So, the suggestion is that we should allow the police to illegally stop and search us until we can be in a safer environment to tell them they're doing something illegal?

Because telling them in an unsafe environment will stop the cop? "Oh, I didn't know I was in violation of the 4th Amendment, you have a good day sir." More likely they'll just make the interaction worse for you since you were "backtalking", perhaps find some more things to fine/charge you with. While telling the cop he's wrong is noble and courageous and all, it will have no positive effect and may make fighting them in the court even harder.

They just do whatever they want because they have the guns and badges.

Exactly, and the only thing we have to stop them in the long run is a gun or a gavel. I don't know about you, but I know it wouldn't end well for me if I tried to use the gun method.

I propose something else: all police wear cameras and audio recording 100% of the time, and a zero tolerance for police who do not adhere to the law, and dismissal/criminal charges are the outcome. Any police officer who turned off his recording stuff is presumed to be lying.

I support the idea, but this also requires the gavel. Unless we can set up some uncorruptable, citizen-run group that monitors every police feed in real time and sends out a Cop Block if they see one doing stuff they shouldn't, the cameras can only help citizens after the fact.

If a bunch of dudes 2000+ years ago could talk directly to the Abrahamic God, and one in particular through a burning bush, why not some dude in the modern days through a computer?

If Terry Davis isn't a real prophet today, then why can't we call the prophets in the Bible schizophrenic?

the USA isn't geared for looking after people, it's geared towards profit-making

FTFY. The Dollar is our holy god in America (which is why we have "In God We Trust" on it, so we could pay lip service to religion while worshiping it). Controlling people is just the easiest way for the government to ensure that profit in a selection of private industries, namely military contractors.

We have a history of being "cowboys" (even if the stereotype only largely existed in movies) and still hold to our rugged individualism and the notion that everyone who has "made it" did so on their own laurels. It doesn't matter that such cases are the rare exception rather than the status quo, the general American public will look to those and say "see, they didn't need help from the government, so no one should." And the elite (both rich and elected officials) will happily maintain this illusion, as it allows them to consolidate their own power. They've tricked much of the American public into fighting against higher taxes for the rich (even if those high taxes only affect, say, income after the first $1M) by making Joe Sixpack think that they're just one or two good events away from being in that tax bracket, and how would Joe feel if he had to pay these onerous taxes on his current salary?

Our country may be controlled by a small number of moneyed interests, but it's the American people who handed them the reigns.

He could also be concerned about tracking via the cellphone, a reason to get rid of it entirely.

But even outside of that, some people just seem addicted to their devices (in metaphor if not in the literal sense), and the only way to break that is to get rid of it entirely. You wouldn't expect an alcoholic to keep beer around in case his friends want a cold one when they visit, so to me it's quite reasonable to toss the phone entirely.

After a few weeks of thought I just today came to the conclusion that I am completely over the Pokemon series, which I was in love when it first released in 1998 at 13. Black, for the DS, was the last version I purchased. Maybe if they ever give it a huge overhaul or MMO...

Anyway, more on topic, I would have thought that Nintendo would learn from the DSi. Not that it's a bad system, but the camera features went mostly unused because there was no guarantee that players had a camera-equipped system. Only a few games made heavy use of it, and a few more than that had some incorporation that could be ignored if you weren't on a DSI (or DSi XL).

So here we are with the 3DS and now Nintendo is releasing their "New 3DS" (what a horrible name) that has some nice features that will also probably not be used. The big selling points are the "nub" (why couldn't we just have a second, if smaller, stick?), two extra shoulder buttons, and, most importantly, added horsepower. They've already announced Xenoblade Chronicles 3DS, which will require the New model as it will need the better specs, and the already-released Smash Bros. 3DS will not allow you to use many system tools you could normally use while running a game because of its requirements on the 3DS, but you can on the New 3DS. This will wind up with the same thing as the DSi, with so much fractioning of the base that developers will have to program with the assumption of the Old model; at best we'll get more games that will use more of the Old processing power, like Smash Bros., but otherwise it will play out the same. Some games will have support for the extra controls, a scant few (likely those that need the New hardware) will require the controls, and most games will ignore them completely.

And US/EU will get it at some point in the near future... maybe. Nintendo kinda shot themselves in the foot by announcing it, and giving it to only Japan and Australia this year (though it's cool that our kangaroo friends are seeing some love after usually being the last to get stuff). Sales for the existing models of the 3DS in America and Europe are likely going to flatline this holiday season, purchased only by parents for their kids who don't keep up with gaming news (or are too little to do so.) Anyone else who had been considering the system is now going to sit on that cash, because why would you buy the old model now when the new hotness could come in a few months?

After the poor reception of the Wii U, I'd hoped that Nintendo would look at their failures and learn from them. Instead, it seems like they're only doubling-down...

Jobs, college debt, and personal liberty are extremely important issues to this generation.

Then why in the name of all that is noodly would they vote Republican? If young voters did swing from Democrat to Republican, I bet they did so for one of two reasons:
1) blindly believing candidate rhetoric (which both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of spewing), or
2) they were upset with "their guy" and mistakenly thought the "other guy" would do better.

Considering that the voter turnout was only 36.4% for the 2014 midterms (lowest since WWII), and low turnout favors Republicans (who are more likely to vote, it seems), I would guess the Republican victory isn't due to Millenials switching parties but far less Democrat Millenials turning out, if it's due to Millenials at all. Your own article supports this:

Though the GOP is closing the gap on Democrats in relation to young voters, a push away from the left may not guarantee a win for the right among the politically apathetic voting demographic.
[...]
Among those who said they “definitely will be voting” in next week’s midterm elections, 51 percent of young adults said they would prefer a GOP-controlled Congress. That's up from 43 percent during the 2010 midterms.

When the question is broadened to include all young adults, including those admitting they are less than certain they will vote on Tuesday, 50 percent said they would favor a Democratic Congress, compared to just 43 percent preferring the GOP.

“A lot of it, frankly, comes down to turnout. It seems that young Republicans are significantly more likely to turn out and participate next week,” said John Della Volpe, the institute's polling director. “It’s less about young people becoming more Republican, they’re just a little bit less Democratic than we’ve seen through the Obama years from 2008 to 2012.”
[...]
But bad news for Obama does not necessarily mean good news for the GOP, especially considering Obama maintains a significantly higher approval rating than Congress does among young adults. Only 23 percent of the demographic approves of the job Republicans are doing in Congress, compared to 35 percent approving of Democrats.

A reported 33 percent of young people surveyed identified as Democrats, compared to 22 percent siding with the GOP and about 42 percent of young adults identified themselves as independents.

On Slashdice, an "Insightful" vote is used to say "this aligns with my worldview and so I approve of it even if it is logically inconsistent/fallacious or based on demonstrably false data or notions"

I recall reading something a few years back (but I can't find a link, so take this with a grain of salt) where Amazon was reported to have or at least claimed to have very high employee satisfaction and/or safety. However, the only reason they do so is because the vast majority of their warehouses are staffed and managed by third parties, who work their employees quite hard for low wages. Because it's the third parties that do the hiring and management, technically they aren't Amazon employees, and so aren't included in metrics (internal or external.)

I'm sure other companies have spouted the truthy line of "We do not astroturf" (because we hire third party marketing companies, tell them simply to "improve our image", and they astroturf for us.) This seems like another type of that shell game, where they say "We do not astroturf (the software we buy from companies to improve our image astroturfs for us.)"

How long until they start hiring botnets to generate pseudo-random favorable posts? "We do not astroturf (the hackers we found on craigslist get the internet to astroturf for us.)"

I'd say that Kickstarter is more like a Pledge. You "donate" a certain amount, and there are levels where you get various rewards, most of which include the end product (and that is the ultimate goal for being part of a Kickstarter, after all), but the end product is a wobbly thing subject to all sorts of potentially issues no matter how much the group running it promises.

Consider things like PBS or NPR. Their pledge drives do talk about specific programs, and depending on how much you pledge you might get a nice item, and might be pledging for a specific part of their programming, but in the end the pledge is only just for the overall idea, which could have programming added or removed over time. And, unlike an investment, you don't get any "return" aside from what is ultimately produced.

So it's something of a mix between a Pledge and an Investment.

Then setup a server and charge monthly fees

It's not about the complexity of single player (which is probably as complex as multiplayer, just a different kind of complexity), it's exactly what you mention. Multiplayer can be a constant source of revenue, whereas single player is a single source that quickly dwindles (and the game can, rightly, be resold, at least for physical copies.) Depending on what kind of crowd they're looking for, they can do monthly or micro-transactions (which, when you're charging $10 for a digital hat, isn't so micro anymore.)

So if their goal is about profit rather than putting out a solid experience, they're going to focus on multiplayer as much as possible. I'm surprised that games like Call of Duty and Battlefield even bother with single-player anymore, as the campaigns are usually incredibly short (six hours for one of the more recent iterations, so I've heard) and most people buy them for multiplayer anyway.

What I don't understand is why they're even bothering to dig up dirt. They don't need to: all they have to do is plant some child pornography, even drawn pictures not based on any actual child or even remotely realistic for a human child, on any computer device owned by the target. Then drop an anonymous tip to any number of law enforcement and/or private anti-child-porn groups and let them handle the rest. If they don't want to plant, they can someone of moderate credibility make claims as such to the point of having just a single detective investigate for just five minutes. The culture in America guarantees that if someone is publicly accused of having child porn, they will be shunned at every possible turn even if charges are never filed. The top elected leaders of both parties could hold hands on national television and proclaim the guy's innocence and the majority of America would still view the guy as a pariah. If the CEO doesn't understand this, he really is stupid.

(If the target is female, this might not work because people are more likely to question it. In that case, just suggest the woman is a "slut" or prostitute over many different interviews and get the same result.)

Thus, this is probably an indirect warning. "Hey, nice life you have there, be a shame if something were to happen to it..."

(Before someone tries to hang me, please note: I am not saying that child porn is good, but that America's absolute frothing over it makes it a modern-day witch hunt, where it doesn't matter whether or not someone actually has CP so long as enough people claim they do.)

I haven't seen any push from Slashdice about Beta recently, so since that fervor has died down perhaps the campaign should change from "Fuck Beta" to "Fuck Bennett"?

For action oriented games on a console, a locked 60 fps rate is the "gold standard" and is becoming almost mandatory for twitch-shooters, precision driving games and other genres that rely on rapid response times.

This might explain their recent comments:

Guérin had backup from the 30FPS camp, with Assassin's Creed Unity's Creative Director, Alex Amancio chiming in, saying: "30 was our goal, it feels more cinematic. 60 is really good for a shooter, action adventure not so much. It actually feels better for people when it's at that 30fps. It also lets us push the limits of everything to the maximum. It's like when people start asking about resolution. Is it the number of the quality of the pixels that you want? If the game looks gorgeous, who cares about the number?".

Of course, then they have trouble even hitting that 30fps, even after trying to lower people's expectations...

Huh, neat. According to this, the building was completed in 1955. A comment further down says the windows were switched out because the inflatable rubber molding that held them in place eventually deteriorated and they were replaced in '97-98.

With half a century of materials and engineering improvements since then, I should think that that kind of problem could be fixed or an alternative created. My thought when making my post was clamps that would either pull back or swing away.

Could the window's frame just rotate on its axis (probably y)? This comes with its own problems, of course, but over time might be for the best. I'm thinking a system where the frame will lock in place, perhaps using pressure in order to avoid a hit in heating or A/C efficiency.

Advantages:
- # of injuries/deaths from washing windows drops to 0 (= cheaper insurance)
- Cheaper workers because they don't need specialized knowledge/training
- Window can be automatic so they rotate at night on a schedule, one at a time
- Replacing a window should be easier (rotate frame half way, take off a side, slide existing pane out and new one in)

Disadvantages:
- Making sure there's clearance for the window to rotate
- If one gets stuck it can be a hazard as well as letting air through
- Have to retrofit existing windows

Up front cost would be more, but over time the savings in pay would probably make such a system pay for itself.