mic and camera's status, so consumers have no way of knowing when they're being monitored, or by whom... and if you don't find the idea of a TV that watches you creepy enough, apparently Samsung's Terms of Service include a clause allowing third-party apps to make use of the monitoring system, and use the data gathered for their own purposes. Nothing Orwellian about that..."
Comment Re:Einstein replied "Check your measurements, son" (Score 1) 1088
I got 99 problems, but faster than light travel ain't one
If you're going faster than 299,792,458 m / s, check your measurements, son.
Comment Retailers are shaking in their boots (Score 3, Funny) 126
... Because I know when I walk down the Champs-Elysees in Paris, what I really want to be doing is looking at the world through the screen of my smartphone! Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?
Even better: sell t-shirts that appear blank but display hipster slogans when viewed through an AR app.
Comment Re:Crappy, crappy film (Score 1) 225
I get your point, but there really aren't any huge OMG special effects in Star Wars related to the force. Stuff moving without being touched? A dude grabbing his neck and pretending like he's getting choked? The most famous force moment is done completely through dialogue ("These aren't the droids you're looking for").
Star Wars special effects were all things like space ships and planets blowing up.
Comment Re:I'm going to issue my own Fiat currrency (Score 1) 403
BTW, I'm not even sure if Fiat is still making cars
Yeah, but they're called Chryslers now.
Comment Re:Google thinks people shoud use their os, shocke (Score 0) 645
You're being tortured, you just don't know it.
Actually, Sergey is a bit behind the times, linguistically. He should have said that Windows is conducting enhanced interrogations on users.
Comment Unwillingness? (Score 3, Insightful) 335
I was unpopular in High School, but I question whether that was because I was unwilling to conform, or because I had absolutely no idea how to do so.
Spielberg, I imagine, was in a similar position, unless he discovered a method of magically becoming a goy.
Comment Re:$130mil? Wowzers~ (Score 3, Insightful) 529
I'm not sure I understand you. Are you advocating a targeted $10 per barrel tax only on oil drilled from ANWR? That seems silly, plus you must be aware that taxes on oil production are a political non-starter. It would be easier to get environmentalists to agree to drilling than to get the GOP to agree to taxes. And I don't even want to think about the economic distortions that would accompany taxing one area of production but not others...
On the other hand, it kinda sounds like you're calling for the Federal government to get into the oil drilling & selling business.
