I laughed, but this is sadly true. People seem to love being exploited if it means they'll feel just a little bit special for having the newest thing.

Namecoin is supposed to function as a currency, just like Bitcoin. With the mining and everything, the same way. The difference is that Namecoins have some intrinsic value backing them up.

As Bitcoin alternatives go, I really liked the idea behind Namecoin. Not that it's likely to go anywhere, but it's something that puts some real backing, value, to the currency while simultaneously doing something to address the piss poor domain name allocation system that we have right now. Bitcoin is currently just floating on enthusiasm and greed, this would actually have some worth if people got behind it.

Nope.

You're making a joke about the cat but it's a genuine and difficult problem. Social programs which alleviate poverty and encourage healthy and educated children have wide-ranging benefits: reducing crime, boosting the economy, encouraging entrepreneurship and reducing stagnation, etc. These things are in the interest of the community at large, including childless members of that community, not just the children themselves or their parents.

On the other hand, it's difficult to make child rearing easier without also making it more appealing. So the benefits of these programs have to be balanced against against the detriment of a larger number of babies, a larger population, and the long-term environmental and social impact.

So one possible, but impractical, solution might be something like giving all employees the full twelve weeks off every year, to be spent on whatever they wish. That'd be nice... ::sigh:: ... Anyway. I don't have a real solution, it's a hard problem like I said, but we're going to have to figure something out.

I remember the Cartoon Network did a bunch of shorts more than fifteen years ago that people were supposed to vote on (by phone, because that's how we rolled back then). Johnny Bravo was the winner (deserved. I know it got bad later on, but that original short and the start of the series were funny as hell), Cow and Chicken and the Powerpuff Girls also came out of this little experiment. Maybe more, I don't remember.

I thought this was a brilliant way of coming up with new shows and it seemed successful from my perspective, but I don't think they ever did it again.

That's a bunch of hooey. Income is taxed instead of wealth because income is easy to measure and (more) difficult to hide. And it isn't New England Democrats who would avoid this, it's people who make the bulk of their money through capital gains rather than income - a tax the Republicans have cut again and again and done everything that they can to keep low. And further, it's Republicans, not "New England Democrats," who have opposed other taxes on the established rich (e.g.: the estate tax).

On the one hand, yeah sure. On the other hand, they do this to wild animals all the time - the death rate isn't nearly as high as you seem to be suggesting. Tranquilizer darts aren't an alternative to handcuffs, or even a tazer, but they'd be fine for a situation like this as an alternative to shooting someone with bullets (provided this could be done without putting the police officers in danger).

This is sort of what the “free from government control” business was about, I'll quote from the article:

In other words, they're talking about net neutrality.

You want suggestions for an aspiring game designer? You got me, you'd be better off asking an existing game designer. Here's what thirty seconds on Google found me:

http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/522/entrylevel_video_game_.php?page=3

They have ten people with a combined experience of thirty five years, that's nothing to brag about. They list a bunch of games that team members have "worked on," but give no indication in what capacity. These aren't established vets, like Brian Fargo or Tim Schafer (who have kickstarted projects to which I was happy to donate), these are... I don't know what to call them that doesn't sound insulting. These are people from whom I would be happy to buy a product, but not people to whom I wish to give a donation.

I'm also wondering how they're supposed to be funding more than a year's worth of development from ten people with only $160,000.

I didn't see any mention of a demo. Could you provide a link? Or do you mean the video? The video sells the concept, and that's good, and it's a good concept. But concepts are a dime a dozen.

Not through Kickstarter. I suppose they'd have to do it the old fashioned way.

And... are you the daddy who touched her? And is that bad? Are you suggesting that fathers shouldn't touch their children?

If you mean molest you should really say molest. It's not like children are going to catch the contextual difference between touch and touch.

On the one hand I fully sympathize with people who are enthusiastically supporting projects like this. I wanted the Dreamfall kickstarter to make gobs of money and considered a Slashdot submission but held off, feeling that it was inappropriate. There are so many of these projects now that I'd hate to see Slashdot flooded with this sort of thing.

As far as this particular project is concerned: I make a point of only donating to teams that already have considerable experience and who I know can do the job well and in reasonable time. These people are not that. It's otherwise a good idea, but I don't think bankrolling the dreams of some college kids is really the best use of Kickstarter funding.

This is insightful, but my experience in this last election cycle has led me to doubt that ten seconds worth of Google is actually worth anything. Certain figures (all right, Obama) are subject to fantastic amounts of criticism and with ten seconds on Google you could prove that they had stolen your car, raped your cat, and destroyed the sun with their laser eyes. On the other hand, five minutes on Google (looking into the story more deeply than most people would) will show you that that's all bullshit or has a deeper explanation.

The problem being that spending five minutes on Google to look into every one of the literally thousands of slanderous stories is just too much time. So after a while you begin to depend on the bias that you've developed: "Well it wasn't true the last dozen times, it's probably bullshit this time too."

That's terrible of course, it allows your favored guy to get away with things that he shouldn't, but with certain news organizations making their bread and butter on these sorts of slanderous stories, there's just too many of them to deal with them all in the serious way that they should be dealt.