Comment Re:Whoever is responsible for this article (Score 1) 1258
Nope, the blame lies with God
Comment Re:Arianna (Score 2) 94
I'm replying to the poster, not to the article.
My point is that if you take the "free market" idea to its ultimate expression, then it's just about money. If the market demands a liberal viewpoint, then as a good businesswoman it makes perfect sense for Arianna to ignore whatever personal political views she has and supply what's being demanded. It even makes sense to switch the viewpoint back and forth repeatedly depending on what pays more at each point in time.
So why is it that the grandparent is complaining about it? It's perfectly in line with the free market philosophy.
Comment Re:Arianna (Score 2) 94
Isn't that how capitalism is supposed to work? I thought conservatives were all for the free market.
Though personally I still think that news are supposed to be neutral, and that the whole idea that a news outfit can have a political slant is a perversion, regardless of the direction.
Comment Re:GPU programming is a nightmare. (Score 1) 57
Just like any cutting edge tech. Not so long ago you'd be writing graphics code in assembler. And dealing with the memory restrictions DOS had to offer.
On top of everything, the binary is a mismash of compiled executable chunks sitting in the interpreted code. Essentially the if a competitor or hacker gets the "executable" they can reverse engineer every bit of innovation you had done to cram your code into these tiny processors and reverse engineer your scientific algorithm at a very fine grain.
Big deal. It's funny how touchy people get the moment they do something vaguely original. The GPU's architecture is known, the optimization strategy for it is well documented. A big part of what you'll end up writing is just following the device's constraints, and so not really original.
Aren't scientists supposed to share data and knowledge, anyway?
Comment Re:Oh fucking Christ Part 2 (Score 1) 315
So what are things like in IT in the USA? I hear there are people working 60 hours a week as well, and not getting paid for overtime. In the games industry, there are people working 80 hours. In the medical profession, 80 hours seems to be the average in the USA (at least according to Wikipedia).
Well, easy, that should be illegal as well.
Aside from that, studies show that productivity decreases after 40 hours anyway, so working 80 is completely pointless and counterproductive.
Comment Re:So, how much for one of the engines? (Score 1) 98
Russia did build one.
Submission + - City of Boston pays $170,000 to settle landmark case involving man arrested for (aclum.org) 1
Ian Lamont writes: "The City of Boston has reached a $170,000 settlement with Simon Glik who was arrested by Boston Police in 2007 after using his mobile phone to record police arresting another man on Boston Common. Police claimed that Glik had violated state wiretapping laws, but later dropped the charges and admitted the officers were wrong to arrest him. Glik had brought a lawsuit against the city (aided by the ACLU) because he claimed his civil rights were violated. According to today's ACLU statement:
"As part of the settlement, Glik agreed to withdraw his appeal to the Community Ombudsman Oversight Panel. He had complained about the Internal Affairs Division's investigation of his complaint and the way they treated him. IAD officers made fun of Glik for filing the complaint, telling him his only remedy was filing a civil lawsuit. After the City spent years in court defending the officers' arrest of Glik as constitutional and reasonable, IAD reversed course after the First Circuit ruling and disciplined two of the officers for using "unreasonable judgment" in arresting Glik.
Comment Re:How to Brake with ABS (Score 1) 756
That only works for people who professionally drive cars. Somebody who just commutes to work isn't going to be in the right state of mind for precisely pressing the brake pedal when they suddenly realize they must brake NOW.
Comment Re:John McCain AGAIN?? (Score 3, Insightful) 93
No, stop staring at the sky, and get off your ass and do something about it.
At least make a donation to the EFF.
Submission + - Iowa Criminalizes Reporters on Factory Farms 1
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Cody Carlson writes in the Atlantic that Iowa recently passed HF 589, better known as the "Ag Gag" law, that criminalizes investigative journalists and animal protection advocates who take entry-level jobs at factory farms in order to document the rampant food safety and animal welfare abuses within. The original version of the law would have made it a crime to take, possess, or share pictures of factory farms that were taken without the owner's consent, but the Iowa Attorney General rejected this measure out of First Amendment concerns. As amended, the law achieves the same result by making it a crime to give a false statement on an "agricultural production" job application (PDF). As a Humane Society of the United States investigator, Carlson worked undercover at four Iowa egg farms in the winter of 2010 and witnessed disturbing trends of extreme animal cruelty and dangerously unsanitary conditions. "Millions of haggard, featherless hens languished in crowded, microwave-sized wire cages. Unable to even spread their wings, many were forced to pile atop their dead and rotting cage mates as they laid their eggs." The Ag Gag laws also protect the slaughterhouses that regularly send sick and dying animals into our food supply, and would prevent some of the biggest food safety recalls in US. history. "In short, the Ag Gag laws muzzle the few people that are telling the truth about our food," writes Carlson. "Now, the foxes are truly guarding the henhouse.""
Comment Re:Seriously? (Score 5, Funny) 290
Heh, only in the US people vehemently argue for their right to get screwed.
Comment Re:It only took a century (Score 1) 348
Except things don't really work that way.
What gives you idea that there's some conglomerate of scientists that as a group decides "we will prioritize efficiency"? The people who made this light bulb probably specialize in fields completely unsuitable for contributing to fusion research. And scientists are people with their own interests. Just because you think that fusion is the thing we should be looking at doesn't mean anybody has to pay attention to your wishes
Employers Need Wind Power Technicians 170
Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that Oklahoma is one state benefitting from the energy boom. With a wind power rush underway, companies are competing to secure the windiest spots, while breathing life into small towns. The problem is, each turbine requires regular maintenance during its 20-year lifespan, with a requirement of one turbine technician for every 10 turbines on the ground. So even with a job that can pay a good starting salary (for technicians with a GED or high school diploma who complete a four-week turbine maintenance training program), there aren't enough qualified technicians to do the work. 'It seems odd, with America's unemployment problem, to have a shortage of workers for a job that can pay in excess of $20 per hour. But being a turbine technician isn't easy,' says Logan Layden, adding that technicians typically have to climb 300 foot high towers to service the turbines. Oscar Briones is one of about a dozen students who recently finished a maintenance training program after leaving his job as a motorcycle mechanic and now has his pick of employers. 'So I was in the market to find something else to do, and this seemed pretty exciting. Being 300 feet in the air, that's pretty exciting in its self. So yeah, I'm a thrill seeker.'"
Submission + - Photographing police: Deletion is not forever (arstechnica.com)
Geoffrey.landis writes: "The courts have now ruled that the public has the right to videotape the police in the performance of their duties. Of course, that doesn't stop the police from harrassing people who do so, even journalists, not to mention confiscating their cameras.
As it turns out, though, they're not always very knowledgable about how deletion works.
I would say that erasing, or attempting to erase, a video of police arresting somebody illegally (How can a journalist be charged with "resisting arrest" when he was not being arrested for anything other than resisting arrest?) is a clear case of destruction of evidence by the officers. Destroying evidence is obstruction of justice. That's illegal. Why haven't these police officers been arrested?"
As it turns out, though, they're not always very knowledgable about how deletion works.
I would say that erasing, or attempting to erase, a video of police arresting somebody illegally (How can a journalist be charged with "resisting arrest" when he was not being arrested for anything other than resisting arrest?) is a clear case of destruction of evidence by the officers. Destroying evidence is obstruction of justice. That's illegal. Why haven't these police officers been arrested?"
Comment Re:good thing they don't have laws in france (Score 2) 706
Because other people often end up paying when people like yourself end up flying out of their windshield.
