Comment Re:Samsung's accusations (Score 5, Interesting) 208
The court instructions are available online, and say nothing about more than 10 years. He's been lying to the press, too.
They'll just use corrupt business laws and politics to rape the "retirement accounts" for their own benefit. Then they'll leave the dangerous corpses of their businesses as a warning to future generations on the stupidity of trusting your future to lowest-common-denominator businessmen.
Yep.
It's situations like this, and the revelation of how costs were cut on Fukushima's seawall by omitting the datapoint of the big tsunami in the 1800s, that made me realize something that shocked me:
Nuclear power is perfectly safe, ideal, and awesome... but nuclear power built by humans is NOT. As a species we are short-sighted venal lying scammers, so there are many glorious technologies (nanotech anyone?) that become liabilities in our hands.
Look at the available evidence - if there was any psychic ability then the chances are that it would already be well documented.
No, that's backwards, because:
Even a slight statistical ability would have big impacts in warfare, commerce and many other areas of life.
Whatever real psychics are out there, they either a) are getting rich in the stock market (etc.) and not talking about it, or b) have all been sucked into various intelligence agencies.
The only way an ordinary member of the ballast like yourself would hear of proven psychic powers, is if they were so common that they could not be kept under wraps.
I started reading the title of this thread and though "please don't be the US".
After all, we have - global climate change deniers - anti-vaccination groups - paleo diet followers - raw foodism - a museum that claims dinosaurs and cavemen lived together on the newly created 5 thousand year old Earth.
What a relief to know that the US is not the only developed country with a problem of people making up their own reality.
Your attempt at passing off a package deal has been detected by automatic scanners.
"One of these things is not like the other . . . one of these things does not belong . . . "
When I read the summary, I thought it was some letter (maybe in the style of Jack Thompson) threatening anyone who published any research related to the lawsuit, thus attempting to create a chilling effect over any impartial researcher who might be studying the field. [...]Most importantly, it doesn't prevent anything from being published, merely requests a 90 day waiting period before publishing anything from the parties in the lawsuit. There could be some funny business going on here, but this letter doesn't show it.
What, did you just arrive on this planet after thumbing a ride on a passing spaceship piloted by a green bug-eyed monster who was headed for the Basingstoke roundabout? What do you think will happen during those 90 days if the studies reach any conclusion that is not "OMG underground diesel exhaust is teh AWESOMES!!!11!"?
It seems to me that this is utterly backwards. The scientific journals should be sending cease-and-desist to the lawyers, saying that a peer reviewed study is pending and all litigation should cease until 90 days after it has been published.
Sound stupid? But the idea that lawyers are the best judge of science is currently having more and more of a throttling effect on the USA. In fact, if you weigh in sociology and experimental psychology, it can be argued that scientists should have more part in law making than at present. Though the concept that people who make laws should have exact knowledge of something might adversely affect some politicians.
You would only think that if you did not work in those fields. Those who do work in those fields (including my best friend) are keenly aware of the comically low quality, the embarrassing irreproducibility, and the appalling "p hunting", that all enter in to studies in psychology, experimental psychology, and sociology. Not to mention the very grave "selection bias" problems that stem from the fact that most psychology and sociology studies are poorly funded and are therefore conducted on fellow psychology and sociology students.
No one who has experienced the state of research in those fields would ever, ever consider basing legislation on such results.
So who cares?
Words and punctuation have meaning. If you use them improperly, you change the meaning of what is being said. This matters a lot in contracts as well as everyday communication.
Secondly, this is a website for technically minded people. Presumably, many of us have been programmers at some point, or at least we have some familiarity with coding. If you are not such, let me assure you that a compiler cares about spelling and punctuation. It cares a lot.
The whole idea of "proper spelling" is a recent cultural invention. Prior to the 1800s, writers often spelled things phonetically. And while a misspelling can occasionally "change the meaning of what is being said", I doubt it happens more than rarely that a) a misspelling changes the meaning significantly yet b) the readers don't catch the mistake from context.
In my mind, the best argument to make in favor of proper spelling is: search engines. Today the zeitgeist thinks using search engines, and most search engines (including e.g. the simpler 'find' commands) are not spelling-agnostic. Not yet anyway.
But even then, how often do your search results depend on the difference between "it's" and "its"?
Reminds me of something we say in UI design meetings:
"If 3% of your users screw up, it's a user problem... but if 30% of your users screw up, it's a UI problem."
If the fracking process is not tolerant of hasty, underfunded, undertrained, fly-by-night drilling operations, then the process is not suitable for deployment here in the West.
No it can't just be ignored. If these laws pass, every EU country will be forced to implement them. The European Commission has very sharp teeth indeed on stuff like this, and does not take kindly to companies trying to ignore its rules.
Yep yep.
As a US citizen now thoroughly ashamed of my society's behavior (esp. regulatory capture, as well as the all-classes corruption of the housing bubble), this news is the first time in my entire life that European society has seemed superior.
It is quite a moment for me, coming as it is at the tail end of twenty years of staunch libertarian patriotism.
Russian President Medvedev threatened to prosecute those responsible for the space failures. No surprise that the individuals in question are now looking to blame someone else.
Yeah, THAT will sure attract new talent to their space program! Alex, I'll take Perverse Incentives for 500 rubles, please!
And never mind the equally important point that the current team at least learned something and won't repeat this particular mistake again. Can't say that for the new team.
This file will self-destruct in five minutes.
