Comment Well, that backfired. (Score 1) 473
"As a High Ranking Member of Dr. Seuss: We Own the Rights to Him Inc, I'm uncomfortable with the thought of Dr. Seuss being seen as a racist - let's pull a few of his books from publication so hopefully they won't accidentally cause a fuss and taint his legacy".
"Hm, yes, I agree, that could be bad for us. Shall we quietly delete the offending books from the catalog?"
"No, let's announce what we're doing to the media. I'm sure this won't turn into one of those weeks-long moral panic shitstorms."
Comment Re:Because (Score 4, Insightful) 473
You can dress it up however you like, but when a single company controls a vast segment of the market, hiding behind the disingenuous argument that "they shouldn't be forced to [let other people] sell [what the company considers to be] rude and offensive materials" is functionally siding with the book-burners.
And I'd be careful where you go on that train. Some people consider public displays of homosexual relationships rude and offensive. Some pharmacists consider birth control rude and offensive. Some people consider Dr. Seuss's caricatures of white people rude and offensive. Green Eggs and Ham can be read as a sneering and contemptuous belittlement of the challenges those on the autistic spectrum face when being asked to step outside their comfort zone.
Comment Re:When is this ever false? (Score 1) 441
(Remember the time when people didn't automatically assume they were qualified to speculate as to others' motivations, and found better things to do than bicker over semantics?)
Comment Re:When is this ever false? (Score 1) 441
Maybe you should quit jerking off over these purely semantic notions you seem to have acquired, pull your head out of your ass, take a good long look around you, and form a spontaneous conclusion or two, based not upon "given Deeply Held Value x and stimulus of situation y ergo z", but rather "situation y is bullshit, pure and simple, ergo it is wrong, and if Deeply Held Value x contradicts this basic notion, then Deeply Held Value x must itself be less than fully correct, full-stop, end of sentence, end of chapter".
Comment Re:Good grief! (Score 2, Informative) 571
Here's the thing. The government really doesn't like going to court.
Requesting extradition means that the Feds are dead serious about prosecution.
Plea bargains are much less common - and much less generous - in the federal system.
Foreign based intrusions on US military networks do not get the kid glove treatment - no matter how trivial.
Comment Re:Well, something *has* changed (Score 1) 783
Is that the entire basis for "it was 14-year-old Willow whose dignity was flung in the mud,"? It sounds to me like the joke was clearly a reference to the daughter that got knocked up.
The fact that that daughter wasn't even present at the game is hardly relevant, considering it's obviously a joke and not a credible claim.
Any real criticism that Sarah Palin has had about her daughters was, as far as I know, all concerning how her family values apparently included getting knocked up before marriage.
Comment Re:A Natural Progression Yet So Many Caveats (Score 1) 578
when trying to remove the last character, print the character to the screen
Comment Re:How do they know? (Score 1) 132
The underlying quantum state *is* observable. Why wouldn't it be?
If you RTFA (and not even the paper is necessary for this), you will see that they are limited by the fidelity of their setup, ie. signal to noise. Hence, when they improve their apparatus, they will get more accurate results.
Comment Re:79% accuracy ... (Score 1) 132
"The result sets are independent of each other."
Yes, that's why he could just multiply them like that.
Comment I see a larger motive: (Score 1) 280
The cynic in me thinks it will go this way: They make this announcement today. For the next few months, they do absolutely nothing. Then, they fabricate a bunch of data, and announce that they've determined that 99% of all P2P traffic is protected by copyright. Authorities cowtow, and those "three-strikes" laws get put in place (and enforced) everywhere.
It doesn't matter that the data was faked...they expressly stated that it would all be anonymised and not linked to any specific customer...so how can anyone prove it's been faked?
Journal Journal: Good Account Of The Niger Letter Timeline 1
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