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Cancer gets cured about once a decade, sometimes by real doctors, sometimes by "quacks." I could show stats from real doctors with similar results to this one, which never saw the light of day once it was discovered (or rediscovered).

People don't actually like creativity, even in medicine:

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/12/creativity_is_rejected_teachers_and_bosses_don_t_value_out_of_the_box_thinking.html

Staw says most people are risk-averse. He refers to them as satisfiers. “As much as we celebrate independence in Western cultures, there is an awful lot of pressure to conform,” he says. Satisfiers avoid stirring things up, even if it means forsaking the truth or rejecting a good idea.

In medicine, innovative things happen all the time. When *you* go to the doctor, you get the same ol' thing that has been done since 1952.

Let's not dance around the real reason shit hasn't changed since 1952.

Cures are not perpetually profitable. Only treatments are.

Cures are never welcome in the industry, and if you run across one, I promise you that no insurance company will ever cover it, leaving most with the only option of death, since they don't have $500,000+ lying around.

As far as how Obamacare will treat it, cures will be classified as first-degree felonies. You will abide by the party line and continue to obtain perpetual treatments so the vacuum can continue to suck the life out of you and your bank account, and keep you alive just long enough to empty both.

Laugh now. You'll be crying later.

Cancer gets cured about once a decade, sometimes by real doctors, sometimes by "quacks." I could show stats from real doctors with similar results to this one, which never saw the light of day once it was discovered (or rediscovered).

People don't actually like creativity, even in medicine:

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/12/creativity_is_rejected_teachers_and_bosses_don_t_value_out_of_the_box_thinking.html

Staw says most people are risk-averse. He refers to them as satisfiers. “As much as we celebrate independence in Western cultures, there is an awful lot of pressure to conform,” he says. Satisfiers avoid stirring things up, even if it means forsaking the truth or rejecting a good idea.

In medicine, innovative things happen all the time. When *you* go to the doctor, you get the same ol' thing that has been done since 1952.

When they lied even to the congress without consequences they crossed the line. Anything they say could be a lie without consequences, More words won't fix it. Fireworks should not fool anyone. "Whisteblowers" confirming this could be fake. We got lucky with Snowden doing something that they didn't imagined and warned us, but that won't happen again, and they could keep making things worse.

Don't matter what they say If they can lie even to the congress with no consequences.

As you like time-lapse photography, this came to my attention this morning. Not a well traveled environment so it is really something to watch. Enjoy.

A different view

What’s got the academic Internet’s frayed mom jeans in a bunch, however, is that Thrun’s alleged mea culpa is actually a you-a culpa. For Udacity’s catastrophic failure to teach remedial mathematics at San Jose State University, Thrun blames neither the corporatization of the university nor the MOOC’s use of unqualified “student mentors” in assessment. Instead, he blames the students themselves for being so damn poor.

The way Fast Company has it, Thrun chucks those San Jose State students under the self-driving Google car faster than he chugs up a hill on his custom-made road bike, leaving a panting Max Chafkin in the dust to ponder the following Thrunism: “These were students from difficult neighborhoods, without good access to computers, and with all kinds of challenges in their lives. It's a group for which this medium is not a good fit.”

Apparently students fail MOOCs because those students have the gall to be poor.

The problem, of course, is that those students represent the precise group MOOCs are meant to serve. “MOOCs were supposed to be the device that would bring higher education to the masses,” Jonathan Rees noted. “However, the masses at San Jose State don’t appear to be ready for the commodified, impersonal higher education that MOOCs offer.” Thrun’s cavalier disregard for the SJSU students reveals his true vision of the target audience for MOOCs: students from the posh suburbs, with 10 tablets apiece and no challenges whatsoever—that is, the exact people who already have access to expensive higher education.

many of us have a serious issue with the portion of this country that consumes far more from the fed then it pays in taxes.

You mean the southern red states + Alaska?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_reckoning/2012/10/25/blue_state_red_face_guess_who_benefits_more_from_your_taxes.html

The main problem with Bitcoin is the same as with gold (libertarian's other favorite currency) - because the supply is fixed, there is no way to stabilize or otherwise regulate the currency's value. Why is this important? Because things can fall out of equilibrium due to bottom up nonlinear consequences which are otherwise quite impossible to control.

a) Have actually proven that this is not some 'cook something up to to get our ultra conservative readers their daily dose of outrage over their morning coffee' type story made up by a right wing rag.

I can't speak to the specific case, but if you think civil forfeiture is a figment of the right-wing imagination, you're dangerously ignorant about how the government operates.

It's been going on for decades, under both Democratic and Republican leadership. Basically, the state or federal government uses an obscure legal doctrine under which it accuses your property of a crime. Your property doesn't have the same due process and presumption of innocence rights you do, so it usually lose the case. You have to sue the government to get it back. You can guess how well that usually goes.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/easy-money-civil-asset-forfeiture-abuse-police

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tag/civil-asset-forfeiture

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2010/02/take_the_money_and_run.html

http://fear.org/victimindex.html

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/08/12/130812fa_fact_stillman

http://www.forbes.com/2011/06/08/property-civil-forfeiture.html

Ask the folks in Oregon how well Oracle is working for them... http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/11/22/oregon_has_signed_up_zero_people_for_private_health_insurance.html

Actually his post contained considerable nonsense as I point out in my other post in this subthread.

As to your link, I suggest that anyone that reads it pays careful attention to the British inquiries section.

They may also want to do some follow up reading, or maybe even start here first:

About that 500 tons of yellow cake...
Case Closed - The truth about the Iraqi-Niger "yellowcake" nexus.

You wrote: "Not a single person was laid off..."

But the unstated part is "...in your company".

If demand grows slower than supply (like due to limited money supply in the real economy, a law of diminishing returns of more consumer goods, increasing burden from negative externalities, structural unemployment, etc.) then other companies that are less productive may go out of business due to your improvements, taking jobs (and also ultimately customers) with them. We're about to see that rapidly accelerate with increasing use of robotics, AI, and other advanced automation.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/10/08/1530233/digital-revolution-will-kill-jobs-inflame-social-unrest-says-gartner?sdsrc=popbyskid

Here is a list I put together of about 50 things one can do about that:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html

A "basic income" (monthly social security payments for all from birth) is the simplest and probably most effective one of those for a democratic capitalistic society:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/11/17/american_basic_income_an_end_to_poverty.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/switzerlands-proposal-to-pay-people-for-being-alive.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/opinion/krugman-sympathy-for-the-luddites.html

The opposite position though:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/10/04/1222228/the-luddites-are-almost-always-wrong-why-tech-doesnt-kill-jobs

See:
Experian sells ssns

Do you realize that credit reporting agencies are 'regulated' and that means absolutely nothing?

All that smoke and mirrors they put out about checking your credit report, and fixing errors, doesn't really happen. It is there ONLY so the consumer thinks credit reporting is fair. The fact is the credit reporting agency 1) makes more money from you 2) ignores your request to fix items. Why should they care? You CAN NOT sue them. Bet you didn't know that did you? Only a state's attorney Generals can sue a credit reporting agency. That is part of the deal they got to support fair credit laws in the first place. Like just about everything else in this country lately, they had a huge lobbying effort to exclude themselves from lawsuits, took all your representatives to steak and lobster dinner, and called it something that sounded like it was made to protect the consumer. IT IS NOT!

If you go through the trouble of writing them to correct something, they just send you a generic letter; "We do not understand your request." Since you can not sue, that is the end of it.

So the root of this problem is both the slimey business, but as much the slimey credit reporting agencies that make it a viable business model. Experian will even sell social securrity numbers to crooks now to make money;

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/10/25/experian_data_broker_social_security_numbers_sold_to_identity_thieves.html

Or were they only valid in Colorado? http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/06/deer_trail_co_sees_applications_for_nonexistent_drone_hunting_license.html

"We" already are starving and overpopulated**. This research project is sponsored by companies operating in a very rich country - has potential to alleviate starvation and in the third world, but it is unlikely that will happen in our lifetimes. The evidence so far strongly suggests that we now live in a "winner-take-all" world economy, where technological advances do not filter down and only serve to deepen the inequality both within a countries population and between countries. Your stand on the environment one way or the other has nothing to do with that...

** in some areas

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2013/10/11/china_now_world_s_largest_net_oil_importer_surpassing_united_states.html

That's his excuse, anyway. But he doesn't actually even need to ask Congress. It can legally be done by executive order alone.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2013/05/president_obama_can_shut_guantanamo_whenever_he_wants_to.html

A obama voting welfare recipient,...

The phrases "Obama voting" and "welfare recipient" might mot be as accurate as you think.

You might find this interesting. From Slate.com (and others):

The top ten states that got the most back in federal benefits (9/10 are Red states): New Mexico (Blue), Mississippi, Alaska, Louisiana, W. Virginia, N. Dakota, Alabama, S. Dakota, Virginia, Kentucky.

The bottom 10 states - that give more than they receive in federal benefits (all Blue states): New Jersey, Nevada, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Illinois, Delaware, California, New York, Colorado.

In addition: About the assumptions surrounding Mitt Romney’s now infamous comments about the indolent “47 percent” of Americans who regard themselves as victims and therefore pay no taxes. As the American Conservative magazinepointed out recently, nine of those 10 states are in the Old Confederacy.

Don't need to go so far, James Clapper lied to the congress, was found out, and as "punishment" is be his own auditor.

By now if the government of US says that 2+2=4, you should bet that they are doing math in base 3.

What Happens When a Language Has No Numbers?

The "researchers" would probably think this is a society of retards, when actually it's just a different way of living and thinking. Numbers don't exist. The universe is not mathematical. Those are both stories we tell ourselves to make sense of the world...

That said, some context: Of the 788 amendments filed, 67 came from Democrats and 721 from Republicans. (That disparity drew jeers that Republicans were trying to slow things down. Another explanation may be that they offered so many so they could later claim—as they are now, in fact, claiming—that most of their suggestions went unheeded.) Only 197 amendments were passed in the end—36 from Democrats and 161 from Republicans. And of those 161 GOP amendments, Senate Republicans classify 29 as substantive and 132 as technical.

Then, of course, is the simple thing that republicans seem loathed to say: Obamacare is pretty much a national version of Romneycare, which was taken largely from suggestions form the Heritage Foundation.

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/the-irony-of-obamacare-republicans-thought-of-it-first.html/

It's not that the creation process of the law was flawed, it's that you and your fellow rabid conservatives have been lied to for so long, you actually believe the bullshit you've been fed.

He lied to Congress

It was Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper who lied to congress, not Alexander. At least not provably.

It is important that we keep the facts straight, every stray bullet is an excuse for the pro-NSA types to discredit our position.

Elon Musk

Musk put about $100 million of his own money into SpaceX. $4-500 million has come from NASA.

Bell Labs

They closed up shop specifically because it was becoming impractical for private companies to make those big gains anymore.

xerox PARC

Up util the mid 70's received huge amounts of funding from DARPA.

Is the government the ONLY one that spends on basic research with no immediate application? Absolutely NOT!

While this is technically still true, this isn't the mid-20th century anymore. That's the exception, not the rule. Keep in mind that that research funding came from an environment of high taxation leading to research being the best way to at least keep some benefit in house.

The problem is indeed with the drag net strategy. Keeping an eye on potential enemies is legitimate. Collecting bulk data with no reason at all is questionable. The Netherlands has the highest rate of (warrantless) wiretapping of any European country (1 in 1000), far exceeding the US rate, but it is the only country mentioned that does not engage in bulk collection of data without specific reason. Isn't this the more reasonable alternative?

Germany's green jobs are very heavily subsidized by the government. Jobs are certainly being created, however the cost is enormous to their economy. The latest figures show Germany has spent over $130 Billion dollars for 6000 green jobs. That is a cool $20 million per job created. Each consumer subsidizes these jobs to the tune of an extra $260 per year making German electricity among the most expensive in the world. To quote that hard core leftist site Slate

Moreover, this sizeable investment does remarkably little to counter global warming. Even with unrealistically generous assumptions, the unimpressive net effect is that solar power reduces Germanyâ(TM)s CO2 emissions by roughly 8 million metric tonsâ"or about 1 percent â" for the next 20 years.

...
In the meantime, Germans have paid about $130 billion for a climate-change policy that has no impact on global warming.

The one thing that they were really doing right, nuclear energy they voted to get rid of once the Greens got in power. Now since even Germany can't run everything off of renewables the net effect is that Germany is massively ramping up building more coal power plants. So, how about those Germans?

There is also a social cost that is not calculable to allowing them to live, possibly escape and kill again, or just kill again in prison.

Which must also be balanced against the social cost of killing innocent people who were wrongfully convicted.

It's also worth noting that the homicide rate in prison is much lower than in the general populace. The prison murder rate is about 3 in 100,000 per year, and the general population is at about 4.7 in 100,000 per year. You are 20X safer from murder in prison than you are in Flint, Michigan (64.9 per 100,000).

(Numbers in the article from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.)

I was surprised when I first saw how extensive the coverage on Buffy is, but there's actually a pretty good reason for that.

That's the great thing about electric motors: max torque is at zero Km/h.

Then drops off like a cliff so it has no top end.

Like to see your figures behind that. Car and Driver says:

We measured 0-to-60 mph in 4.6 seconds, a quarter-mile of 13.3 seconds at 104 mph, and a governed top speed of 134 mph. That’s similar to the performance of the V-8 German sedans.

and from what I have read, that's typical. The electric motor keeps up the torque across a much wider band, negating the need for a complex multi-speed transmission. Yeah, the torque drops off, but not until you've blown the doors off most ICE-powered cars simply by flooring the pedal (no clutching, no shifting, just go).
Sure sounds fun to me.

Peter Allen had it right ..

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/how_they_do_it/2006/02/wiretapping_europeanstyle.html

Reported and discussed several years ago:

Washington's biggest European critic -- France -- also has a serious wiretapping habit, as Marc Perelman points out in Foreign Policy: "In addition to judicially ordered taps there are also 'administrative wiretaps' decided by security agencies under the control of the government."

40km is still only about 25 miles, which is well within that single horse's range. Interestingly enough, such a race already exists, and though it is usually won by a horse, humans have won before - and would likely win more often if the horse's maintenance times were counted in addition to the actual travel time.

Spurred on by this discussion*, I looked around a bit more, and I found an interesting article considering how humans can eventually outrun most other animals, complete with references.

* Pun intended. I'm terrible.

Every single citizen in the US who did not have insurance had their market wage reduced by the requirement by law to spend part of those wages or have them removed by the federal government.

Ah, so we're talking about people who don't have insurance already. OK. So that's a little different. Congressional staffers had insurance as part of their pay and then lost it, and the Republicans fought for the Vitter Amendment which prevents the OPM from making up that cut in dollars like it would in the regular market for people who have insurance as part of their pay package. They're creating a perverse situation that doesn't actually exist in the private markets which specifically screws the staffers.

People who don't have insurance fall into two categories. Either they can't afford it, in which case the exchanges should be a major boon to them, or they're mooching off the rest of us by making us bear their medical cost risks for them, and I don't have a lot of patience for whining over them having to pay into the system. Cry me a river.

The law specifically said they had to go onto the exchanges. Any rational person not believing that there is one set of rules for the subjects of the crown and another for the crown's court would understand this to mean they had to participate in the exchanges just like the millions of other people who fall under the law.

Nobody was keeping them off the exchanges. They were going to the exchanges. They're still going to the exchanges. The only question was whether the government would behave like a normal employer and pay the cash savings over to the employees so they could spend it on the exchanges or whether they'd take an arbitrary pay cut the likes of which doesn't happen to the rest of us if our employer drops coverage.

If you take a few deep breaths and calm down, maybe you'll see it more clearly. You seem pretty amped up on hate for congressional staffers. They didn't have a "special exemption" before the Grassley amendment. They just had employer health care like most of us do. They weren't getting special treatment before the Vitter amendment. The only problem comes from the fact that Congress is calling this a "subsidy" which is illegal, instead of what it really is: being paid their negotiated wage.

Second,what republican has ever said staffers couldn't get a raise?

David Vitter. But only in the sense that it can't be called a "subsidy." And it's not really a raise, but a "not cut." This whole thing is a weird parsing of the word "subsidy" versus "raise" versus "cut." The basic market outcome was broken by the Grassley amendment and the Vitter amendment was an attempt to keep it broken.

They'll eventually have to pass something entirely different to give the money back in a way that doesn't look like a "subsidy", but the Republicans are making a hard stand on it as though there's a meaningful principle at stake, probably because the voters are confused and really think that extra money is being shoveled into the pockets of staffers, and hating on those guys is playing really well in the media right now. "Here's the money we just took away from you" isn't a subsidy by any reasonable definition.

I don't see that as a terrible thing. Some claim the staffers have too much power and influence in government and constant changing of them would negate that so the representation of the people takes priority.

That's fine. If your position is that we're better off with an across the board pay cut of between $5,000 and $11,000 for congressional staffers who aren't exactly making bank, that's a perfectly valid place to be. But it doesn't have anything to do with "special treatment" for anybody.

And for the record, I'd like to see *everybody*

Simply not true. For instance, here's a 2010 Bloomberg article citing the fact that Google was employing it at the time to get a competitive advantage over Apple and Microsoft by having the lowest tax rate among the top five tech companies. Other references mention that Oracle was using it early on as well. I don't know if Google invented it or not, but it certainly didn't start with Apple.

"donating a small sum of money to an organization that the federal government considered terrorist in nature." Apparently Mr. Moalin once missed a telephone call from "Aden Hashi Ayrow, the senior al Shabaab leader," which makes it likely that a little more was going on than merely the donation of "a small sum of money." You may recall al Shabaab as the group behind the recent slaughter at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi. So to say "an organization that the federal government considered terrorist in nature" is to omit some rather important background. By any rational definition, al Shabaab is certainly a terror group.

Well, what's going on? You don't know, and I don't know, because the prosecutors never gave the exculpatory evidence. There's no clear evidence. Everything is inferred. http://www.fbi.gov/sandiego/press-releases/2013/san-diego-jury-convicts-four-somali-immigrants-of-providing-support-to-foreign-terrorists http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/09/basaaly_moalin_s_defense_team_takes_on_mass_nsa_telephone_surveillance.html

If Moalin clearly knew that his money was going to pay for terrorist attacks, and people were killed as a result, and they can prove it by courtroom standards in a court of law, according to the rules of the Bill of Rights, then they can send him to jail for the rest of his life, and I would convict him if I were on the jury. He deserves as much sympathy as he gave his victims.

But if they have evidence that he wasn't knowingly involved in terror, which they did, then he's entitled to have it, and I want to know what it is before I come to any conclusions. And you should too.

It might be that they had 100 phone calls, all of which seemed to show that he had no intent of getting involved in terrorism, and one ambiguous call, which they interpret to mean that he was involved in terrorism. He's entitled to have the court look at all the evidence. We are too.

OK, I saw the movie, it is awesome in the true sense of the word awe, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The special effects are great, the story line simple and engaging. The the effects, especially the interior shots, are very detailed and the few technical issues didn't pull me out of the film to a large degree. While Tyson's comments are correct I think the link below from Bad Astronomer is a more interesting and full description of the issues: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/10/04/ba_movie_review_gravity.html

You're making the fatal assumption that the lightness of the element is directly related to how we store electricity using that element.

If we can find a way to store things in carbon (like MAYBE this), then it won't matter that carbon is heavier, it can still have higher density by energy/mass.

You are quite right about the wobble effect used to help find candidates. It's extremely difficult to get direct pictures, however we have done it. Since it sounds like you have some interest in the subject I'll provide some links for you to read on. Interestingly enough the planet first planet we directly pictured had been captured by Hubble and overlooked for years as we didn't have the technique for combing through the data at the time!

http://www.universetoday.com/26353/new-technique-allows-astronomers-to-discover-exoplanets-in-old-hubble-images/

I like the list of habitable exoplanets, as this is where the future of humanity has to go someday.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/bad_astronomy/2012/11/exoplanet_pictures_astronomers_have_photos_of_alien_planets.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2452217/A-lonely-planet-Giant-gas-world-sun-orbit-floating-space.html

http://www.google.com/imgres?biw=1920&bih=963&tbm=isch&tbnid=kjlHVn7dUiT4lM:&imgrefurl=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3453478/First-direct-pictures-of-planets-outside-our-solar-system.html&docid=WY-uZHkJtvY5FM&imgurl=http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01113/HR_8799_1113907c.jpg&w=460&h=288&ei=qp5aUonvOYnM9QTa1IHICw&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:89,s:0,i:354&iact=rc&page=3&tbnh=178&tbnw=284&start=76&ndsp=38&tx=85&ty=84

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2008/nov/13/first-bona-fide-direct-images-of-exoplanets

This is a classic case of "who watches the watchmen" or Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Apparently, no one. It seems that anyone with top secret at the NSA can do whatever they please with no oversight or discipline. It must be a fun place to work where you can spend you days creeping on your ex-girlfriends, elected officials, and corporate CEOs. Unchecked power is a very bad thing as we move farther and father from the principle of "habeas corpus" and into the land of "it's top secret and no you can't see the evidence, trust us, were a bunch of good, trustworthy folks."

And if you haven't seen "Flying Robots", go watch it now. The NSA will want these toys overhead next, if they aren't already there.

Look, nobody is saying that progress has to stop but not all progress is good. In this case it's very dangerous for us to assume that Google has everybody's well being in mind, remember the wifi mapping (snooping) that went on with their street view cars? That class action suit is still moving forward and it shows now insidious these privacy breaches can be in the name of innovation. Society in general is losing privacy in small and sometimes in very large ways
all in the name of progress or government snooping every day and the rate at which technology enables this to happen shouldn't mean that we start allowing our
personal habits or preferences to become open for public inspection. Unfortunately for us, our leaders have no interest in protecting our rights when it comes to their own retarded interests led by people who have Star Trek fetishes; that needs to be disassembled as well. Sure, there's public information that I don't mind people knowing but there's other information that nobody should know nor have an interest in knowing because it's not any of their concern. When we start trading some technological achievement for privacy then there should be a corresponding assessment to the benefits of what we're getting. Google gives away "free" services but really they're not free at all. They mine your information, your e-mails, where you go (if you use maps) etc. Facebook does the same thing and also links your information against other sources, like your buying preferences. There are other companies with names you may not be familiar with but they're out there digging and mining around for information about you, how much you make, what you buy, where you go and they dig far deeper than you may realize. What all of this does is allows others whether they're commercial or government entities to classify you, to put you into a box with a label on it and those labels can be dangerous to your liberty and how you work and live. Want that new job? Well now your future employer can just look at your social network behaviors to see how you'd fit with their organization, or to look for reasons not to hire you.

  So while the article is proposing that Google would be more trusted say than Ford or GM to come up with a self-driving vehicle, there's no fucking way that I will ever purchase a vehicle with a ToS that would allow somebody else to grab more information about me and my habits or preferences because that's part of the driving experience in this country, to get away without somebody looking over your shoulder on where you go and why. Is that naive? No because I know there are speed cameras, license plate readers, toll tag scanners and cameras and GPS trackers in my phone already or in my car and while I am still opposed to all of that, I do what I can to minimize that exposure to it and I still fight against it and will continue to do so.

Rand was broken by the Bolsheviks as a girl, and she never left their bootprint behind. She believed her philosophy was Bolshevism's opposite, when in reality it was its twin. Both she and the Soviets insisted a small revolutionary elite in possession of absolute rationality must seize power and impose its vision on a malleable, imbecilic mass. The only difference was that Lenin thought the parasites to be stomped on were the rich, while Rand thought they were the poor.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2009/11/how_ayn_rand_became_an_american_icon.html

Sounds to me that she was a sad, drug addicted nut who was overly influenced by her rough childhood, and any nut can write books. Doesn't make them right (see: L.Ron Hubbard).

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/09/06/nsa_bullrun_manassas_why_is_the_nsa_naming_its_covert_programs_after_civil.html
They are way ahead of the "'own people" aspect.
The fun question is who is going to play the North, South, the role of the UK, France and will the Russians send ships again? http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Modern_History/American_Civil_War/Wartime_Diplomacy/US-Russian_Relations

It's been literally used like that since the late 18th century.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/03/06/literally_definition_has_changed_over_the_years_dictionaries_recognize_this.html

20% of the market and probably 50% of the profits. They supposedly have a 40% share in the US. You don't need a majority of a market to still be the top dog. Margins matter. So does usage (which supposedly iOS users are by far dominant in the US (not sure elsewhere)) as that is what drives upselling data plans and purchases of apps in terms of profits. Android > Apple argument only works if you consider every manufacturer the same. Same argument of Mac vs PC ~10% of market but generally mid to high range systems and high to riduculous range prices so they again punch above there weight class in terms of profit. In fact according to: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/16/mac_profits_are_high_too_high.html the margins are so rich they make more money that all the rest of the PC industry as a whole.

Smart watches in my opinion are a dumb dumb idea if they require a phone to use for data/offloading processing (which also goes for Glass). If I got a phone in my pocket how about answering the phone rather than dropping another $200 or so on another device that does the same thing but with a smaller screen and more slowly? If they really want a market make a smart watch that needs no phone and is a phone itself. Still might be a pain convincing people to use it as it would likely need to work with bluetooth headset or speaker phone as the only two options but might work for some peoples needs. Bluetooth to car audio would work well for drivers too versus people trying to balance their smart phone in a cup holder or whatever while driving.

Using his real name posting Silkroad code on StackOverflow.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/02/silk_road_s_dread_pirate_ross_ulbricht_asked_stack_overflow_question_under.html

I love Slate's take on this. When you read it, substitute "Venezuela", "Uganda", or "Myanmar" for "America".

Look on the bright side, at least you haven't quite reached Zimbabwe level yet.

I love Slate's take on this. When you read it, substitute "Venezuela", "Uganda", or "Myanmar" for "America".

I don't even want to know what kind of swill people drank during the prohibition.

Being a fervent Homebrewer, I did: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2010/02/the_chemists_war.html

"Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people."

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3383

"Prohibition did briefly pay some public health dividends. The death rate from alcoholism was cut by 80 percent by 1921 from pre-war levels, while alcohol-related crime dropped markedly. Nevertheless, seven years after Prohibition went into effect, the total deaths from adulterated liquor reached approximately 50,000, and there were many more cases of blindness and paralysis. According to one story, a potential buyer who sent a liquor sample to a laboratory for analysis was shocked when a chemist replied: "Your horse has diabetes." "

"Even today, debate about the impact of Prohibition rages. Critics argue that the amendment failed to eliminate drinking, made drinking more popular among the young, spawned organized crime and disrespect for the law, encouraged solitary drinking, and led beer drinkers to hard liquor and cocktails. One wit joked that "Prohibition succeeded in replacing good beer with bad gin." The lesson these critics derive: it is counterproductive to try to legislate morality. "

So in regards to Krokodil:
      freely available precursors that have legitimate uses
+ clampdown on information to iterate the impurities/efficiencies out of methods and tools
+ belief that addiction is lack of morality and willpower
= actual, not a joke, they were fiction and now they are here "ZOMBIES" (minus the "crossed over the actual deadline" of the fictional version.)

Morality or Zombies, Morality or Zombies..... Hmmmmm. What's that Senator Cruz? You said you enjoyed that show on AMC? Well shut things down and get up there and talk it out, son!!!

You mean this decent writing? Please, tell me more.

As predicted in Slate, Guido Barilla (yes, that's his name) issues meaningless apology. For those counting at home, this is actually the forth one. Now what?

It was all a form of “White Hat hacking” he says he did but never for purposes of stealing phone service or avoiding paying phone bills.

FTFY

First: I love Woz, and what he did for computing (stlll have my IIe in the garage)

If you are blue boxing you are, by definition, not paying for the phone services that you are using.

Building a blue box and and 'exploring' Ma Bell, can be considered "white hat."
Once you start building them and selling them for a profit, not so much.

Remember, selling or owning them was very illegal back then. One builder lined his with Thermite across the PCB, so if the cops were approaching you could fry the board.

More here:
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/the_spectator/2011/10/the_article_that_inspired_steve_jobs_secrets_of_the_little_blue_.html