In the USA at least, slavery was toppled by a gruesome and bloody war, after which the justice system allowed a system only slightly less worse to become institutionalized for over 100 years.

So what's your gameplan? I look forward to hearing about what you receive, too.

But I read about politicians on here almost every day!

In all seriousness, though, just because they're bad doesn't mean it's not noteworthy or news for nerds. The hacktivist stories are a good example. The legality of actions may or may not (in this case) be worth debating, but we should be able to divorce that from other stories that are, on their own, worth discussing.

I respectfully disagree. The most boring thing in our solar system is what we're doing now - nothing and going anywhere.

NICT, for the record, is in Japan, so unless you are a Japanese taxpayer (who, based on your sig, also feels very strongly about slavery during the 1860s in the USA) no, you do not own the article.

Oddly cruel. It is a bit like letting homeless people crowd around a burning house instead of demolishing it. I imagine they see a lot of tears there.

Actually, it'd make more sense to call it "King Cone" if Google wanted to show good humor.

How am I supposed to take the summary seriously when it refers to the scientists as a "team of researchers"? They aren't actually a group of players on the same side in a competitive sport!

Maybe we just use different words to mean different things in different contexts, especially when they have a different but slightly related and understandable similarity to the original meaning.

You just proved your own point. Science works by independent replication of large claims, so when a large claim is made people try to reproduce it. Nobody in the scientific community wants just one proof of a concept, so others aggressively, if you will, seek to either reject or support the original conclusion. If nobody challenged them, it'd be the least scientific move possible, it'd look like the Catholic Church.