wow. that's a cool way to get around the 'can't open source because media content licenses' issue

could also be error correction in the modem recommending a lower rate.

haha

Pearson does a lot of things; I'd find them fairly neutral in the process - what they do will work with basically anything.

That's not to say what they do is good? I find Pearson to be shit when it comes to education tools - they are filled with bloatware, drm, and things that don't provide any benefit to thing using them, but I wouldn't really blame them for anything here.

I would blame the superintendent and apple for sticking their nose into more sales under the guise of supporting education.

I know better than to do that these days :)

coward.

Google does have an effective monopoly in search, and it's not a bad idea to have some degree of regulation in place to make sure that it doesn't harm consumers. (Though nonsense like a 'right to be forgotten' is going too far, and should be dropped)

The problem is that that very well may not be the EU's only motive here. At about the same time that the charges were announced, Gunther Oettinger, the EU's Digital Commissioner gave a speech where he said:

A great challenge is also Europe's position in the development of the next digital platforms that will gradually replace the current Internet and mobile platforms. We have so far missed many opportunities in this field and our online businesses are today dependent on a few non-EU players world-wide: this must not be the case again in the future. ... We need European industry 4.0 champions to win the global game in industry 4.0. ... Industry in Europe should take the lead and become a major contributor to the next generation of digital platforms that will replace today's Web search engines, operating systems and social networks.

Maintaining a level playing field and ensuring fair competition is one thing. Using the law to rig the market in order to engage in protectionism, however, is not acceptable. If the EU wants to pursue Google, they're going to need to do so in a way that is justifiably beyond reproach. Otherwise it's relatively easy for Google to restructure the way it does business internationally to avoid the EU from having any power over them, while still offering its services to persons in the EU, and to have many people cheer them on in the process.

I doubt it would happen for a variety of reasons, but I'd love to see Google find a way to work with Tesla on this.

While they didn't willingly/intentionally give their information to the NSA, the fact that they were compromised by the NSA means that they should still be considered compromised going forward, so you are correct.

TLDR: don't do business with the NSA. This also means we really, really, really need to get rid of FIPS as well.

Must be much easier to be right when you just ignore any statistics that you don't like. I wish that I could do that. Alas, I am too honest.

Another stat. Russia has very strict gun control, and they have a much higher murder rate than the US. Using your logic of focusing on only ONE statistic, banning guns leads to an increase in murder, right? I, however, am not as ignorant or dishonest as you appear to be. I could trumpet that Japan bans guns and has a much higher suicide rate, and claim that this is BECAUSE of their gun laws, but that would be dishonest. I realize that countries are complex places.

So, since it appears that the percentage of homicides caused by guns has not been eliminated due to the gun laws, we can draw one of two conclusions:

1) The new gun laws also magically kept people from killing each other with knives and clubs.

2) Perhaps, just perhaps, the drop in the homicide rate is due to some other factor: social, environmental, or economic.

Nope. Can't be #2. Countries never change at all in any other way besides gun laws. Economies are essentially static, stock prices never change, people never move from urban to rural areas, and culture never changes.

No, now that that mystery is solved, we just need to figure out how gun laws keep people from stabbing each other.

Cherry-picked? Ha.

Why did I choose 1995? Simple. The Australian government started cracking down on gun ownership in 1996. I wanted the latest year that I could find that was before the gun ban. Period. Nothing sinister about that. That site also does not have any data before 1995.

Why 2012? The very last year that the data in available on that chart. Period My reasons for those years are based on reasons that have nothing to do with getting the results that I want. I gave my links to the Australian Government web site. There is nothing stopping you from compiling your own statistics

Oh, by "cherry-picked" do you mean how gun-control advocates only publish "gun homicides" and conveniently ignore beating and stabbing deaths, as if people who are stabbed are somehow less dead?

Not a solution
Not relevant

Ummm. Right. So, people might get stabbed, so let's ban knives? People die in car accidents, so let's ban cars? Rights. Same logic. Some **FACTS** for you:

There were 8855 gun homicides in the US in 2012. There were about 270,000,000 guns in the US (middle estimate). So, for every gun used in a murder, there were 30490 guns that were NOT used in a murder. Yes, over THIRTY THOUSAND. Wow. we really need to crack down on those 30,000.

Do you have an authoritative reference that shows the "point of law is to indicate what's OK and not OK"??

Wow. The fail is strong with this one. That is pretty much the definition of a law. Check out the very first sentance of the Wikipedia article about law:

"Law is a system of rules enforced by governments to govern behaviour."

  So, yes, that means that laws define what is OK and not OK. Please take your trolling elsewhere.

The people who inhale the paper dust? The people whose peace is shattered by the gun shot?

Wow. You are REALLY reaching for this one. When you run out of facts, it is amusing to see what you try to present.

On the basis of the example given - no one. There's an assertion that the gun will protect the woman. The false logic that a gun is an equaliser. Another assertion that the "ex-husband" is "crazy". Yet another unsubstantiated assertion that somehow being "crazy" means the ex-wife is at risk from something that only a gun can protect her. Emotive, speculative, logically flawed, and totally irrelevant to the legislation that was speculatively proposed.

Ha. If a crazy ex-husband breaks in and finds a gun pointed at him, you think that will NOT be a deterrent? I am also sure that you personally know every single ex-husband in the US and can personally vouch for the gentleness and sanity of each and every one of them? More epic fail here.

Check out the Wikipedia article that states:
"Middle estimates have estimated approximately 1 million DGU (defensive gun use) incidents in the United States."

Yes, guns are used approximately a MILLION TIMES EACH YEAR to deter or prevent crime. Amazing what you learn when you use facts. And only around 8,000 gun murders. Sounds like they are doing FAR more good than bad (hint: 1,000,000 is much greater than 8,000).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...

Maybe to you, but real life not so much. If you removed all the gun laws tomorrow it'd still be an offence to shoot someone (assault).

Exactly. If murder is already illegal, assault is still illegal, do we really need to make it "extra-illegal" to shoot somebody?

Gun laws are there to keep voters happy as a measure designed to reduce the risk that someone might do "something bad" with a gun.

Somebody might do "something bad" with a penis! WIth 83,425 forcible rapes in 2011, and approximately 153,000 penises in the country, there are 18,380 "good" penises for every "bad" one that commits a rape. To compare this to guns your penis (assuming that you are male) is 60% more likely to commit a rape than my gun is to commit a murder. Sounds like you need to get castrated to me.

As to keeping voters happy, that lead to the Patriot Act to "keep us safe." That lead to taking your shoes off in the airport and no liquids. Giving up freedom for the appearance of security. It is call "security theater." As long as people FEEL safe, who cares what the reality is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Bullshit. I'm relatively honest - how does the "cracking down on ownership" negatively affect me? It doesn't unreasonably affect me. (I'm assuming that part of your problem is the inability to differentiate between "law-abiding" and "honest". "Honesty" doesn't mean you obey the law - it just means you'll admit breaking it if asked.)

Well, if you own guns, and the government says "hand them it," then YES it does affect you. And stupid laws DO affect honest people. Read this and tell me how this situation makes anybody any safer: http://www.philly.com/philly/n...

Or how about this one where a man is arrested for a FLINTLOCK -- the sort of weapon common when the Constitution was written: http://dailycaller.com/2015/02...

(you can save your libertarian self-protection bullshit for the Congo or somewhere else you shouldn't reasonably expect your taxes to pay for police to actually do their jobs).

So, the police are there to protect you? Does your area have a guaranteed service time? There in two minutes or your next arrest is free? Sorry, the courts have rules that the police have no legal obligation to protect you. They do their best, but if the closes cop is 10 minutes away, there is nothing they can do. Their primary job (aside from writing tickets to make money) is to catch criminals after the fact. If somebody intends me harm, I do not want to be an "after the fact." The fact that you are OK with this is fine by me, but don't tell me how to live my life.

Anyways, enough time wasted on you. Come back when you have facts.

OK. Stupid question here. How would such laws stop bad guys.

Let's assume that an honest guy was considering printing a gun. He obeys the law. Number of lives saved? None. An honest person would not commit a murder whether they have a gun or not.

Now, let's assume that a person has a 3D printer and actually intends to print a gun. Will this law stop them? No -- since they are already planning to break the law, breaking another will not stop them. Number of lives saved? None.

So, please tell me how these laws make sense.

Oh, and one more thing. While the murder rate in Australia has declined in the last couple of decades, it has actually declined MORE in the USA. But, since people against gun ownership have to cherry-pick their data, you will probably ignore this fact too.