>Do you believe rehabilitation is impossible or do you want revenge?

I don't believe that someone who commits mass murder can be rehabilitated, no. It isn't about revenge; it's about public safety.

Someone once pointed out that hoping a rapist gets raped in prison isn't a victory for his victim(s), because it somehow gives him what he had coming to him, but it's actually a victory for rape and violence. I wish I could remember who said that, because they are right. The score doesn't go Rapist: 1 World: 1. It goes Rape: 2.

What this man did is unspeakable, and he absolutely deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. If he needs to be kept away from other prisoners as a safety issue, there are ways to do that without keeping him in solitary confinement, which has been shown conclusively to be profoundly cruel and harmful.

Putting him in solitary confinement, as a punitive measure, is not a victory for the good people in the world. It's a victory for inhumane treatment of human beings. This ruling is, in my opinion, very good and very strong for human rights, *precisely* because it was brought by such a despicable and horrible person. It affirms that all of us have basic human rights, even the absolute worst of us on this planet.

This is precisely why I lost all interest in Oculus the instant I heard that it had been acquired by Facebook.

So in an actual game, the expert human player will outperform the computer because the other humans in the game are exploitable.

No, it won't. Read the article. The game they solved is heads-up limit hold 'em.

There will never be other humans in the game. That's not what they solved.

Indeed, 1/3rd of Belizeans live in the USA, because the economic opportunities are lacking in their country, in no small part due to corruption of local politicians.

There also are incentives to move to Belize, allowing you to move your household possessions, cars, etc. down there tax-free. Just pay the government a small fee.

I've spent time down there, it's a beautiful country, but with an odd mix of enclaves of super-expensive housing developments for expats, and shanty towns for locals.

It's the same reason every invention takes a while: man had to figure out a way for the wheel to get you laid or kill other people with them. St. Catherine may have got both ends of that one.

Yes, but only because Eve was holding it wrong.

Well, be fair — we invaded to get their oil, not their books.

Vonnegut's fun, and any random Mark Twain is great (especially Huck Finn), but man do I love me some Umberto Eco. His novels establish themselves in the period of their setting and just drill down deep into the minutiae, so his books are great if that's your bag. The first I read was The Name Of The Rose, largely as a way to hate-fuck that awful, awful movie adaptation (don't watch it by the way, it's awful. And by "it" I mean Christian Slater.) I have no qualms recommending it, nor Foucault's Pendulum, which is like The Da Vinci Code for people not confused by fractions. The Island Of The Day Before is also a cracking read. I cannot speak to the merits of Baudolino, but it sits on my shelf, taunting me. He also has collected essays, which are fine for what they are. But the novels have the advantage that they are so damn long and dense you'll only need one book for the whole break.

As for me, I'm spending the holidays plowing through the Lemony Snicket cycle.

Wait, so Michelle Bachmann is a liberal now? Jesus fuck, the Republicans must have really gone far right then.

Slashdot Asks: Whom Do You Want To Ask About 2012's U.S. Elections?

Regardless of outcome, a fucking grief counselor.

Ask and ye shall receive...

No, this is *actual* capitalism at work. Now, if these developers were to fail due to their greed and rank incompetence and receive an 800 billion dollar taxpayer-funded bailout...

The fact that the "Global Warming" (oh sorry, now it's "Climate Change" since Al Gore's P.R. folks sat around and came up with that as a more palatable term to use instead when speaking in public) crowd wants to call everyone else a "denialist" shows the amount of polarization on this topic.

Wow, you really are an uninformed asshole aren't you: Origin of popular usage of "climate change" instead of "global warming".

That's what politics is all about!