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Comment Re:Happiness & Pleasure (Score 2) 136

The author is unable to differentiate happiness and pleasure !

No, the author is very well able to differentiate happiness and pleasure. The brain is clearly wired for pleasure, it has an extensive reward system that can even be tricked into working overtime (leading to addiction).

His point is that our brains have a natural bias towards storing and recalling negative experiences over positive experiences. We have evolved to immediately learn from physical and emotional pain because learning to avoid pain is a better survival strategy than learning to seek pleasure.

Comment Re:Nothing to predict (Score 1) 213

Why wouldn't a malevolent tyranny nuke its own population? Hitler condemning the German population to death in 1945 because he deemed them traitors to the German cause, and the Khmer Rouge's killing fields seem to indicate that real tyrannies have no qualms about slaughtering their own citizens.

The problem with nukes is that there won't be a 'true civil war' because it will be over too soon. The military splitting up in opposing factions with nuclear capabilities during will only hasten the deployment of tactical nukes.

Comment Re:In memoriam (Score 4, Interesting) 83

The girl I met in Eridu
Was kind beyond belief;
The hours that I spent with her
Were hours far too brief.

Where willows shade the river bank,
She urged that I recline.
She fed me figs and poured me full
Of pomegranate wine.

I told of force and time and space,
I told of hence and yonder;
I asked if she would come with me
To know my worlds of wonder.

She clasped her knees; her voice was soft;
"It dazes me to ponder
The blazing stars and tintamars,
The whirling ways you wander!

"You are you and I am I,
And best that you return.
And I will stay in Eridu
With all this yet to learn."

- Navarth

R.I.P. mad poet, you will be missed dearly

Comment Re:We blaclist him too... (Score 5, Interesting) 133

He's not a moron (in spite of his eyebrows), he just plays one. This guy earns a ton by providing services to well known spammers and other criminal organisations, but every time he makes the headlines and gets interviewed he either plays the naïve internet activist or the village idiot, depending on his public.

Comment Re:Lots of misinformation (Score 1) 267

"Taking every measure we can" is not prudence. Prudence implies moderation. Taking reasonable measures would be prudent. Turning over the entire energy industry to government control, regulation through global governance, and increasing taxes to provide subsidies for "green" corporations are not "prudent" or moderate measures.

The fundamental cause of the problem is our unsustainable energy consumption so that's where the prudent moderation should take place, instead of moderating our concern of energy companies ravaging the earth. History shows that these concerns are very, very valid.

XBox (Games)

Modded Xbox Bans Prompt EFF Warning About Terms of Service 254

Last month we discussed news that Microsoft had banned hundreds of thousands of Xbox users for using modified consoles. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has now pointed to this round of bans as a prime example of the power given to providers of online services through 'Terms of Service' and other usage agreements. "No matter how much we rely on them to get on with our everyday lives, access to online services — like email, social networking sites, and (wait for it) online gaming — can never be guaranteed. ... he who writes the TOS makes the rules, and when it comes to enforcing them, the service provider often behaves as though it is also the judge, jury and executioner. ... While the mass ban provides a useful illustration of their danger, these terms can be found in nearly all TOS agreements for all kinds of services. There have been virtually no legal challenges to these kinds of arbitrary termination clauses, but we imagine this will be a growth area for lawyers."

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