> decisions are generally a lot less arbitrary than people imagine. It's just
> that when someone gets suspended they tend to only post misleading
> reports about it

Strong disagree. Twitter's rules don't accomplish what Twitter says they accomplish, and the enforcement is uneven, arbitrary, unreasonable, and utterly opaque to users. I've seen countless examples of utterly arbitrary enforcement, and regularly repeated claims that perfectly normal content is somehow a violation. Not only in my case, but in many, many cases.
In this case, a woman was gleefully discussion the fact that human face mites do, in fact, have anuses, and therefore our faces are covered in face mite poo. The conversation was already about this topic - merely suggesting that we affix tiny diapers to them so we can study the poo is not hostile in anyway. This person didn't understand or like the suggestion and instead of muting the tweet or the tweet author, they used Twitter's rules and the company's pro-complainant bias to remove my ability to use the service. That's neither just nor reasonable nor sensible.
I'd suggest examining your instinct to defend the giant faceless corporation over real people, but figure that'd be a waste.

I'll take over and fix Twitter if the people there finally acknowledge that suggesting that we affix tiiiny little diapers to human face mites is not "hostile conduct" and unlock my account.

Adobe's neural filters are not 'deepfake tools,' they're tools. Blaming the makers of a general purpose tool (of any kind) for specific uses that tool is put to is pretty weak sauce. This simply is not a case of someone making a tool specifically designed for a nefarious purpose, and CEO's assertion is essentially correct.

Astronomical observations don't always need to be reported as "mysterious," tbh.

I'll stay with Windows 7 for a while longer. But I won't be installing Windows 10 willingly, if ever.

Microsoft: "We let you choose how much spying we do on your activities!"
Users: "Uh...please don't spy on us at all. Like, none."
Microsoft: "OK, here's some revised settings that don't let you actually turn data collection off! One is called 'Basic'!"
Users: "..."

Please see: http://www.science20.com/a_qua...

Not quite as clean a confirmation as one would like: " It would be like if I asked you to believe that by putting a dollar bill in a special laundry machine and spinning it for half an hour with some special detergent the dollar turns into a $1000 note. You are allowed to watch the machine as it does its work, but it is me who opens it and extracts the bill when it has finished its magic conversion. I doubt you would buy it."

If it sounds too good to be true...

From RT:
http://rt.com/politics/177248-...

Such authors will now have to register with the state watchdog Roskomnadzor, disclose their real identity and follow the same rules as journalists working in conventional state-registered mass media.

  The restrictions include the demand to verify information before publishing it and abstain from releasing reports containing slander, hate speech, extremist calls or other banned information such as, for example, advice on suicide. Also, the law bans popular bloggers from using obscene language, drawing heavy criticism and mockery from the online crowd.

So.., now you're not legally allowed to lie to a large number of people or incite violence based on those lies. Gee. That's bad how? Might be nice to have something like that in the West, because right now it's perfectly legal for FOX News to outright lie to their viewers.

Russia, like any large nation the US hates, (see Venezuela) must defend against the standard CIA tactics used to de-stabilize governments and population bases through grass roots propaganda tactics. Forcing creeps and liars out of the game seems like a pretty good way to do this. You don't want to be forced out? Then follow the law and back up your claims with fact checking verification of what you are writing, don't use hate speech and don't incite violence. How hard is that?

There's a reason you're not allowed to yell "Fire" in a crowded theater, and this falls neatly beneath the same rubric.

Honestly, think of the gossips and cruel kids in school spreading lies in deliberate attempts to undermine healthy energies. Putin has the guts to whip the carpet out from under such types.

So now, once you reach 3000 readers, the Russian government says you are a news source with real pull and must start acting in a manner befitting such responsibility. Is 3000 the right magic number to have picked? I don't know, but it makes perfect sense to draw a line somewhere.

Of course, any law can be abused, but right now I don't see this as an abuse. I see it as a sensible measure as Russia is under increasing media attack by a truly psychopathic nation whose leadership is completely disconnected from objective reality, has a tail-spinning economy and seemingly bottomless war lust. Of course you have to take measures to protect your populace from that kind of sickness.

But naturally, this proactive move is being spun with wicked and/or childish glee in the West (depending on whether you are CIA or just ignorant and easily led).

> 1300 times as massive.

No. Original paper says ~39 Msun. Radius is ~1300. A star massing 1300 Msun couldn't hold itself together, both in terms of gravitational and outward radiation pressure.
Source: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1401.2628...

Sweet Jesus, it's true.

And he even brought up that 97% turkey.

AGW True Believers are the quintessential "Correlation != Causation" offenders.

Except I wasn't talking about gas emissions from volcanoes.

I was talking about the basic frequency of volcanic and geologic activity. Let's just say "Earthquakes" so we can stay clear of preconceptions.

Earthquake frequency is steadily rising, and this, among the other non-emission related items indicated, are tightly linked to the climate change events we are experiencing today.

People are clinging to the belief that climate change MUST be our fault, and therefore is also within our power to fix.

It isn't.

As for reading about sun spots. . , I suggest you do some.

I have a friend who used to work for one of the large charitable organisations as a statistician. He always said that his org didn't spend the money donated directly, they invested it. I know that sounds Bad and I didn't like the sound of my charity donations going into stocks, until he pointed out that the return on the investments meant that after a while, this strategy meant they ended up with a lot more to spend on charitable works than they could have done if they had just spent the donations. It made such a difference that it would have been irresponsible of them to just go out and spend.

So in some cases, it's not a war chest they're building. It's the charity squeezing as much benefit out of your donation as they possibly can and that, I think, is a very good thing.

By the way, he also said that one-off donations basically just pay for the campaign that solicited them. The campaign also gains them a smaller number of regular payments, and those are what funds good works. So if you're thinking about giving, consider signing up for a monthly payment instead of a one-off. It makes a difference.

The thing that bothers me here is the illusion that under the current system the populace has any means of control of the government.

I get to cast a single vote once every four or five years. I live in a country with more than 2 political parties, so normally the majority of people's votes aren't for the new ruling party. Whoever gets in is under no obligation to fulfil the promises they made to gain my vote, and in this country at least politicians are notorious for not doing so.

I'd like to believe in your view of the world, truly I would. But from where I'm sitting (GB), it looks very much like I get a five-yearly 1/60,000,000 part of the decision about who gets to do whatever they like for the next four years.

Practically speaking, I wouldn't say I have any more input into the political process through voting than I would have had in a monarchy, and for that reason I cannot agree with your notion that voting brings about *actual* change. It demonstrably doesn't.

This lady was Bright but not bright : the next morning she again joined that flight : So then two made the date : and then four, and then eight : And her spouse got one hell of a fright!

Oldies but goodies.

That would explain why GNU/Hurd is such an excellent OS

These are based on the original BSD troll which was very similar to the FP, which used to (many years ago) make an appearance in almost every story related to BSD.