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Comment Durable but not portable? (Score 1) 102

The only benefit to this technology that the article mentions is that it "can greatly improve the device robustness and durability" and says nothing of the sound quality. It made me assume this would be used for MP3 player earbuds rather than headphones but then the article mentions "the speakers consume relatively high levels of power, because of their low efficiency of converting electrical energy into sound." Sounds like this has no practical commercial application at the moment.

Comment Re:Wow - how did this one get approved at /. ??? (Score 1) 435

there's lots of small businesses that are hanging at the 49 employee number to avoid the Obamacare mandates.

[...]

I think most everyone can see that these two reactions in particular apparently weren't anticipated as side effects as widespread as they seem to be at this point.

Italy's cutoff for corporations being required to pay into the socialized medicine system is ten employees. That's why 90% of its workforce is employed at companies with less than ten workers.

This was not only anticipated, it was planned. Gotta kill those evil big corporations y'know!

Comment Missing Option: Willful Ignorance (Score 2) 418

Social media is a tool no different than any other tool. People who go out of their way to understand the tools they use rarely encounter problems with them. But like an inexperienced driver climbing behind the wheel after having "only a few" drinks, too many people browse social media sites as if every word is fact, unaware that nearly everything written online should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. But there's no helping people who will believe a FB group about the moon landing being fake while dismissing contradicting posts like this as part of the government cover-up. As long as there are people who thrive in the social experience of collective willful ignorance, every tool can become a menace to society. That doesn't mean we should take them all away.

Comment Re:The cost is too high (Score 1) 286

The artist is an art-producing AI, who was compiled from source code that is open.

Why did this get modded funny? Am I seriously the only weeabee in a thread about Japan? Are you guys not aware of Hatsune Miku? The computer doesn't compose the music on its own but it's a publicly available application that allows you to synthesize voice. Some of the music they play at her concerts were composed by fans (who weren't paid to do so). Here's an example that would be disturbing even if it wasn't still crawling out of the uncanny valley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGHtjI

Comment Re:What's the point? (Score 1, Flamebait) 221

Because the average patient doesn't have the background to understand what they're getting themselves into. Without laws to the contrary snake oil salesman can claim whatever they want about a treatment or medication. Do you really want to live in the 19th century?

You're right, laws to protect citizens from "snake oil salesmen" were indeed important in the 19th century since no one could google "snake oil" and realize that this wasn't going to cure their cancer. Now you can. Welcome to the 21st century.

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