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Comment: The unintended consequences of privatization (Score 2) 163

by cutecub (#35472408) Attached to: Flickr Censors Egypt Police Photos

Because the censorship covered by the First Amendment deals only with the Government.

Exactly. In the US, Republicans and Democrats alike have embraced outsourcing of government services to private companies as a means of saving money.

But what we've lost as a result is accountability, regulation and Redress. No one seems to have considered the consequences of splitting up the Public Square into a million little private squares, each setting its own rules and standards. Or, perhaps, they have considered the consequences and then gone and done it anyway.

-S

Comment: Doctor Who is Gallifreyan for Deus ex machina (Score 1) 762

by cutecub (#34594516) Attached to: Stargate Universe Cancelled

personally I love the absurdity of their story lines. It just wouldn't be Doctor Who without it.

I agree with you its the absurdity that makes Doctor Who.

The problem I have with the rebooted Doctor Who is that the plots make absolutely no sense - even within the framework of the show. Its like the writers continually write themselves into corners that they aren't clever enough to write themselves out of. So... they just keep letting "impossible things happen."

My favorite counter-example: the movie Time Bandits. That film was totally absurd, just like Doctor Who, but it all made sense. You never got the feeling the writer was messing with you.

-S

Comment: You're being silly... (Score 1) 473

by cutecub (#34452938) Attached to: People With University Degree Fear Death Less

Its true that Science can't prove, in the mathematical sense, the non-existence of God simply because you can't mathematically prove a negative. But that's true of everything in Science, including crazy ideas such as Gravity, Electromagnetism and Kepler's laws of planetary motion.

The old trope, "Absence of proof is not proof of absence" misses the point. Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of absence.

So, it makes perfect sense to me that people with a higher level of education ( people with more evidence ) would see less need for God or a prescriptive religion.

-S

Comment: Add Software Patent Examiner... (Score 1) 314

by cutecub (#33902450) Attached to: Webvention Demanding $80k For Rollover Images
... to the list of worst IT jobs.

Can you imagine spending your day reading nonsense like:

Contexts are selected and combined into new information structures called alternates, which are combinable with contexts into preferred situations. The preferred situations in turn are combinable with the foregoing components into meta-situations.

I mean, it sounds like the output of an unholy mind-meld between a scientist and a marketing manager.

-S

Comment: NPR's On The Media reported on this recently (Score 1) 136

by cutecub (#33576402) Attached to: EFF Says 'Stop Using Haystack'
Unlike most news and analysis programs, "On The Media" actually took some responsibility for their role in hyping this story:

The other guilty party here is us, and by us, you do mean us, among everybody else [LAUGHS] in the media. We aired an interview with Heap back in May, and we were quite impressed with his story. You say that Heap has proved to be catnip for the media. Why do you think his narrative is so appealing?

That's an admission you don't hear too often in the press, oblique though it was.

-S

Image

Icelandic Company Designs Human Pylons 142

Posted by samzenpus
from the anthropomorphic-power dept.
Lanxon writes "An architecture and design firm called Choi+Shine has submitted a design for the Icelandic High-Voltage Electrical Pylon International Design Competition which proposes giant human-shaped pylons carrying electricity cables across the country's landscape, reports Wired. The enormous figures would only require slight alterations to existing pylon designs, says the firm, which was awarded an Honorable mention for its design by the competition's judging board. It also won an award from the Boston Society of Architects Unbuilt Architecture competition."

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