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Comment Re:Why is it even a discussion? (Score 5, Insightful) 441

It locks in profits for big incumbent players while blocking innovation and competition.

You say that as if it didn't already happen anyway.

Here's a newsflash for you: there is no "free market" in telecom. It does not exist. It has never existed. It's all regulation, all the way down.

In actual reality, we have exactly two choice:

  1. Regulate incompetently, fostering an environment of graft and corruption that fucks over the public (this is what the Republicans want).
  2. Regulate competently, protecting the public (this is what the FCC's Title II authority attempts to do).

You'll note that not regulating at all IS NOT A GODDAMN CHOICE, so anyone who prefers option 1 to option 2 in the name of imaginary "competition" is either a shill or a moron.

Comment Re:My kingdom for an easy software reinstall tool. (Score 1) 172

Step 1: Create a shell script that logs your install command before executing it. Something like this (warning: this is barely tested, and I have no idea what it will do if you pass it arguments involving fancy shenanigans like quotes and pipes and whatnot):

#!/bin/sh
prog=apt-get # or 'yum' or 'emerge' or whatever
echo "$prog $*" >> ~/install-commands.txt
$prog $*

Step 2: Alias your shell script to the name of whatever command you're replacing.

Step 3: Install software as usual. Each time you install a package, it will be logged in install-commands.txt.

Step 4: When you need to reinstall your programs, run `bash install-commands.txt`

(Also note: if you use a GUI to install software, you can't easily do stuff like this. Now you know why the command line is better.)

Comment Re:"worst ever" (Score 2) 173

And that is BAD SCIENCE.

Your use of capital letters doesn't excuse your lack of understanding of how science works.

Who cares if the model tells you want YOU WANT.

Because what YOU WANT is for the model to describe reality. So you fiddle with it until it both agrees with observed reality, and with your projections of what you think will happen based on established science.

And, as I said, NOTHING the models have predicted have come true.

Bollocks.

Comment Re:Nothing surpricing really. (Score 2) 143

Assuming no Limited Liability (you know,the thing that makes corporations corporations), it's pretty well established that the owner of a thing is responsible for the thing

Only within reasonable limits. If you give your car keys to someone and they proceed to run someone down, you will likely be held partially responsible. If you leave your keys in the car, and someone steals it and runs someone down, you may be held partially responsible. If someone hotwires your car and runs someone down with it, that's not your fault.

Comment Re:Nothing surpricing really. (Score 1, Troll) 143

I have to state the obvious here. Corporations are granted these rights because otherwise the people involved with the corporation have their rights abridged, owners, employees, customers.

Corporations are legal fictions, and the "rights" they have been granted are to shield employees from legal responsibility, which is the opposite of their purpose.

Comment Re:"worst ever" (Score 3, Insightful) 173

But outside of COMPUTER MODELS that are tweaked TO GIVE THE RESULTS THEY WANT 'climate scientists' have nothing to show for years of 'science'.

This is how models work. You tweak the model until it fits both what your predictions suggest, and also makes sense. If you can't make it fit enough situations then maybe you learn a new way to change the model. Meanwhile, the model which makes the most successful predictions gets reused. None of the models ever describe reality perfectly, but we use the model which best approximates reality to get work done.

Comment Re:Hell No Hillary (Score 2) 676

Nope, I'm going to vote for Hillary because unlike most other person running, she isn't overly corrupt and she's not bat shit crazy.

Even if you think there was a time she wasn't over[t]ly corrupt, you really have got to recognize that time is over. There was the single-payer health care era, but that was followed immediately by the massive contributions from big pharma and big insurance era.

Comment Re:But not to Nestle. (Score 1) 332

Sea salt is fit for human consumption

Oh yes, there's a variety of sea salts available at most grocery stores in California. But there is some question about the wisdom of concentrating the goodies in the modern sea and then putting them in your food. Mined salt is also sea salt, it's just ancient sea salt. As an added bonus, it often contains other interesting minerals which offer their own flavor components.

My point was that even if what you got out of a desal plant wasn't good for human consumption, that it would still have substantial commercial purpose, and that therefore its production would be a boon and not a bane.

Comment Re:But not to Nestle. (Score 4, Informative) 332

Desalination on the level being talked about here would produce huge amounts of salt and other minerals. Getting rid of that salt in a way that wouldn't cause catastrophic harm would be no mean feat.

Are you serious? You are aware that sea salt is a thing, right? Even if it's not suitable for human consumption, you can still use it to grit the walk.

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