and here I thought the tongue was so firmly planted in cheek, and in the context of a response to a sarcastic post, and with the absurd links, that -- ah well...

I think this is really what is bothering me about the MAYDAY PAC. The idea that the game can be beat by playing it on the terms of those who have rigged it... I understand the principle is to back politicians who will vote for reform, but a couple of seats -- even if it happens -- don't mean squat. Having a few bought-and-paid-for stooges who will vote for something doesn't actually work: it has to make it into a bill first, in a form that hasn't been mangled into the opposite of the intent, and brought to a vote. To actually get a bill into law requires seniority and support from senior politicians. And those will be the ones least susceptible the MAYDAY PAC. This seems like much ado about nothing.

I think the people behind it have good intentions, but I fail to see how the effort will produce any meaningful change or reform.

You know, I think you are on to something there. if that is the end goal then it must be stopped. The founding fathers were anti-democracy http://www.dailykos.com/story/... http://www.godlikeproductions.... http://www.thecommentfactory.c... and we, too, should be against the tyranny of the masses and promote the enlightened government by and for the elite. To this end it is imperative that the general public be kept uneducated and in the dark -- and above all, disempowered.

Don't say that like it is a bad thing. I *want* my devices to have predictable identities because that is how the home router knows what IP address to hand out. Same thing at work. Also understand that a repeatable MAC only links sessions locally: your MAC address is not advertised to the internet.

Now, what would be nice would be an option to only use the assigned MAC when associating to selected networks. E.g., home, work, a friend's, etc., but by default use a randomly generated MAC. The hotels I've been at "forget" your device quickly anyway requiring a new acceptance of the terms so using a random MAC per session wouldn't hurt any. That'd be great for hot spots.

More important is the IP6 address selection. I'm not sure of the current state of affairs, but last I knew MS Windows was the only one that respected privacy. Apple used the MAC to generate a predictable suffix which allows global unique device tracking no matter where you go in the world. Now, they were not alone in this and IIRC it was originally a recommended method. But it is ironic, given MS close ties to NSA spying, that MS Windows (Win7 home, I believe) was the one that would generate a new suffix periodically even on a single connection (e.g., each day the suffix would change).

do yourself a favor and don't ever try to represent yourself in a legal setting. Get a lawyer and follow their advice.

that isn't very hard. I have no special information and haven't read TFA, but presumably they select an Apple prefix and use an algorithm to generate the rest. It'll actually be pseudo-random, but that isn't a particularly relevant distinction as very few systems have true random number generation and approximate it by collecting entropy from various sources to see the algorithm.

Given the large space represented by just Apple prefixes, the odds of a collision are incredibly small. If they used other prefixes as well (to avoid leaking it was an Apple device) then the risk of collision drops even further. Given that it reverts to the assigned MAC for an actual connection it amounts to a low impact and trivial way to improve the anonymity of a device before associating with a network.

really? I know they were roundly accused of this with no evidence ever provided other than a bug which caused excessive *local* retention of location data. Interestingly, it came out at about the same time that *google* was in fact shipping the location data back to the mothership (something Apple doesn't do) with no retention limits evident.

As a company, Google *depends* on eliminating privacy -- it is the source of their revenue. Apple depends on hardware sales. So while they make some money by selling aggregated data (and try to foist obnoxious things like itunes radio on their users) that is not actually their core business nor a significant part of their revenue stream. When Apple advertised an earlier incarnation of icloud as being better privacy they didn't call out Google specifically -- they didn't need to. The people who cared already knew who they are talking about.

But somehow Apple is the anti-privacy company and google is okay. I never understand the fanboys.

If you want to bust on Apple, great, I'm all for it. Just bust them on things they are actually guilty of and don't try to misrepresent them. They've definitely done some bad things, but strangely they don't seem to get beat up for things they've really done (or the issue is misrepresented).

What I'm saying is that while it may be fun to trot out things like the "640K should be enough for everyone" to bust on Bill Gates that is an urban myth and he never said it. Instead, bust on him for things that he *did* do (like hire someone else to pirate CPM). Same for Apple and Jobs (I just have a somewhat better memory for the Microsoft end of things, hence using MS-centric example).

if they were brought to trial you would like it to be "fair"? Or, you think they *should* be brought to trial for their documented crimes, and that the trial should be fair?

Your repeated insistance that Snowden be kangaroo jury trialed has been repeatedly shown by your posts for the bunk that it is. Making half statements like this one that is just begging to be misread is misleading and dishonest.

Its okay, you can admit that you approve of the governments actions. It won't make people like you, but those who can appreciate honesty and abhor hypocracy won't see you in such a poor light as you are currently putting yourself in.

why does living in England exclude you from understanding tipping? Is this a serious question, or a troll?

According to that bastion of incontrovertible knowledge, 10% tipping is customary in the UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip_%28gratuity%29)

Don't care for wikipedia? How about the arrogant Cecil? http://www.straightdope.com/co...

Yet another link claims the practiced started in English bars. http://www.billshrink.com/blog...

if you don't like any of the above explanations you can always google your own...

dang! where are my mod points! Gotta remember that one...

I prefer to use education. Such as how words can have more than one meaning. Its a feature of english that certainly complicates it, and does it make it harder for people to understand or use correctly. Ignorance can be cured, however. Education is key.

It isn't that the word "theory" means something different to him than the general population, its that he knows that the word "theory" has more than one meaning and one must select the correct meaning from context. He supplied some of this information in his post and emphasized the word "scientific" to help educate you that this is a clue that the general meaning for the word was not appropriate. This was apparently too subtle, however.

You might try reading a dictionary sometime. If you do, you will notice that many words have multiple meanings. Using a particular online resource (for convenience), we find five definitions listed for "theory" -- and they are all even related (something that is not always the case). http://dictionary.reference.co...

Not another woman, but...

Although some women will experience considerable difficulty breastfeeding a particular child it is not just an accident that humans survived as a species before formula. One thing I have noticed is that breastfeeding makes for a lot easier nights *if* you are doing co-sleeping. If someone has to drag themselves out of bed to get to the baby it makes the night a lot less restful -- preparing formula is more work in addition, but just having to get up will significantly impair restfulness. As you want to do breastfeeding do yourself a favor and reach out to the La Leche League before your baby is born. A support network that includes parents with children of about the same age helps a lot with dealing with age-related issues or activities and generally requires going outside of family.

I thought my wife was a little crazy wanting to do cloth diapers, but I'm so glad she did. It does require doing laundry frequently, but cloth diapers are multi-purpose cleaners around babies. The sprayer we got for the bathroom to help knock stool off really helped as well.

Finally, I think the notion that "maternal instinct" exists and will miraculously kick in when you become pregnant or have a kid is dangerous because it creates false expectations. Having a kid is easy, caring for kids is hard. It takes work, and you are not going to have the right answers or know what to do automatically. There'll be minutes, hours and days when you won't want kids. That's healthy, and its okay as long as there's another parent to take up the slack. Even the best mother (or father) will not be a model parent all the time.

That depends on the court and is not a general truth. A friend of mine got custody of the sole remaining minor. The mother complained loudly and as the court gave him custody she resorted to extra legal measures. It is true that some judges do think a child needs the mother more than the father, but that is not all courts.

There are certain criteria a court uses to establish the domicile for a child. And while a judge can play loose with the criteria it isn't just a matter of favoring women -- prejudice can fall the other way as well.

It isn't even that they need extraordinary evidence. Ordinary evidence would do just fine. But creating strawmen to demolish is not a rebuttal of actual science and that is the issue here. What is really sad is the part where the "bias" shows and is trotted out by deniers is true. He would've been remiss to omit it because it is a negative. All the referee did was acknowledge the political reality of the entire point behind the paper.

Its like being accused of bias when rejecting a paper that uses phrenology as proof that that whites are smarter than blacks due to greater cranial capacity because you point out that, in addition to being flawed and incorrect, it will just be used to support a racist agenda.

and the mods are nut. Guy has a right to his opinion, what do I care, but modding head-in-the-sand denial as insightful is ludicrous.

To be more specific -- in a way its kinda nice to see posts like this. No offense to Kohath intended. But the moderation is simply wrong.