"However, placebos can also have a surprisingly positive effect on a patient who knows that the given treatment is without any active drug, as compared with a control group who knowingly did not get a placebo."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo

There's been a lot of research on Placebo effects, and the mind genuinely can do some *fascinating* things. I don't mean this as a disagreement with the rest of your post, just an assertion that the placebo effect has genuine scientific weight behind it.

Dude, PyCon didn't fire them. PyCon didn't even ask them to leave the conference. Adria Richards said PyCon handled the situation fine.

Why in the world would "breaking rules of conduct" be grounds for firing them, given all of that? If we went around firing everyone who broke ANY "rules of conduct", or went 5 MPH over the speed limit, or jaywalked... we wouldn't have an economy anymore.

RELEVANT PORTION OF ARTICLE:

I know it’s important to pick my battles.

I know I don’t have to be a hero in every situation.

Sometimes I just want to go to a conference and be a geek.

But

like Popeye, I couldn’t “stands it no more” because of what happened –

Jesse Noller was up on stage thanking the sponsors. The guys behind me (one off to the right) said, “You can thank me, you can thank me”. That told me they were a sponsoring company of Pycon and from the photos I took, his badge had an add-on that said, “Sponsor”.

My company was a Gold sponsor as well.

They started talking about “big” dongles. I could feel my face getting flustered.

Was this really happening?
How many times do I have to deal with this?
Can they not hear what Jesse is saying?

The stuff about the dongles wasn’t even logical and as a self professed nerd, that bothered me. Dongles are intended to be small and unobtrusive. They’re intended for network connectivity and to service as physical licence keys for software. I’d consulted in the past with an automotive shop that needed data recovery and technical support. I know what PCMCIA dongles look like.

I was telling myself if they made one more sexual joke, I’d say something.

The it happened.The trigger.

Jesse was on the main stage with thousands of people sitting in the audience. He was talking about helping the next generation learn to program and how happy PyCon was with the Young Coders workshop (which I volunteered at). He was mentioning that the PyLadies auction had raised $10,000 in a single night and the funds would be used the funds for their initiatives.

I saw a photo on main stage of a little girl who had been in the Young Coders workshop.

I realized I had to do something or she would never have the chance to learn and love programming because the ass clowns behind me would make it impossible for her to do so.

(I am not a lawyer)

The penalty only applies if you claim to represent someone you don't. So, I can't file a DMCA notice claiming I represent Microsoft, but I can claim pretty much anything else.

It's a sad state of affairs.

You could just make it so that robo-mods don't affect karma...

In case you're not aware: this probably got modded "funny" because when people DO try this, the authorities fight back, dismantle what has been built, and usually have fun doing their best to punish the people involved. WikiLeaks and Julian Assange is a very visible example. You generally don't hear about the smaller ones, but it doesn't end any better.

This was posted on the 13th and still has zero comments... what the heck? ... First Post I guess...

110% agreed. Sadly, it's pretty obvious that the game before patch was basically meant to milk people on the Auction House.

The game-as-shipped had massive "stealth nerfs" to everything that wasn't raw damage/defense at higher difficulties (this was later documented in their online manual, but the in-game tooltips still falsely displayed the same values regardless of difficulty). In other words, the only way to succeed was to have the best gear... which unlike play skill, could be purchased on the Auction House!

Of course, the end-game has always been a grind for better gear, but it feels like they really kicked it up a notch in Diablo III, at the detriment of the "casual" gamers who just wanted to beat the game without spending money.

I love the game ever since Patch 1.0.5 addressed the stealth nerfs, but at this point Guild Wars 2 has stolen me away and I've pretty much forgotten it. It was a good 40 hours of having a blast at lower difficulties, though, so I can't say it wasn't money well spent...

Given that their password system is case insensitive that seems rather unlikely... they also haven't had major issues with their login servers since release.

If you paid any attention, the need for a Battle.Net account and the DRM was pretty obvious - they didn't exactly hide it, and there was a lot of outcry over it.

Solid Green (any duration)
Green Countdown (10 seconds)
Yellow Countdown (10 seconds)
Solid Red (possibly pulses during the "all-red" segment, but I doubt that information actually results in better drivers)
Red Countdown (10 seconds)
Loop

Red countdown would be a sweep in the reverse direction, to make it distinct and draw attention from drivers at idle - it's purpose is to let people "zone out" a bit more when stopped at a long red. Because, let's be honest, most people do.

All three countdowns are the same length, that way the driver only needs to calibrate to a single length - by having multiple countdowns, the driver has even more information, and more opportunities to calibrate to the timing of the light. Ideally all lights in an area should have the same countdown length, and there'd be a minimum standard length nationwide.

I dunno, "absolute" freedom would let us parade the police and politicians as "potential rapists" too. The end result might be a society where "potential rapist" and "accused rapist" lose their "scare factor". The issue isn't the speech, it's the way the masses interpret it.

http://www.bustedmugshots.com/oregon/roseburg/kevin-michael-cornell/63869711 Chosen totally at random. Please notice the phrase "ALLEGED violation" They sell this magazine in convenience stores here. Pretty sure it's not the slightest bit illegal, given all that...

Agreed!

I'm guessing you're middle class, born, raised, and current. Quite a few of my friends grew up not being able to afford anything more than thrift stores, and some of them are still limited to those for "expensive" purchases like clothing (especially semi-professional outfits). Telling the poor that they don't get to have clothing anymore is the sort of thing I'd expect to lead to riots, not grandpa telling stories about "back in the day"!

I've been to the Sydney Opera House, and then out to eat, in sandals...