If water is that good at dissolving plastic we're all in a lot of trouble. As for a new, plastic-eating bacteria? That's nothing to be concerned about at all!
Seriously, fish eating it terrible. But it is probably the least bad alternative, unless we're going to include "space aliens carefully harvesting it, while leaving sea life alone" on the list of theories.
Hippie doesn't usually extend to "caring at all."
The feds threat was six months, not 10+ years.
Bullshit. Threatening "50 years if you make us go to trial, but if you confess we'll recommend six months but the court can still give you 50 years" is still threatening 50 years. The threat of heavy sentences to get people to waive the right to a trail is an egregious violation of due process and the the guarantee against cruel and unusual punishments.
I suggest that you e-mail the 784,000 web pages that say Aaron Swartz snuck into the closet, and inform them they're using the English language wrong:
They're not using the English language wrong, they're reporting the facts wrong. Just as the mainstream media did for decades in the War on (Some) Drugs, just as they did in the run-up to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the media is lying and/or negligently passing on the government's story.
No way they just Taser you for refusing to answer questions.
You can be tased or beaten by cops pretty much at their psychotic discretion.
Boy tased for refusing to wash cop car
Man tased for not giving up his phone
Man beaten to death for not providing ID
We live in a police state, and it's not going to stop until either 1) we raise standards and pay for cops, or 2) we liberalize CCW laws and recognize the right of self-defense against bad cops.
It seems that there's just far more white men in the US that are inclined to be software developers than there are females and minorities who are inclined to do so.
And part of the reason that there are fewer females and minorities who are inclined to do so, is because when a woman or a black guy shows up in a CS class they're an oddity, subject to (usually subtle and unconscious, but sometimes stupid and obvious) sexism and racism. So they're more likely to say "screw it" and go study something else, so there are fewer women and African-Americans in CS, so when a woman or a black guy shows up in a CS class they're an oddity...and the cycle continues.
There is no quick fix. But over time a little attention by folks who work in tech to the basic rule "don't be a dick" can cut it down.
we'll probably never see a 50/50 split because these inclinations are part nature as well as part nurture./
...and making unproven and unprovable claims about the natural abilities of various groups of people, would be a fine example of "being a dick". Cut it out.
Destruction of evidence is a separate crime
But since I have not committed a crime, the automated destruction of my private data to protect it from cyber-criminals in the event I lose control of it is not destruction of evidence.
An encrypted hard drive is little different from a locked safe
An encrypted hard drive is entirely unlike a locked safe. It is much more like a notebook kept in a private code: if I write "June 26: red green Q 17 x-ray romeo eagle" in my journal, the state has no rightful authority to compel me to tell them what that means to me.
"Some people somewhere are consensually doing something that offends my sensitive sensibilities, so it has to stop even though it's a private matter that I have no part in and no business sticking my nose into!"
The behavior of corporations -- artificial persons created by state fiat -- is not a "private matter".
So, that I know of, no ISP has a program where they police what you do.
My ISP is Sprint/Clearwire. (Complicated corporate and branding relationship.) I got a nastygram from them about peer-to-peer downloads. They didn't care that I was downloads GNU/Linux distros, they didn't want me using PtP at all. (So I got a VPN account and flipped them the bird.)
What separates the left, especially the European version of left, from the American concept of left/liberal?
Left=pro-worker=socialist, though that word has been poisoned by a century of Red Scares here.
Right=pro-aristocrat=capitalist. (When you have a hereditary class of state-backed "owners" who control the economic resources, that's an aristocracy.)
Left/right has nothing to do with social issues like abortion rights, gay marriage, etc., nor does it have to do with the size of government. It's about who the economic system should benefit.
The Democratic party is thoroughly capitalist, with only a relatively minor disagreement with the Republican party as to what degree of exploitation of the proles by their feudal lords is best.
Questioning and asking are two completely different things, otherwise one wouldn't "ask a question", one would either ask or question.
To question something is to doubt the premises that lead to a given statement. To ask something is to enquire about something. When one has doubts a conclusion (i.e.: questions), one normally asks to ascertain the veracity of the conclusion. This leads to the construct "to ask a question" as in "to resolve a doubt".
Simon
They ignore the letter because a letter from the NSA to someone outside the US has no legal significance.
A letter from the NSA to someone inside the US has no legal significance either. That doesn't stop the U.S. government from acting illegally.
So the "Empathy Box" from "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" is real? And now?
Ok, you just blew my mind.
I remember never quite getting the whole "empathy box" idea in the book. It seemed unlikely and quite foreign. But you're right: that's what Facebook is. People sharing their good and bad news in order to participate in some group emotion. And, just like Rick's wife was "addicted" to it, lots of people were addicted to checking Facebook (at least for a while, the interest in Facebook seems to have waned). So Philip K. Dick was prescient about that after all.
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. -- Superchicken
