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Comment: Re:I'd start by shooting the Captain.... (Score 2) 416

by laura20 (#38764196) Attached to: What To Do With a 1,000 Foot Wrecked Cruise Ship?
It's an established part of the job of the captain of a ship to remain on the ship and coordinate evacuation efforts until passengers have been evacuated. That doesn't mean they are supposed to go down with the ship, or even that they are responsible for every last one getting off -- sometimes it is impossible -- but it definitely means that while passengers are queued up for boats or going down ladders, you are supposed to still be on the ship, doing what you can.

Note that the deputy mayor of Giglio, the island they ran into, boarded the ship from a tender at 11pm, before it had even tilted, and found only a single junior officer left on board, and the evacuation in chaos. That's criminal irresponsibility, and the captain and probably some of his officers will go to jail for it. Though I agree with the other commenter who said that the truly criminal part will be the lying to the coast guard and telling passengers to go back to their cabins despite the fact that the ship was clearly hopeless. It's almost mystifying -- did he think that giant rock was going to somehow vanish?

Comment: Re:National Archives of Australia have them anyway (Score 1) 150

by laura20 (#38344986) Attached to: Two Lost <em>Doctor Who</em> Episodes Found

The recovered episodes are broadcast versions from Australia, which had bits censored out of them. The Australian censorship board was very diligent about filing the sections they snipped out, however, so those segments still exist, we just didn't have the rest of the episodes until now. Now they can rejoin the edited version + copies of the censored sections and have two completed episodes.

Comment: Re:Makes sense actually (Score 1) 447

by laura20 (#37545802) Attached to: The Cable Industry's a La Carte Bait and Switch

In summary, the consumers are paying pretty similar prices as before, but are getting far less channels. If a movie comes up on AMC that one of us wants to watch, none of us can.

Yah, this is what I expect to happen. The cable channels know that you are willing to say, pay $50 a month for cable. If that's just because of four channels, then that's what those channels are worth and that's the price they will extract. With bonus extra profit because now they don't have to give you anything else. Some individuals will be better off, some worse, since cable won't be able to charge users individual rates, but overall customers will end up paying the same for fewer channels.

Comment: Re:Why is a third party manufacturer needed? (Score 1) 130

by laura20 (#36418640) Attached to: How One Man Helps Keep Game Controllers Accessible

You're like (I used this example, because something similar really happened and is well-known):
Hey, that dude went to the back of his motor home to make a coffee *while on the freaking highway*, crashed, and now can't walk.

Nope. Long running urban legend, constantly morphing according whatever the current society or teller wants to bash (in your case, disabled people.)

Earth

Climategate and the Need For Greater Scientific Openness 701

Posted by Soulskill
from the protecting-the-wrong-data dept.
The Guardian follows up on the recent news that CRU climate scientists were cleared of scientific misconduct with an article that focuses on how the controversy could have been avoided, and public trust retained, had the scientists made more of an effort to be open about their research. You may recall our discussion of a report from Pennsylvania State University; that was followed by another review with similar conclusions. Quoting: "The review, led by Sir Muir Russell, does not mention the media. Instead, it examines the reaction of the scientists at the UEA's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) to the pressure exerted by bloggers: 'An important feature of the blogosphere is the extent to which it demands openness and access to data. A failure to recognize this and to act appropriately can lead to immense reputational damage by feeding allegations of cover-up.' The review adds: 'We found a lack of recognition of the extent to which earlier action to release information might have minimized the problems.' Pressure on the scientists, whose once esoteric work creating records of past temperatures had gained global significance, was intense. In 2005, CRU head Phil Jones replied to a request: 'We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?' But, the review implies, the more they blocked, the more the Freedom of Information requests flooded in."

Comment: Re:Sounds familiar. (Score 1) 571

by laura20 (#32765474) Attached to: Mom Arrested After Son Makes Dry Ice "Bombs"

Also note that "Lectures in the Philosophy of Education" isn't written by Dewey -- it's from a student's notes during Dewey's lectures at the University of Chicago. So even if the quote exists and isn't taken out of context (i.e., "Some say that children who think for themselves..." being negated), it's still secondhand at best.

Comment: Re:Sounds familiar. (Score 2, Informative) 571

by laura20 (#32765336) Attached to: Mom Arrested After Son Makes Dry Ice "Bombs"

Nah, you give too much credit to Coulter. She took it from "None Dare Call It Education" , written by crazy Bircher John Stormer. Who quotes it from Human Events, which is mostly right-wing propaganda.

Well, half of it-- the other half that she claims Dewey said, "You can't make socialists out of individualists", is actually Rosalie Gordon from "What's Happened To Our Schools", which was a rant back in the 1950s about the eeeevil of progressive education.

If the quote exists at all, it's in Dewey's "Lectures in the Philosophy of Education", but there's no electronic copy and I'm not trawling through the whole thing, given the dodgy reputations of the people claiming the quote. And given that one of Dewey's major focuses was getting a child involved in their own education instead of just sitting in a chair and being lectured at; that's part of why Christian conservatives hate him.

Crime

Mom Arrested After Son Makes Dry Ice "Bombs" 571

Posted by samzenpus
from the mr.-terrorist-wizard dept.
formfeed writes "Police were called to a house in Omaha where a 14-year-old made some 'dry ice bombs' (dry ice in soda bottles). Since his mom knew about it, she is now facing felony charges for child endangment and possession of a destructive device. From the article: 'Assistant Douglas County Attorney Eric Wells said the boy admitted to making the bomb and that his mother knew he was doing so. The boy was set to appear Tuesday afternoon in juvenile court, accused of possessing a destructive device.'" She's lucky they didn't find the baking soda volcano in the basement.

Comment: Re:National Security Act (Score 3, Informative) 319

by laura20 (#32707836) Attached to: US Fears Loss of ICQ Honeypot

There is no British Constitution, in the sense of a piece of paper that William of Orange could have signed. It's uncodified, famously so. What you are speaking about, in a somewhat confused and uninformed way, is the British Bill of Rights, which is one of the things that make up the Constitution. And while it is an important document in the development of constitutional theory, in no way is "EVERY national constitution is based on the 1689 British Constitution".

Hempstone's Question: If you have to travel on the Titanic, why not go first class?

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