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Comment How is presenting all theories a problem? (Score -1, Troll) 665

I honestly don't see the issue with presenting all sides of an issue. I think going all evolution and excluding creationism is as bad as forcing only creationism to the exclusion of evolution. That said, I can only hope they use the Darwin Awards as the best proof we have of natural selection.

Comment Re:I wonder how soon people will realise (Score 1) 258

When the government provides everyone with a free internet connection and email address, then you can start talking about getting rid of snail mail

Plus, US mail offers greater protection than email. If you attempt to commit fraud via sending something by the US mail or intercept someone's mail, you're looking at a felony. With all the spam, I don't trust any of the email I receive from a bank, credit card, etc. So before email can completely replace regular postal mail, we'd have to see the same level of protections. Maybe the US postal service could have a service where they offer an optional digital signature that the sender can use and is legally protected from forgery.

Robotics

Scientists Invent Urine-Powered Robots 123

Lucas123 writes "Researchers have already built robots that can use microorganisms to digest waste material, such as rotten fruit and vegetables, and generate electricity from it. This time, a group of scientists has taken that concept to a strange, new place: urine-powered robots. The scientists from the University of the West of England, Bristol and the University of Bristol constructed a system in robots that functions like the human heart, except it's designed to pump urine into the robot's 'engine room,' converting the waste into electricity and enabling the robot to function completely on its own. The researchers hope the system, which can hold 24.5 ml of urine, could be used to power future generations of robots, or what they're calling EcoBots. 'In the city environment, they could re-charge using urine from urinals in public lavatories,' said Peter Walters, a researcher with the University of the West of England. 'In rural environments, liquid waste effluent could be collected from farms.'"

Comment Re:employers (Score 1) 545

It would be easy for your employer, and for schools to simply adjust the time at which people are expected to arrive.

But, why leave it up to people's employers? There's no business benefit to "giving" people more daylight for their leisure activities, and there's no way it would be uniform since it would be subject to the whims of all the companies. Throw the schools on top, and you've got chaos. We're more than just employees; we're citizens. So it makes sense the citizens (a.k.a., "the government") to step in and declare that we're moving the clocks around. I admit I used to be more annoyed with daylight saving time when I was younger, but now that I have kids, it's great to have more daylight hours in summer evenings to enjoy things outside.

Comment Re:Pretty common support forums policies (Score 2) 326

Apple is really strict about not letting people give out certain kinds of technical advice or speculation on their support forums, on the not-unreasonable basis that things posted there have Apple's tacit approval.

No kidding. I don't think the submission helps by being vague about what was being posted:

Apple is now censoring posts in their "Apple Support Communities" forums where users suggest possible responses to their loss of WiFi capabilities

Possible response? I wasn't sure what that meant, so I read Lessig's blog to get an idea of sort of "possible responses" Apple was cruelly censoring. If his post is any indication of what he posted on his forum, no one should be surprised the Apple deleted it:

I skipped all the drastic steps others seem to have taken such as putting in freezer or the one where I guy heats his wifi chip up to 300degrees which by the way seem to have worked quite well.

Heating up the WiFi chip to 300 degrees? And it worked "quite well??" No surprise at all that Apple deleted this kind of "advice" from their official support forums. Reading a suggestion like that on Lessig's blog is one thing, but when it's posted on Apple's official support forum, someone is bound to assume wrongly that Apple is approving the suggestion. No wonder that Apple deleted it. I imagine Apple will also be deleting posts that suggest to users that they boil their iPhones or microwave them because the method seemed to "work quite well."

Comment You mean like our furloughed guys here in the US (Score 1) 196

There's quite a few people that are considered essential to national security (DHS, CBP, etc) that are still working right now, but with no paychecks coming in (presumably they will get back pay). I joked to a friend that having a job but no paycheck is called an internship. So maybe Foxconn is just taking a queue from the US only using students instead of essential employees.

Comment There's no similarities here... (Score 2) 298

These aren't all that similar. One violation dealt with standard essential patents that Samsung refused to fairly license to Apple. The other dealt with design patents that Samsung willfully copied as evidenced by the fact that they refused to remove the offending issues and instead offered workarounds. The only similarity is that there were two cases and two injunctions. The similarities end there. There is a huge difference between banning a product because it copies your patented design versus not banning a product because it needs a standards essential patent that the owner refused to license to you at reasonable costs.

Comment Re:Isn't it empty? (Score 4, Insightful) 608

No.

A terrorist is someone who acts to frighten the public at large, often with the aim to incite political pressure on the government to stop doing whatever it is they do to which the terrorist objects.

A citizen shooting at their government is not a terrorist, but rather a rebel.

Comment Re:Zombies. (Score 0) 608

Wrong.

Employees can not use employer insurance subsidies to purchase Obamacare, only insurance through their employer. The exemption in question specifically permits members of congress to do just that: use their employer's (that is us, via our tax dollars), insurance subsidy to purchase Obamacare.

They could have at least tried to obscure this with a commensurate (taxable) pay increase, but as so bold as to not even both with the faintest attempt to hide their corruption.

Submission + - Samsung caught abusing disclosure docs to gain market advantage (fosspatents.com)

Supp0rtLinux writes: According to this story at FOSS Patents, Samsung violated multiple court rules and used documents marked "Extremely Confidential — For Attorney's Eyes Only" by taking documents provided to outside counsel (that inside counsel should never have seen) and using knowledge of them in negotiations with Nokia to secure better patent licensing terms. Considering that Samsung was also found to again be enhancing their phones to perform better when benchmarked, one has to wonder if Samsung as a whole will do just about anything, no matter how illegal or immoral, so gain a competitive advantage. The timing of this is interesting as well. As Apple and Samsung are due back in court soon to have the damages re-evaluated in their landmark lawsuit, one has to wonder how news of this will affect a new damages ruling if Samsung is seen as being unscrupulous at all cost.

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