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Comment Re:Anonymity has never existed on the internet (Score 1) 282

There has never been true anonymity on the internet. Anonymity is an illusion. There have always been ways to identify people over the internet.

Yes but as it currently stands, you don't have to worry about your potential employer being put off by something you said 20 years ago under a pseudonym, that they happen to disagree with. Not for most employers, in any case.

Comment Re:Legitimate concerns (Score 1) 282

determining the RL identities of the bullies likely would reduce bullying, as they could be held socially and legally accountable for what they are doing.

I don't see any reason to think this is true. The RL identities of most bullies are already known to those being bullied, yet the bullying persists.

But is it known to the entire world what the bullies are doing and their real names? (I think it's dangerous for other reasons to [partially!] de-anonimize the internet.)

Comment Re:If true. If. (Score 1) 200

What's Occam's Razor got to say about the fact that I didn't vote for Obama*? My comment was about politicians in general, as you may have noticed from the lack of me saying "Obama".

* I wrote in "Ron Paul", though he wasn't running for president, knowing that my state and district would vote for Obama over Romney. If I'm going to waste my vote anyways (it's pretty clear what my district and state were going to vote), I might as well make some kind of statement.

Comment Re:Better than zombie drivers (Score 1) 190

I'm not missing the point -- of course the whole "driver bears responsibility" is nothing but pure scapegoating/functioning with current laws/ameliorate people's fears. (Though not the case with partially assisted driving where the automated system requires constant input.) It still doesn't mean that it won't be better than what we have now.

Comment Re:Stop the idiocracy (Score 1) 514

people

Way too many people avoid naming names when dealing with race, even in stories that directly cite "black." It's urban black culture that disparages intellect.

No, they are by far not the only ones to disparage intellect. Basically, anyone who is not intellectual, competes with intellectuals, or whose goals are opposed by intellectuals, are likely to disparage intellectuals because it is advantageous to them to do so (odds are, they do this without knowing the reason but rather because that is what their group does). In the case of people who are not intellectual, they have the further reason that they inherently devalue intellectual pursuits as demonstrated by their own choice (or resentment, if it was not their choice).

Just to give a racially biased example, Republicans tend to be rich, white, and to disparage intellectuals. Democrats will disparage intellectuals only on a case-by-case basis of those who's opinions or scientific results are "wrong", while being generally supportive of intellectuals. Groups such as a class where the bottom percentage would fail had the seemingly ironic quality of being extremely viscous and mocking of high achievers, while trying their hardest to be one. And all kinds of other groups of various races are disparaging of intellectuals.

Comment Sooo.... (Score 1) 144

So they split a beam based on the spin, then applied a magnetic field that would shift the spin from down to up, either on the particles that already had spin up or on particles that had spin down... and AMAZINGLY only the latter had any effect on the spin. And they also put a blocking filter either on the particles that had spin up, or on the particles that had spin down... and AMAZINGLY only the former reduced the number of particles with spin up. Truly mind-boggling, this quantum stuff.

Comment Re:Ten Million (Score 2) 166

Sometimes things that are "known to be safe and effective" end up killing people or having nasty side-effects, or preventing people from receiving proper treatment. Didn't cigarettes used to be a safe and effective way to lose weight?

Comment Liars (Score 1) 166

Look, none of this is common place. It's very rare. Why? Because if this happens, then the multi-million dollar trial you paid for is worthless and would have to be redone.

That's why they'll tell you that they aren't doing any drugs and this is the only clinical trial they're participating in, and maybe throw in a fake name for good measure.

Comment Re:If true. If. (Score 1) 200

And yet he hasn't stopped it. In fact, he has explicitly defended and expanded the surveillance state. If he was against it, he would've stopped it by vetoing the Patriot Act extension.

On the other hand, the current expansion and disclosures are resulting in the public demanding and end to it. I, for one, am never quite sure what to attribute to a politician for intent: whether his stated intentions, his actions, or the result of his actions.

Comment Re:Dark? (Score 1) 119

I mean, why dark matter? Why not, "we don't understand gravity yet"?

Because "we don't understand gravity yet" contains no data and makes no predictions (ie, it may well be true but it is unscientific). I think of dark matter as a list detailing exactly where and how much we don't understand gravity or cosmological particle physics. When someone wants to test a new theory of gravity, they will know where to check for discrepancies with GR by looking at where dark matter is; alternately, when someone wants to test a new theory for cosmological particle physics, they can test whether it produces dark matter in the appropriate places.

Comment Better than zombie drivers (Score 1) 190

Even if the system requires babysitting, it will probably improve the performance of impaired drivers. Think sleepy, drunk, or old people with poor attention, perception, and/or reaction time, narcoleptics, diabetics who got careless about blood sugar, "indestructible" teenage drivers, Mr I-Can't-Leave-My-Cellphone-For-Five-Minutes, parents with cranky kids, Mrs I-Can-Eat-Drink-And-Put-On-Makeup-Whlie-Driving, Mr I-Talk-With-My-Hands-And-Always-Make-Eye-Contact, folks who like to gawk at accidents/scenery/girls, folks having a sneezing fit/heart attack/seizure, and a few others.

Comment New flash: This is about liability, not safety (Score 1) 190

The human at the wheel is there to take the blame in case something goes wrong. The requirement of having a human at the wheel will also soothe the fears of passengers of both autonomous* and manually driven automobiles, a measure that should help the adaptation of autonomous vehicles and thus save lives.

* Google, putting the "auto" into "automobile" since 2005.

Comment Because hacking doesn't work that way (Score 3, Informative) 184

Why dont these places have malware files spread out in their data files, hide them in a zip file or something.

All malware is data until you tell your computer to run it. If you get hacked by careless people, then I suppose having malware that reports them might work, but they'd have to run it or open it with a compromised program, and on a computer connected to the internet.

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