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Comment: Mob Rule (Score 1, Interesting) 240

Do you worry that rule by direct election would lead to a "Mob Rule" mentality? Too often the public gets very angry over an issue and makes an emotional decision instead of an informed decision. And then, one must worry about the public basing their decisions on propaganda instead of information.

This can result in very poor policy - what is popular is not always right, and what is right is not always popular.

Advertising

We Don't Need NUads, We Need Better Ads->

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes "You may have seen the flurry of interest yesterday in NUads, a technology from Microsoft that will let users interact with Kinect-enabled TV ads. That's a pretty cool idea. And VentureBeat's Tom Cheredar says Microsoft Kinect's NUads is what the TV industry needs to survive the future. But ITworld's Peter Smith sees it as overengineering a solution to a problem that could be solved by simply creating better ads."
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Science

Coffee Increases Chances of Living Longer, Study Says

Submitted by markmark57
markmark57 writes "People who drink coffee are likely to live longer than non-coffee drinkers, according to a new study. Researchers conducted the largest ever study on the link between coffee and longevity and said the result should assuage any fears that people have of coffee being bad for their health. "Our study suggests that's really not the case," Neal Freedman, lead researcher and researcher at the National Cancer Institute, said."There may actually be a modest benefit of coffee drinking.""
Crime

Insects Help Forensic Entomologist Solve Murders

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes "BBC reports that after collecting beetles and blowflies while growing up in Zanzibar, Dr Martin Hall became a forensic entomologist and since 1992 has been called on by detectives to help police solve 10 and 20 cases a year including the deaths of five sex workers in Suffolk in 2006 and the murder of 17-year-old Alisa Dmitrijeva who was found dead on the Queen's Sandringham Estate after being hidden for four months. "The first time you do see a dead body is a bit disquieting but I'm relatively comfortable in doing it now," says Dr Hall who adds that he finds the work extremely fulfilling "Many people may be beavering away all their lives with research and not see anything productive come from it. For me, it's great to see an outcome every few months at the end of the criminal case." When a body is found Hall collects insects from on and around the body and looks for the oldest insect on the body — that gives a very good indication of how long the person has been there. Hall says there is often a link between where the insects are feeding on the body and the cause of death, a gunshot wound but also look for other aspect of the crimes. For Hall, the taxonomic identification of the insects found on corpses is essential to the reconstruction of events surrounding criminal cases involving death. In the case of maggots, their location on the body can provide important information because on an uninjured body, blowfly eggs are usually laid at the openings of body orifices and it is in those areas that the emerging maggots start to feed. "You only get one chance to gather the evidence and it's vital nothing is missed," says Hall. "You have to think like a maggot (PDF). Where would I go if I was a maggot? What would I do?""

Good Cholesterol (HDL) is not all that it's cracked up to be

Submitted by BayaWeaver
BayaWeaver writes "We have been told for a long time that there's good cholesterol (HDL) and bad cholesterol (LDL) and good cholesterol lowers the rate of heart disease. However, the New York Times reports that a just published article in The Lancet has shown that people genetically endowed with higher levels of good cholesterol (HDL) do not have decreased heart attack risk. Also, tests of HDL-boosting drugs by Roche and Pfizer have failed to lower heart attack risk. So it looks like we should ignore 'good' cholesterol and just concentrate on lowering bad cholesterol with diet, exercise and statins if we want to reduce the risk of heart attacks."
Music

BitTorrent piracy boosts music sales, study finds->

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes "A recent study found that contrary to arguments repeatedly posed by major record labels — and perhaps contrary to logic as well — BitTorrent piracy has a direct correlation to increased album sales. Between May 2010 and January 2011, North Carolina State University assistant professor Robert Hammond tracked BitTorrent download statistics for new albums ahead of their releases. He then compared his data to music sales figures and found what he believes to be a connection..."
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Comment: Re:Keep Spreading Your Lies and Uncertainty (Score -1) 735

by KermodeBear (#39926377) Attached to: Heartland Institute Learning To Troll On Billboards

It was also once consensus that the Earth was the center of the universe. A consensus of people in some places think it's okay to stone adulterers.

Just because a majority of people believe something is true doesn't mean that it is.Bringing that up also doesn't do anything to convince people otherwise anyway. Providing facts and exposing myths without being confrontational is what will do it. You can point out factual errors in another's post without going down the road of "cheap rhetoric" and "buillshit" in your own. Try it sometime.

In Hollywood, if you don't have happiness, you send out for it. -- Rex Reed