Not everyone thinks about international espionage for one, so that's why it's a shock to some people. And some of us are merely ACTING shocked, since acting like it was normal and okay only serves to keep big brother going.

Well, see, first you need to REALLY REALLY REALLY want the US to be "the good guy" in this situation and all situations. Then you'll see how they're the same.

If anyone is wondering, he's not making a joke about foiling transparent government. It stands for Freedom of Information Law

This wasn't an experiment, it was a stunt to highlight a problem he saw.

I'd say it's actually overly simplistic. It's a complex problem. A simple solution is doomed to only make things worse. "There are a lot of open access journals, and there are some shitty ones, so we should make there be less" is the basic suggestion here. The factors that motivated the journal numbers aren't going to go away just by consolidating them. Publishers of the shitty open access journals who are simply looking for a profit will still simply want a profit. Researchers who just want to churn out crap still have the same incentives to churn out crap.

This seal of approval or "virtual super journal" wouldn't end it either. We know this because such things already exist and yet the problem continues. You make this virtual journal to seperate the good from the bad. The people who made the bad journals will come up with their own. In addition to a large number of shitty journals mucking things up, you'll have a large number of shitty VSJs.

Why does competition = honesty not work now then?

For that matter, what's the problem? Shitty journal articles may be annoying, but researchers aren't exactly confused by them. "This article was published in the 'western romanian journal of blood borne pathogens in pigeons?' Hmm... better take it very seriously." A huge number of crap open access journals is only a problem for people who want to see research in extremely simplistic terms. People who just want to count publications and determine who to throw money at are the ones who see it as a problem. But such people are idiots and are going to waste money no matter how you try to prevent shitty publications. And researchers are going to be able to game such systems anyway.

Yes, I think that voters looking for a reason to continue to be apathetic will readily believe it. They might even assume that the government will go ahead and fix itself "even though Snowden brought this up the 'wrong' way." Feinstein and Rogers aren't making these statements because they fail to realize their hypocrisy. They're saying this shit because they're very cunning politicians who know how to play the press and defend their benefactors in the intelligence community. I think this WILL mollify a disturbing number of people. These congress people didn't bumble their way to the near top.

It's hard for me to blame the voters too. Most people don't have the time or mental energy to support themselves and their families AND maintain government against shit like this. I'd be happy if most voters stopped being paranoid about foreign threats. People are aware of the dangers of big government, their concerns are just eclipsed by fears of islamic cultists with pipe bombs. Cure that and I think it will be possible to trim back the NSA and military industrial complex. I think it will clear up before too long though: the paranoia seems to be driven by the 24 hour cable news culture, it's very effective at making people worried all the time. And I see the cable news watching population getting older and not being replaced by younger generations. It will be a lot harder to construct the same threats to justify the NSA to the public online, at least as it is now. With cable news, you get the soundbite, no cross-talk, and before you can question it, it's moved onto something else. You walk away with the idea that Snowden is a traitor and OH NO! TERRORISTS!!!

Cable news needs to hurry up and collapse, or we need real leaders to cure us of our paranoia. I'm prepared for a long wait.

A bit off topic, but telling people they're part of the problem is counterproductive. You're not going to convince anyone they're wrong by slapping them in the face like that. Moreover, the problem is absolutely not people who are anti-nuclear or pro-renewables. The problem is caused by a number of greedy individuals who get rich off of externalized costs, and a lot of apathetic individuals.

If the earth were all populated with people concerned as pla, we would be in other messes I'm sure (no offense pla but I'm sure you're not perfect) but we would NOT be facing the fallout of climate change. We'd have invested heavily in renewable energies, if they were viable we'd be using them. Instead we're populated with people who prefer to say "Well, that's just like a HYPOTHESIS so I'm not going to change or pay more."

I go to scientific seminars. It's considered rude to be checking facebook or playing angry birds, yet falling asleep is totally acceptable. You can check facebook during a boring part to keep yourself awake and then start paying attention again if something later catches your interest. This is not true for falling asleep, you're out of it until people start clapping. But all the senior scientists have fallen asleep in a lecture while few of them bother bringing a laptop in, so it's abnormal and rude.

It probably shouldn't be any wonder that we haven't cured cancer yet.

The incompetent ones are the tea partier and the teacher. The defense contractor is EXTREMELY competent. That's ONE problem with the budget.

Two straw man arguments and a spelling mistake all in one line. Expert trolling. (golf clap)

Advanced compared to where we would be if we were still in an arms race with a superpower? Definitely we're behind. But we're mainly fighting the rednecks of the middle east. They have pipe bombs and decades-old rifles. I'd argue we should be considered "extremely advanced" as of a decade ago.

Except that we're more likely to invade Syria if they renege on their promises. They don't have nukes, which genuinely scare us away. And we'd be adding a friendly puppet government in a region that is up for grabs, which would be a gain for us (polititically, and by us I don't mean we the citizens.) Making North Korea into a puppet would have pretty harsh consequences from China, one of our biggest economic partners. We'd be nuking ourselves twice.

Actions are usually never all good or all bad. Sure, consumers will pay more for their phones, but they're already paying more than I'd consider sane, both for the data and the phones themselves. I mean, changing smartphones every year is absurd. And it's worth noting that we're not talking about a necessity.

If this results in end of software patents at the price of smartphones being, say, $50 more expensive for a while, that could be a fair trade.

I make no comment on how likely I think this is, since I really don't know, just that it's not all doom and gloom.

It's an innovative legal strategy!

In general, sure, but I think this is a pretty clear example of the contrary. This is the guys at the top actually clashing. Well, some of them.

Unfortunately, the competition is not the healthy kind that drives innovation, it's the kind that makes some lawyers and lobbyists richer.

So you're on t-mobile? Last time I checked, all the other phone companies charged you the same whether you got a phone through them or not. In other words, if you don't get AT&T to subsidize your phone, you're paying monthly for a phone you didn't get. You might be thinking of the recent scams AT&T and verizon both came out with where you pay more per month to upgrade faster. You're still getting ripped off though even if you're not on those plans. Again, aside from T-mo, and perhaps they've changed it recently.

It's idiotic of course, but of course it's due to the fact that there are so few choices.