Comment Re:The obvious questions (Score 1) 213
It sounds like he's already decided it's breaking the law.
Comment Re:Not an app, a configuration (Score 1) 83
A platform that is secure as you want = not allowing users to do something bad for them.
Comment Re:Who Benefits? (Score 2) 1025
Effective does not equal one hundred percent efficacy. There is a direct correlation between being vaccinated and not catching those specific diseases - it's not a high correlation between being immunised for measles and catching something else, and this is still being tested in those parts of the world that don't have vaccinations. The risk of autism is small to non existent (there is no correlation). Would you rather your kid have autism or catching tetanus and dying?
Parents tell all sorts of anecdotes that turn out to be true, the most prominent of which is sugar rushes. The singular of data is not anecdote.
-just because big pharmaceutical companies benefit doesn't mean children who get vaccinated don't either. It's like not eating food because 'Big Agro' is profiting.
Comment Re:If this article... (Score 1) 398
Indispensability and value are not the same thing.
Comment Re:Not recognized? (Score 1) 915
No, my (Australian) physics class has american students who struggle precisely because they've been raised on imperial units.
Comment Re:Not recognized? (Score 1) 915
Rights aren't something that go away when it becomes terribly inconvenient. If you don't like the way someone is abusing them, you need to change them, not decide they don't apply.
Comment Re:Good reason not to care about the report (Score 1) 134
Which is why most universities give separate results for 'did not attend final' and 'got zero marks on final'.
Comment Re:Let's be honest, we do this already (Score 1) 840
Your subconscious is only selecting on traits that signal to it. That's probably the reason diabetes, multiple sclerosis and heart problems thrive, because they don't signal early, they just manifest abruptly.
Comment Re:Let's be honest, we do this already (Score 1) 840
Or you could just be using this as a justification of your desire to copulate with as many strangers as possible because, you know, monogamy is not unique to the human species. So I doubt that it's a case of where human "morality" is overriding a "biological drive", unless you believe penguins and the like also have a highly developped code of ethics. In fact, the very existence of "jealousy" - an emotion that can even lead humans to kill each other - could be seen as an argument showing that monogamy is actually hard-wired into the human psyche, and perhaps those individuals who don't practice it are the unusual ones.
Either way I don't care, it's one of these argument that we will argue about 'till the cows come home but no one will actually ever be able to prove anything. Popcorn?
We want our mates to be faithful, that's what jealousy does: tries to get us to make sure our partners are carrying our genes. There are good reasons why jealousy would propagate in a non monogamous society, it probably isn't an indicator that we're monogamous by nature. Monogamy can develop in nature, and thrive, and the opposite happens too. Humans do have well documented drives however to spread their genes around, just because you don't doesn't mean a lot of people do.
Comment Re:Busybodies everywhere (Score 1) 840
Libertarians are the ones demonising gay people, minorities and foreigners, sure. Its certainly not the people trying to legislate against them.
Comment Re:Ethics (Score 1) 840
Who enforces that line for the rich?
Why should anyone?
If someone makes a genetic mutation that causes them to breathe out gas that kills poor people, I would sure wish someone was drawing a line.
Comment Ethicist says: (Score 1) 840
"We should always ask how genetic engineering should go wrong."
It's like calling someone out for going on an anti-gun nut diatribe after a bunch of nuts up and kill a heap of people. Who else is in a position to potentially abuse new technology? Minorities? Non-wealthy individuals? When we start to have people blaming the rich for peeing in dank city alleys, then you can start on that.
Submission + - Adobe to Nick Flash Player off the Android store from 15th August (paritynews.com) 1
hypnosec writes: Adobe has announced that it will be making the Flash Player for Android unavailable for new devices and users from August 15 in continuation of its plan to discontinue development of Flash Player for mobile browsers. The company announced its decision through a blog post and further said that only those users who have already installed the flash player on their devices will be receiving any future updates. To ensure that this is the case, Adobe is going to make configuration changes on its Google Play Flash Player page.
Submission + - Advance warning system for solar flares hinges on surprising hypotheses (gizmag.com)
cylonlover writes: Scientists may have hit upon a new means of predicting solar flares more than a day in advance, which hinges on a hypothesis dating back to 2006 that solar activity affects the rate of decay of radioactive materials on Earth. Study of the phenomenon could lead to a new system which monitors changes in gamma radiation emitted from radioactive materials, and if the underlying hypothesis proves correct, this could lead to solar flare advance warning systems that would assist in the protection of satellites, power systems and astronauts.
Submission + - .gay, .wine, .porn and .sexy among gTLDs objected to by Saudi Arabia (computerworlduk.com) 1
Qedward writes: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has objected to a variety of new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) ranging from .porn and .sexy to .wine and .bar and .bible, according to records of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
The organisation said in June it had received 1930 applications for gTLD "strings", of which 911 came from North America and 675 from Europe. It has extended the period for comments on applications by 45 days to September 26.
Saudi Arabia's Communication and Information Technology Commission, the IT and communications regulator, has objected to the .gay string and asked ICANN to refuse the application for the new gTLD. "Many societies and cultures consider homosexuality to be contrary to their culture, morality or religion," CITC said. "The creation of a gTLD string which promotes homosexuality will be offensive to these societies and cultures," it added.
The organisation said in June it had received 1930 applications for gTLD "strings", of which 911 came from North America and 675 from Europe. It has extended the period for comments on applications by 45 days to September 26.
Saudi Arabia's Communication and Information Technology Commission, the IT and communications regulator, has objected to the
