Comment J. Edgar would be proud. (Score 1) 584
Thomas Jefferson? Not so much.
Submission + - Bletchley Park Codebreaker Honored (bbc.co.uk)
Rambo Tribble writes: England has awarded Raymond Roberts, one of the nine cryptanalysts responsible for breaking the Nazi Tunny code machine, (also known by the German designation Lorenz cipher machine) the MBE. Roberts is the last surviving member of the team which cracked the German army's cipher machine functionality, much like others at Bletchley broke the better-known Enigma machine.
Comment Ah, yes ... (Score 1) 1051
... a warm, nurturing environment reminiscent of a Prussian military school.
Submission + - X-47B Stealth Drone: A Cylon is Born? (bbc.com)
Rambo Tribble writes: The BBC reports on a U.S. Navy program to develop an autonomous reconnaissance/strike drone. Designed to take off and land on an aircraft carrier, the drone is intended to operate with little human intervention. Special bonus: it even looks like a Cylon.
Comment How disappointing (Score 1) 262
We must redouble our efforts in service to the message of the great Flying Spaghetti Monster. Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Comment Re:Principled conservatism (Score 1) 506
It is the scourge of the neo-con that has reduced the party to this. A philosophy born from European elitism, the neo-cons have taken the essential American nature out of Republican conservatism and replaced it with grasping, self-righteous form that has its roots in feudalism, the ideological antithesis to that of the nation's founders.
Comment "Democracy", we have ... (Score 1) 506
... but with clowns like these in charge, "enlightened democracy" is a long way off.
Submission + - Swiss Spy Agency: Counter-terrorism Secrets Stolen (reuters.com)
Rambo Tribble writes: The Swiss spy agency, NDB, reports a disaffected employee walked out with drives containing terabytes of data shared by counter-terrorism agencies in Switzerland, the U. S. and Britain. It is not yet known if he was able to pass on any information before he was apprehended.
Submission + - Fetuses Caught Yawning in 4D (reuters.com)
Rambo Tribble writes: Reuters reports 4D scans have conclusively shown that fetuses do yawn. Understandable, eh? After all, all they get is cable.
Comment Because, Mr. Spangenberg ... (Score 1) 347
... someone with far greater provenance in this matter, than you, already decided it should be free.
Comment A simple, repeated error (Score 2) 475
It is widely misrepresented that Franklin proposed Daylight Savings Time. In fact, what he actually was proposing was a means to extract more work from people, or "Daylight Slavings Time". The "l" apparently was dropped in the transition to manuscript.
Submission + - Apple Siri Stops Pimping (bbc.co.uk)
Rambo Tribble writes: "The BBC reports that Apple Siri has quietly stopped providing Chinese clients with advice on how to find brothels. The service has apparently been providing such information since summer, creating controversy in a country where the practice is illegal."
Comment Far too narrow a question (Score 1) 469
Silicon Valley is little but a microcosm of a larger opportunistic/predatory-capitalist mentality which has grown ascendant in modern society's markets. The signs of infection predate even the oft-quoted, "There's a sucker born every minute." We have built a system that rewards a very fundamental form of corruption and seem to have little will to reform it.
Comment Invoking the graceful sheer line ... (Score 1) 438
... of a taller USS Monitor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Monitor
Comment Nah (Score 1) 570
Online teaching is really just one step removed from tech support. That's not real teaching any more than a video game is real life.
