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Comment Re:Does playing Descent count? (Score 1) 80

I certainly played more hours than 25h Descent in one row except for going to the toilet.

And our multiplayer sessions often reached easily 10 hours.

From the Descent FAQ;

-- [5e] ---------- I'm having hallucinations when I look away from the monitor.

You've been playing far too long, and you need sleep. Go take a nap. :)

Come on don't let a little off monitor hallucination get to you. Who didn't see the game when you closed your eyes?

Comment Re:Sue the bastards (Score 1) 441

Wrong. You won't be fired. But the problem with teaching critical thinking is more the kids than the students. Before I'm accused of being something else: I was a rebellious student with idiotic teachers. The one I had that taught me well recieved accolades, and eventually returned to the university level at which he belonged before he died.

Comment Re:Sue the bastards (Score 1) 441

I should have added, but didn't for brevity, that a lawyer is appointed by the state for the person incarcerated by a mental institution. Public defenders, in many cases, are well known for giving little care to their clients plight. In our case she was in need of treatment. What was disturbing however was that the lawyer appointed to her didn't even care to show up in court on the appointed date, even if he had he would have done exactly what the treatment facility wanted, mental health being outside of his repertoire, and she could have been held indefinitely.

In no way was she abused (just propositioned by a now wrote up staff member), and the facility let her out early, but what is she hadn't had someone on her side? Someone to visit, inquire of staff, to be there even if she had been drugged out of her mind?

Basically, unless rich, one has to trust the mental healthy industry to make the right calls and tell the truth. A very scary proposition. I see now way out of it. It is where the famous horror stories of woman locked away and driven insane come from (some, if few, true).

Comment Re:Sue the bastards (Score 3, Insightful) 441

Law enforcment is not bound by HIPPA, but are hesitant to divulge what may be considered private under HIPPA. I have had people close to me sent to psychiatric institutions and once they are there the staff won't tell anyone they are even there without a waiver being signed by the patient. This is very frustrating when the police show up and hall off your loved one, and they seem to disappear into a blackhole. A few days later I did recieve a call. But if a patient was sufficiently drugged and unable or not allowed to make phone calls they could disappear indefinitely, drugged-incapacitated and without the mental capacity to challenge their detention.

Comment Re:The most intriguing thing in this to me... (Score 5, Interesting) 92

The most intriguing thing in this to me... ...is that they were able to identify 140 ISPs, presumably 130 or so of which were not owned by a regional monopoly phone company or a cable company.

One would be Nextech, owned by Rural Telephone, in northwest Kansas. I've recieved several phone calls from them, and they have shut off my internet before due to supposed infrining. Frankly I think what I do with my internet is none of their damn business. I've even got calls for running a Tor node (not exit) along with I2P. Giving ISP's common carrier status would solve the problem. Since Rural Telephone is a common carrier I wonder if it makes their subsidiary Nextech one too? No such luck I think.

Submission + - A Corporate War Against a Scientist, and How He Fought Back

AthanasiusKircher writes: Environmental and health concerns about atrazine — one of the most commonly used herbicides in the U.S. — have been voiced for years, leading to an EU ban and multiple investigations by the EPA. Tyrone Hayes, a Berkeley professor who has spearheaded research on the topic, began to display signs of apparent paranoia over a decade ago. He noticed strangers following him to conferences around the world, taking notes and asking questions aimed to make him look foolish. He worried that someone was reading his email, and attacks against his reputation seemed to be everywhere; search engines even displayed ad hits like "Tyrone Hayes Not Credible" when his name was searched for. But he wasn't paranoid: documents released after a lawsuit from Midwestern towns against Syngenta, the manufacturer of atrazine, showed a coordinated smear campaign. Syngenta's public relations team had a list of ways to defend its product, topped by "discredit Hayes." Its internal list of methods: "have his work audited by 3rd party," "ask journals to retract," "set trap to entice him to sue," "investigate funding," "investigate wife," etc. A recent New Yorker article chronicles this war against Hayes, but also his decision to go on the offensive and strike back. He took on the role of activist against atrazine, giving over 50 public talks on the subject each year, and even taunting Syngenta with profanity-laced emails, often delivered in a rapping "gangsta" style. The story brings up important questions for science and its public persona: How do scientists fight a PR war against corporations with unlimited pockets? How far should they go?

Submission + - Florida Arrests High-Dollar Bitcoin Exchangers for Money Laundering (krebsonsecurity.com)

tsu doh nimh writes: State authorities in Florida on Thursday announced criminal charges targeting three men who allegedly ran illegal businesses moving large amounts of cash in and out of the Bitcoin virtual currency. Experts say this is likely the first case in which Bitcoin vendors have been prosecuted under state anti-money laundering laws, and that prosecutions like these could shut down one of the last remaining avenues for purchasing Bitcoins anonymously.

Comment Re:What about surveillence? (Score 1) 218

It may or may not make it easier for current mass surveillance technology, but it will make it easier for us to use telephones with encryption built in. I would love to see basic telephones with opportunistic encryption built in and the option for me to use my own set of keys when I don't think that's enough.

Comment Re:Wacky thinking (Score 1) 430

There's more of us atheist in Kansas than people would believe. Where I work pretty much everyone thirty and younger is atheist. All that doesn't matter though. Stopping this bill does. I'm lucky in Northwest Kansas as we have fiber-to-the-home, but I doubt we'll see the rest of Kansas wired up without public help, and the cable companies will keep milking the cities/larger towns (we have Nextech/Rural Telephone, excellent service and good infrastructure).

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