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Comment: Re:Ruin the US wheat crop, get a prize! (Score 1) 54

by arth1 (#44056375) Attached to: Monsanto Executive Wins World Food Prize

What is it about GMO that drives people to this sort of hysteria?

That the consequences are irreversible. You can't put the genie back in the bottle again.

It also ups the ante in the arms race of evolution, which isn't universally seen as a good thing.

Calling objection "hysteria" doesn't make it so. Some protesters are quite enlightened and think long term.

Comment: Re:Thought... (Score 4, Insightful) 183

by arth1 (#44046397) Attached to: My view of touchscreen laptops:

Indeed. Remember the gorilla arm.

Not to mention that you obscure parts of the display while doing so, including (but not limited to) whatever you touch. You have to move your hand away again to see the result.

A navigation system that depends on obscuring visual focus isn't a good one, in my humble opinion.

Oh, and there's no tactical feedback either. Which makes it even worse than the same action on a cell phone (which you at least can have vibrate when it detects your taps).
This is, incidentally, why we don't have glass keyboards like in of Star Trek. Tactical feedback is rather important for both speed and accuracy.

Comment: Re:How about no (Score 1) 196

by arth1 (#44038619) Attached to: Comcast To Expand Public WiFi Using Home Internet Connections

Non-broadcasting SSID, MAC filtering and WEP serve the same purpose as door locks. They do little to stop criminals, but they help keeping honest people honest.

And,a wildebeest doesn't need to be able to outrun a lion; only outrun its neighbour wildebeest. Unless you are specifically targeted, you only need to have better protection than your neighbour.

And if you're specifically targeted, it's not the WiFi router that is going to save you. A hard shell only means there will be other, softer parts. Turtles are awfully tasty. You need security from the ground up, inside your network.

Comment: Re:wtf (Score 4, Insightful) 647

by arth1 (#44036351) Attached to: Supreme Court Decides Your Silence May Be Used Against You

In many countries, you can retract a confession, and it can then not be used as evidence against you. This safeguards against confessions given under pressure.
After being sleep deprived and harassed non-stop by the police, people can confess to the damdest things, whether true or not. And it's sad that this practice goes on in some countries that call themselves civilized.

Comment: Re:It was a very stupid idea (Score 4, Informative) 192

by arth1 (#44026127) Attached to: Microsoft Antitrust Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson Dead at 76

It was part of their "Embrace and Extend" strategy. Embrace any popular technology by making your own free version, then extend it in a way that's incompatible with other operating systems or office software, thus creating a lock-in and even greater dependency on the core products - OS and Office.

Comment: Re:He and Jobs now cracking M$ jokes. (Score 1, Troll) 192

by arth1 (#44026107) Attached to: Microsoft Antitrust Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson Dead at 76

I hate to tell you, but they only exist in the past. Afterlife is a fairy tale crutch for alive people to cope with death.

Anyhow, I'm pretty sure that "TeePee" Jackson wouldn't have a lot of good things to say about Apple and Jobs either, with its lock-in between hardware and software, and for a while such a large market share on smartphones and tablets that anti-monopoly legislation might well come into play.

Comment: Re:doesn't help people take games seriously either (Score 1) 731

by arth1 (#44024511) Attached to: Sexism Still a Problem At E3

I'm just pointing out your fallacy: just because some action is an effective method of achieving some goal ('sex sells') doesn't make it morally right.

Since no one has claimed that it's morally right, what's the fallacy, exactly?

Not that there's any logical justification for saying it's morally wrong either. Things about moral values is that everyone's is different, and it's never logical.

Comment: Re:doesn't help people take games seriously either (Score 1) 731

by arth1 (#44022021) Attached to: Sexism Still a Problem At E3

It's not the fact that men find women attractive that feminists have a problem with, it's that some men can't seem to see past physical attractiveness and treat women like equals or human beings.

That a man sees a woman as an equal and a human being doesn't stop him from wanting to stick his dick into her, unless someone more attractive is around. The two are orthogonal, not exclusive.
Most men don't act on that desire, because it would lower our success at actually accomplish it. But if you're a woman between puberty and menopause, pretty much every man sees you as a potential sperm receptor, and will enjoy signs that you might be a willing such who's not looking for commitment - like flashing cleavage and thighs signals.

That doesn't mean they don't think you're an equal, it's just a hope that you're a fuckable equal.

Comment: Re:doesn't help people take games seriously either (Score 1) 731

by arth1 (#44021623) Attached to: Sexism Still a Problem At E3

As a man, you should hold yourself to a better standard of creature than one driven by his carnal instincts.

Why? We are driven by carnal instincts. Denying them would be counter-productive in the game of evolution.

The day women cease to try to make themselves more attractive precisely because of men's carnal instincts, we can have this discussion. Not before.

Comment: Re:doesn't help people take games seriously either (Score 1) 731

by arth1 (#44021497) Attached to: Sexism Still a Problem At E3

I agree with that, but I don't think that's the function of "booth babes." Do they actually try to sell stuff to you, or is that left to the guys in the booth?

They make more potential customers approach the booth, which is a requirement to make sales (or in a show like this, impressions).
It doesn't matter what the hook looks like; if the lure didn't lure fish, it would be useless. But it does, so it isn't.

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