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Comment Wearable is a Misnomer (Score 1) 25

Although I am sure that "wearable" makes more sense to Joe Sixpack what this really seems to be about to me is that once you shrink computing so much that getting smaller is really not useful the next thing to do is make it more durable/flexible, i.e. "wearable"

From that point of view he is probably spot on. I do wish we could have a discussion about such technical merits rather than whether or not people like this particular guy or not etc.

Comment Re:CONSUMERS will burden the costs of the system (Score 1) 342

Annnnnnnnnnnd I just cancelled my account with Comcast. I hereby apologize to all of you and all of humanity for having ever given them a dime in the first place. At the time they were the fastest available option and I do have to have access at home for my job so I have been procrastinating making the switch to Qwest. Here in the Twin Cities I have that option, and I suggest all who are lucky enough to have such options take them immediately. Consequently when I select a new cellphone in the next month I will not choose Verizon or AT&T, not even T-Mobile unless they publicly state that they plan to fight any takeover attempt by the Death Star with every X-Wing available to them.

Again, I apologize for my tardiness in coming onto the right side in this fight and pledge to do my utmost for the rest of my IT career and life on this planet to oppose these scumbags and their broken business models. Long live liberty and justice.

Submission + - Google Copyright School (blogspot.com)

maczealot writes: Google is launching a new "Copyright School" for use as a re-education tool for offenders on YouTube. The apparent purpose being to head off additional leglistation, lawsuits, regulation and other negative impacts to the site. They even have campy cartoon videos for this school like this.

Comment Re:Trust peer-reviewed science... (Score 1) 1486

I have neither the time nor the inclination to try to record here what ALL "religious" people believe in. However, no the vast majority (at least two billion living people by a very conservative count) of those who believe in God do not believe in a "bearded man in the sky" even stated less sarcastically. Most believe in a spiritual realm, that is an unseen realm (possibly depending on who you ask similar to a different dimension) that a much more powerful being than ourselves exists and is responsible for things within our realm. Depending on the religion who, what and to what degree all of these occur will vary.

Bearded - most of those who believe in a God will suggest that this deity's visage is beyond such a human affectation.
Man - again, most are going to suggest that God is without gender.
Sky - Unless you are counting everything outside of our stratosphere as sky this is again an insulting misnomer.

Comment Re:Trust peer-reviewed science... (Score 1) 1486

Ok, two problems with your above approach.

1. Many "religious" people believe that Science is a gift from God. So not using science ever is nonsensical. Again, belief in the results of one does not necessarily exclude belief in the results of the other.

2. While I agree they are not the same thing, neither are you tolerant. You have a specifically stated intolerance and would restrict those who believe differently to you to a box outside of what you call "science and politics"

People are free to write "stupid bullshit" like this all they want, they are not trying to step on your toes merely by stating something you disagree with. Again, if you truly want people who believe differently than you to listen to YOUR ideas you will need to lose the "bearded guy in the sky" analogy. Not a single person I have met in my travels across the planet that professes a belief in God has believed in a "bearded guy in the sky" it is a total straw-man to suggest otherwise. It only serves to undermine your stated goals and science in general when you use such arguments.

Comment Re:Trust peer-reviewed science... (Score 2, Interesting) 1486

I am not trolling. I am pointing out that if you want to use debate, reason and logic to sway someone or groups of people to your way of thinking using the approach YOU did rather than the parent's is more effective. "The big bearded man in the sky" is not what most people who believe in a deity have believed in for centuries now. Belittling their Faith is hardly going to make them receptive to your more reasonable and fact based arguments.

I could go on about how Faith in a deity and Faith in science are not mutually exclusive but that is beside the current point.

Comment Re:Trust peer-reviewed science... (Score 2, Insightful) 1486

Well, when you use your sarcasm wand to paint the topic of spiritual belief like that I am totally won over to your side of thinking. Obviously anyone who believes in God believes in a "big bearded man in the sky" how silly of us not to have realized how silly that is. Thanks for your insight!

/see what I did there?
Software

Submission + - Free DARPA software lets gamers hunt submarines (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: If you have ever wanted to go torpedo-to-torpedo with a submariner, now is your chance. The crowdsource-minded folks at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency rolled out an online game that lets players try to catch elusive, quiet enemy submarines.

According to DARPA the Sonalysts Combat Simulations Dangerous Waters software was been written to simulate actual evasion techniques used by submarines, challenging each player to track them successfully. "Your tracking vessel is not the only ship at sea, so you'll need to safely navigate among commercial shipping traffic as you attempt to track the submarine, whose driver has some tricks up his sleeve. You will earn points as you complete mission objectives, and will have the opportunity to see how you rank against the competition."

Comment If you understand... (Score 1) 278

this issue, then it is your DUTY to educate people as aggressively as possible. I know most of you already do, or think you do but I can't help but read the comments already made here today as being "the situation sucks, nobody understands, we are effed." Call me an optimist but I don't think the fight is over yet. Personally I am going to increasingly tailor my anti-IP-insanity rant to be along these lines:

The end-result of the current IP-law culture is a stifling of not only information flow and freedom of speech but to everyone's bottom line. Everything from stupid software patents to DMCA to the Mafiaa is stifling innovation and thus our economy. This reduces jobs, incomes and international competitiveness. The Baby Boomer generation in the U.S. made a conscious choice at some point to allow all manufacturing to die off and to replace this with the bastardized IP law business models. They did not understand the Internet, let alone the machines behind it, and so not only did they fail at the Dot Bomb point but long before that and continue to do so today. From the Democrats protecting "Hollywood" to the Republicans protecting "service providers" everyone knows the politicians are in the pockets.

So if you are talking to a Republican you explain that they should be for more information and copying freedom as it will take money out of their opponents pockets. If you are talking to a Democrat you explain that they should be for Net Neutrality because it takes money out of their opponents pocket. And if you are talking to a "regular joe" you explain that they should be for ALL of this because to do otherwise TAKES MONEY OUT OF THEIR POCKET. If we want an economy that can grow jobs and not just be a "new normal" then we must explain in DIRE & CERTAIN terms to Baby Boomers and the younger generation alike that innovation flees from IP law cultures like we have in place today. You can skip the lines about "making bits harder to copy is like making water less wet" because they don't understand or care about the impossibility of it if they can just ignore it. Instead, make sure you tie everything you say about stupid IP laws to their bottom line. Maybe a bit U.S. centric, but that is my perspective so it is all I've got.

Comment Re:Ken Cuccinelli (Score 1) 617

Unfortunately I believe this is all Internet karma for Mike Mann being a douche himself. Someone seriously needs to teach him the meaning of the Streisand Effect. He sent a C&D take down notice to a website who had made a satirical video about him. Now, no matter what your beliefs are about this issue one must agree that threatening legal action against fairly fringe websites and their lil youtube videos is dumb.

The article from the site in question.

Now the video has gone viral, been featured on Breitbart and Fox... so guess how guys like this Virgina AG even KNEW to go after Mann?
Sadly, scientists might be real good at their day jobs but apparently suck at handling PR etc. as now there is some Canuck who is doing the same thing.

If scientists are going to remain convincing they are going to have to resist the desire to get lititgous and instead fight back with smart and appealing campaigns of their own. Sorry but we all know better than most that this is how the Net works.

Comment Article = Scam Guidebook 2.0 (Score 4, Insightful) 178

Ok, so they were INCREDIBLY stupid in how they went about their astro-turfing. They literally had tons and tons of people review ONLY their apps and always give them 5 stars, it was only a matter of time till it was detected. So, if you are wondering how to do this better, just RTFA. The BIG kicker = Apple isn't going to refund any money, and the app dev isn't either.

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