Comment Re:Okay, let's examine that decision (Score 1) 294
Communism doesn't kill people, physics kills people.
Comment Re:False dichotomy (Score 1) 639
I think they've always been rather authoritarian. Segregation, anti-sodomy laws...
Submission + - You can't run from the cop car of the future (msn.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Police cars of the very near future will be scary smart. Equipped with eight cameras, voice commands, incredibly intelligent software, and LTE radios, perps won't get away with anything.
Motorola Solutions isn't working on building the latest and greatest Droid — that's Motorola Mobility. These guys have their fingers more in corporate and governmental pots. Engineers have done hundreds of ride-alongs, surveys, and simulations, and have applied all of their wireless knowledge into designing a police car that is so advanced it's actually very unsettling.
Motorola Solutions isn't working on building the latest and greatest Droid — that's Motorola Mobility. These guys have their fingers more in corporate and governmental pots. Engineers have done hundreds of ride-alongs, surveys, and simulations, and have applied all of their wireless knowledge into designing a police car that is so advanced it's actually very unsettling.
Comment Re:clearly (Score 1) 189
Not trying to weigh in one way or the other, but I think this question mirrors the arguments surrounding Galen Strawson's position on free will. Just saying that if you're interested in this question, a lot of really smart people spilled ink on a very similar question. It seems rather thorny to me, and I think the question ultimately reveals the presence of problematic assumptions, but I don't see any better alternatives. Anyway, I apologize in advance to anyone who looks into Strawson's position and finds it unhelpful. Doing my best. Just thought I saw a pattern.
Comment No one saw this coming (Score 1) 81
Well, with their birth-rate this was kind of inevitable. Kind of awesome too. Future labor shortage averted!
Comment Re:What about others? (Score 1) 346
Somebody took the Bible too literally. Punch cards never existed in real life, they're just a myth that resulted from a mis-translation from Koine Greek.
Comment Re:horse (Score 1) 346
No? I know an ass who was in Vietnam.
Comment Re:The final step. (Score 1) 248
'Democratic' doesn't necessarily mean liberal. Maybe the average Jose is more interested in stability, social justice, or some other such thing. Not saying that Venezuelans are or are not getting those things from the Chavez admin, just saying that "the people" rarely place liberal ideals on the top of the list, especially in the developing world. Look at Russia (and lots of other places). Lots of people there are more interested in prosperity and order than in liberalism.
Comment Re:Note to self (Score 1) 361
And that, sir, is why you will never be the leader of a rogue state.
Comment Re:Iran Saving The Middle East From Israeli Terror (Score 1) 361
I'm getting mixed signals. Is your comment a bad joke or just a confused rant? Maybe you should use emoticons to clarify in the future.
Comment Re:Peer-Review v. Newspaper (Score 3, Insightful) 196
Because the Philippine Daily Inquirer publishes daily instead of monthly?
Submission + - New NASA Model Refutes Global Warming Alarmists (theregister.co.uk)
Dialecticus writes: According to an article by Lewis Page at The Register, NASA says that most theoretical models of global warming fail to take into account the cooling effects of how plant life would react to higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere. NASA's new model reportedly indicates that even something as extreme as a doubling of current CO2 levels would only result in a 1.64 degree Celsius increase in overall global temperatures, with temperature increases over land being even less than that. The article does not specifically mention whether increased photosynthesis would have a natural regulating effect on CO2 levels due to the commensurate increase in the rate of naturally occurring carbon sequestration.
Comment Re:0-1000? (Score 1) 507
They do this every year? Guess I'll be seeing you guys in '11. It was really nice meeting everybody.
Submission + - Jailtime For Jailbreaking Phones
An anonymous reader writes: Remember how the Librarian of Congress announced that jailbreaking your phone was legal and not a violation of the DMCA? Yeah, well, tell that to Mohamad Majed, who has already spent over a year in jail and has now been pressured into pleading guilty to criminal DMCA violations for jailbreaking phones for use on other carriers.
Submission + - Researcher Develops a Less Objectionable Scanner (washingtonpost.com)
Hugh Pickens writes: "The TSA has been embroiled in controversy since installation of scanners began last month but now the Washington Post reports that one of the researchers who helped develop the software for the scanners says there is a simple fix that would make scanning less objectionable. The fix would distort the images captured on full-body scanners so they look like reflections in a fun-house mirror, but any potentially dangerous objects would be clearly revealed, says Willard "Bill" Wattenburg, a former nuclear weapons designer at the Livermore lab. "Why not just distort the image into something grotesque so that there isn't anything titillating or exciting about it?" says Wattenburg adding that the modification is so simple that "a 6-year-old could do the same thing with Photoshop." TSA scanners could be altered so that they "would record an image that you would recognize; it would be totally uninteresting," but any potentially dangerous objects would be just as evident as they are now. "It's probably a few weeks' modification of the program," Wattenburg adds. "It's like changing the video card in your computer. They just strip out all the coding and put the very simple algorithm in. You could teach a kid how to do it.""
