To me it looks like the photographer took multiple layers of the same image and did a multiply effect on the stack to increase the contrast.

Of course the accusations of manipulation or even the nomination itself would have nothing to do with any other political issues.

The Canadian government isn't really accepting it as a currency at all, that's why they are applying barter law to trade with it. However, 50% of capital gains in Canada are taxable and depending on your income bracket the percentage of that 50% is owed to the government, so ultimately if you cash out those bitcoins at some exchange when that money hits your bank account you'll have to account for it somehow. You can attempt to play stupid for a long time - the government is a slow beast when it comes to these things, however if you made any sizable gains the bankers will notice it and eventually the government. They'll just make you pay back what you owe plus interest if you "forgot" to report it. If this happens multiple times, then you'd likely get charged with tax evasion.

They need to add a second factor to the statistics, like weighing it against the number of lines of code or number of contributors to make this meaningful.

My point is that if it is successful as a product competitors will attempt to recreate a similar experience and may not see any issue with having ads. If ads become 'workable' into the product it will likely be used to subsidize the cost of the competing product hence making a lower priced product with similar or the same functionality. For Google to stay competitive in the long road they would likely need to implement ads. Turning on intrusive ads now would be awful if they want consumer adoption of the product.

They say this now but after Microsoft or Apple sell an ad supported product for cheaper they'll change their minds quickly.

Lasers are not perfectly collimated, the beams do diverge. This all depends on the laser cavity used, diodes generally diverge more due to the small exit aperture, a fiber laser would be about the same. Focusing a beam to a smaller spot also increases the power density meaning the target will start to melt faster albeit the hole will be smaller. For cutting/boring holes into metals there's an ideal spot size and power density depending on the type of metal. So the target distance for ideal focusing is important.

Assuming a small boat ... Depending on the material of the target it may cause some initial light scattering that could damage the cornea and lens of the eyes since they wouldn't know to close their eyes, most of the IR would get absorbed at that interface but wouldn't reach the retina. They would likely feel thermal IR hit them if the beam is hitting something like an on-board motor and they're close enough. Once the metal changes phases to liquid it stops being reflective at all and tends to soak up all the incident infrared light creating a metal vapour gas to form, that will cause a secondary fire/plasma as it's ejected from the surface. Once the metal is cut that gas plume stops however. Any gasoline present would obviously ignite. It's not a dumb point-and-shoot weapon by any means: it has a whole targeting system to achieve the optimal focal length and maintain the beam position in case the target is moving. I guess the injuries would be horrific if it was aimed directly at a person who doesn't feel pain or right in their face.

Honestly, it's likely a lot safer than just about any other weapon that could be used on a ship. The typical solution is to just shoot the 50 cal close enough until the pirates toss their rifles overboard and put their arms in the air.

Tazers I know are not perfect in terms of non-lethality, but to their credit they did repair the defect that caused out-of-spec currents to be delivered when used. Sure seems far less lethal than a 9 mm round to the chest or some jacketed hollow point .38 police typically use. However I have yet to see a video of the Active Denial System microwave 'pain' beam be used besides a basic demonstration so I have no idea where you got the skin burn/blindness thing from. If you have a link that shows the skin burns/blindness or the ADS being used on an actual crowd that would be appreciated. Last I heard they weren't deploying ADS due to a long list of problems ...

Likely in an attempt to avert this sort of ridiculous situation. It is disgusting that France and Belgium treated this man the way they did.

We hardly want you off the lawn. I personally didn't buy in from day 1 because after reading about software vulnerabilities and encryption cracking regularly I'm cynical enough to anticipate a major crash. I could've just bought in and attempted to sell high, but I also knew nothing about the exchanges. Why should I trust Mt.Gox to reliably transfer me the coins or cash when they were handling far lower volumes? I feel that as a currency, especially one via the internet, it offers so much anonymity that I don't trust to receive the product I'm actually paying for; and if I don't receive it, no means to do _anything_ about it.

You also likely have a life time of savings to work with, I'm still trying to buy my first shitty home where I'll have to fix everything myself if I ever want a return on it. Losing $1000 to a bad bitcoin investment means not paying for something else far more pressing right now.

I also think bitcoins are far over valued. In the past 30 days there was on $104 million worth of USD Volume on Mt.Gox with only a handful of places I could actually spend that money, unless I'm looking to buy a skid of coke, it's not useful to me. Hopefully more retailers start accepting it but this is something I'm not an early adopter on. Obviously I'm regretting it since I could've purchased at 1 BTC/USD and sold now for a hefty pay out. Heck I even regret sending back the free 0.05 BTC from the Bitcoin Fountain ... I just wanted to see how long the transaction would take round trip. If I was holding onto a collection of BTC, I'd be worried about some psychological response to seeing $100 USD and there being a massive sell off. That alone would make me want to sell because I believe others to be so rash and willing to panic. Obviously if you're playing the long game with BTC then none of this matters to you. But $90k USD would be quite helpful to me right now.

Putting it on the same level as constitutional amendments like freedom from forced slavery is the point I was trying to make. I'm not even an American and I can see the difference between consumer protection law or breach of contract and a constitutionally protected freedom. I bought the game because I expect them to maintain a certain level of service, if they don't I'll consider my hard earned $60 wasted but they likely won't get me as a customer again. You know what EA is offering - stop feeling like they _must_ give you the game you want the way you want it - THEY DON'T WANT YOU AS A CUSTOMER. Go elsewhere, buy Cities XL 2012 if it's such a problem, but you get what you pay for ...

Long time friends of mine who have the hardest time accepting this are the people who _never_ paid for a single Simcity title in their entire lives. Is that just a coincidence??? You probably expect whores to suck dick for free ...

A consumer protection law for software is what you want. Too bad we all agree to waive any expectations of warranty once we've agreed to the license agreement which few people actually read.

The right to get a refund on digital media, particularly media that is DRM enabled should be introduced however. If the company is using DRM to protect their intellectual property by enforcing per seat licensing then consumers should have the same right to return this software within some time frame established by law - ie. 15 days. The company selling the software can remotely disable the DRM function in the case of games that require an account, the only concern I see companies having is with people cracking the DRM after they've already downloaded it, then requesting a refund.

However, calling it a "Bill of Rights" makes you look like some entitled idiot who believes this is on the same level of some US Constitutional amendment.

I bought the latest Simcity and I like the game. It has its flaws, but this is the PC gaming industry - I expect nothing short of bullshit from new releases. I could spend a lifetime just compiling a list of bugs in newly released software ...

I really disliked Cities XL. On the surface it seems like a reasonably polished product, but certain game concepts seemed kind of weird. I definitely didn't like the method of zoning - zoning residential space for 'working class' or 'business' workers is one example.

Sadly, I'm such a fan of the SimCity franchise that I'm likely to buy this always-on Internet shit. I get the impression SimCity is moving to a persistent online franchise like WoW is, where you just end up purchasing additional content packs and over the years we'll see incremental graphics improvements to match increasing screen resolution sizes, etc. I'm assuming the only way they can combat annual operating costs for the multiplayer experience is to sell more content to existing customers unless they gain X number of new players per year. I can't see it growing indefinitely, but there is likely some upper limit of subscribers.

I'd imagine a game like WoW has a shrinking user base now considering that game was released almost 10 years ago however according to this article they still have 10 million subscribers, which is only slightly down from their peak of 12 million. That's still $1.7 billion in revenue per year ... I'm sure EA would love to replicate this milking machine.

Brin, Milner and Zuckerberg just want to live forever (or have a medical condition). They have the money to fund these sorts of things, so might as well start investing into it while you're young. I don't know their religious views, but if it involves not believing in the existence of an afterlife ... I suspect that to be highly motivating for funding a life sciences contest.

I'm kind of surprised that Elon Musk isn't involved with this some how.

Cops in Canada can't even stop a stolen pick up with OnStar from getting disassembled, I have greater doubts for them to track tree poachers in Brazil when they can't keep up with the crime in Rio.