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It's not meaningful unless you can compare it to other ratings for other news services.

As long as their accuracy is well below 50% you might just as well flip a coin. And political "experts" usually don't know what they're talking about anyway

All you have to do it look at the makeup of the UN's Human Rights Council to realize it would be worse.

Worse then Guantanamo Bay Cuba? America is justified in claiming moral leadership on free speech, but that doesn't mean the UN would be bad. The UN certainly wouldn't be blinded by Hollywood. Also (I linked this above too): U.N. Report Declares Internet Access a Human Right

Plus China and Russia are pushing for this. As bad is ICE is, they're rank amateurs at blocking the net compared to the Chinese.

They already block the Internet in their own countries, with no international discussion or mediation. We shouldn't only worry about free countries becoming more restrictive, but also about getting restrictive countries to open up. China and the US should do more then just business.

I don't think the UN would consider PIPA or SOPA. See: U.N. Report Declares Internet Access a Human Right

That's because the guy running the app store has a monopoly on fart apps:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/apple-fart-apps/all/1

The ASBO stuff seem very arbitrary. Like going back to the bad old days of having an all powerful king. I thought the English did that Magna Carta thing?

What's the big problem on them exploring the station? It was an abandoned station (as per the link).

By the way the french seem to have maps of the underground: http://carto.metro.free.fr/cartes/metro-tram-london/index.php?gpslat=51.513962&gpslon=-0.114629&zoom=4

Not that surprised though: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/01/ff_ux/all/1

Ted Nelson.... was unimpressed with HTML

HTML is precisely what we were trying to PREVENT-- ever-breaking links, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins, no version management, no rights management. The "Browser" is an extremely silly concept-- a window for looking sequentially at a large parallel structure. It does not show this structure in a useful way.

It's funny that Ted's project derides HTML for "simulating paper", when it was this very simplicity that enabled it to evolve and spread quickly. It's not the first time that dumb-and-simple won out over a lofty intellectual approach, but it's especially awkward that the guy has stuck with it for several decades (see this June 1995 Wired article, for instance).

Facebook does this for two very simple reasons:

1. They have to do it or they have nasty legal problems of their own.
2. They make a lot of money by doing so.

Your proposed check on power through the budget hit is in fact alive and well and has been for many years.

What gives? Did I totally miss the boat on this and the Zune actually sucks? Am I just destined to be forever uncool by being associated with a failed MS product?

Only if you were stupid enough to get it tattoed on your arm. ;-)

Other than that, you should be able to buy the music player of your choice and pretend it never happened. Nobody need ever know.

FWIW, I'm not sure I ever remember anybody saying good things about Zune ... except, of course, for the guy with the tattoo before he decided the product wasn't that good. It always struck me as Microsoft trying to get into yet another market when nobody really wanted their offering.

Though, except for the presence of the "Zune Marketplace" on my XBox (which I've never cared about), I have no experience with it. For all I know, it really is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

I agree; this article is baffling. The link from the sentence "The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has found that forcing a suspect to decrypt his hard drive when the government did not already know what it contained would violate his 5th Amendment rights" points to an article, dated yesterday, that says "Ruling Stands: Defendant Must Decrypt Laptop".

That is precisely the opposite of what the summary states.

wired.com has one where Tesla downplays the problem by saying it's only a problem if you don't keep it plugged in. Then they talk about the various measures that necessitate continuing to drain the battery rather than shutting down like it should.

Surely if the report was categorically untrue, they would categorically deny it rather than claiming it was user negligence.

Have you read Lawrence Lessig's "Insanely Destructive Devices": http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.04/view.html?pg=5

I think the article, and student who proposed it, hit the nail right on the head:

If we can't defend against an attack, perhaps the rational response is to reduce the incentives to attack. Rather than designing space suits, maybe we should focus on ways to eliminate the reasons to annihilate us. Rather than stirring up a hornet's nest and then hiding behind a bush, maybe the solution is to avoid the causes of rage. Crazies, of course, can't be reasoned with. But we can reduce the incentives to become a crazy. We could reduce the reasonableness - from a certain perspective - for finding ways to destroy us.

I think there is a lot of truth to that. Its not hard to imagine the mindset that would lead a person down the path to doing terrible things. It doesn't even really require anything that I would call particularly insane. Its not hard to put together some anti-US rhetoric, for example. All you need to do is do things like point to the dichotomy between claiming respect for human rights and calling out others for torture, then having a torture program of our own. Starting wars...which can never truely be fully controlled and will always result in atrocities....every one of which is a recruitung tool for those who would claim such tactics.

Reducing the reasonableness, from other perspectives than our own, of finding ways to destroy us is not exactly hard, however, it does require actually giving a shit, which doesn't seem to be compatible with the belief that you are the best and the strongest and don't have to care.

Yeah, so that looks like I actually massively overestimated how much we're talking about then. The Tevatron cost around 50 million a year to run. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/tevatron-higgs-extension/. So in fact the cost is closer to that of half a fighter jet.

There *is* one way ... but people will howl and scream like crazy. There are work-arounds that let you use GPL'd code in closed-source products, completely within the restrictions of current copyright law - and without resorting to TIVOization.

The question is, is it even worth it? Probably not, the market just isn't there. That's the real Bug #1, and it's not going to change, because TANSTAAFL. Linux is great for infrastructure, and for people who know what they're doing (for example, I'm currently running Fedora 16, but I certainly wouldn't just give an install disk to someone and expect them to be able to use it - most of their programs won't run, which is the root cause of the real-life Bug #1).

Bug #0, on the other hand, is social. It's the GPL itself, which has turned software into a closed-minded quasi-pseudo-religion for too many people. It's why more projects are switching to free/non-restrictive ABM licenses (Apache, BSD, MIT). They still get code contributions back, but they get them because the contributors find it's more effective in the long term, not because they "have to." Cooperation, not coercion.

""I don't regard [Brandt] as a valid source about anything at all..." - Jimbo Wales"

That sounds like a cut and dry +5 perspective. But being the same sort of person as Daniel Brandt (or at least, I presume the same slashdot commenters calling him a looney would call me one as well), I decided to use non-google search engines, and results not already posted here, to try and make a real evaluation of D.B. I found a long thread he participated in, that was remarkably coherent, and intelligent, about his experiments reverse engineering how google works. Say what you will, but technically, on subjects he is passionate about, he comes off very well. In fact, he's so clever, all he had to do was throw in a bizarre offhand comment such as 'tighter than a bikini on a Bomis babe', and it inspired me to google that, and get this wired article, which IMO should negate the +5 of the parent comment. Jimmy Wales does not come off looking like such a valid source , after reading this- http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/12/69880

"Public edit logs reveal that Wales has changed his own Wikipedia bio 18 times, deleting phrases describing former Wikipedia employee Larry Sanger as a co-founder of the site.

Wales has also repeatedly revised the description of a search site he founded called Bomis, which included a section with adult photos called "Bomis Babes.""

In which of those cases is the government not interfering?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOPA
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/ticketmaster/

Let's trust an ad-serving company with a track record of intentional privacy violations and a publicly hostile attitude toward privacy rights to generate our passwords for us.

Ever wondered why Chrome bundled Flash despite dropping H.264 in the name of openness? Advertiser Flash cookies. Chrome is also the last major browser not to support the Do Not Track privacy feature. Google wants access to all your data because you are their product, and advertisers are their users.

Of course, trolls will probably accuse me of being a shill again, even though the facts are staring everyone in the face. I'll stick with Firefox and the PwdHash addon for secure password generation, thanks.

I would think you think you're being clever or well informed, but I regularly cook things in my Sous Vide machine at the FINAL temperature I want them to be. With this method you cannot overcook your food, it will hold at temperature and in most cases not degrade the texture of the dish if something comes up and you wait 30 minutes to pull it out of the water bath. Some high end restaurants use this method to keep popular foods just shy of done, when an order comes in they give them a quick sear in a pan and put them on a plate.

A lot of the 300-400 degree cooking methods are too-efficient transmission directly from the pan through the meat so when the center is 170 and safe to eat, the outside is 240+ and either beef jerky or charcoal. Likewise air is a poor heat conductor so it takes hours in an oven for the center of the meat to reach 160, see every Thankgiving turkey ever.

With Sous Vide you never overcook and the moisture in the food isn't driven out by the cooking process.

So I'll see your Newton's Law and raise you Fourier's Law

"Writing about sous vide led Myhrvold to think more deeply about how heat moves through different media (which is why Modernist Cuisine may well be the only cookbook ever published with a long disquisition on Fourierâ(TM)s law, the equation for calculating heat transfer)."

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_myhrvold/all/1

Not better than human drivers. They're still significantly slower, or running on closed courses, or on pre-mapped city streets with a human behind the wheel.

The technology to make computers navigate the real world and its hazards as well (and as fast) as humans is still years off - and may remain that way.

Indeed. The NSA refuses to answer as to whether it is tracking cell phone locations. NSA Lawyer Questioned Over Cellphone Location Tracking of Americans Senators Ask Spy Chief: Are You Tracking Us Through Our iPhones?

Oh please the US has been doing this for a long time, along with most first-world countries. In the US there is even a handy web interface for the cops to use whenever they please:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/gps-data

I see a big potential for "pirate gene testing"...makes me think about getting into this stuff:

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/08/mf_diylab/all/1

California banned thimerosal from vaccines in 2006. It was the mercury-based preservative frequently cited by anti-vaxers as the cause of autism. Studies of children post-thimerosal have found autism rates continuing to climb.

The problem is most water on the planet is full of salt. You can't use salt-laden "grey water" to grow things.

What year is it?

See also AIWPS.

Basically, at the point where you might consider it on a large scale, it's generally just easier to use fresh or drinking quality recycled water.

Easier is not the issue here, sustainability is. There's no question that if you continually pump more from aquifers than goes in you will have problems.

Small penis, big ego and can't take criticism: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2007/05/jaffe_slams_joy/

Google's advertising revenue is the primary reason they're the last browser vendor not to include support for Do Not Track. Really a shame.

You are the FUD. The post you replied to specifically mentioned an act of which actual cases have been recorded. This was challenged in 2010, despite having been unofficially trimmed back in 2008. You inserted the "vast numbers of foreign visitors" part yourself so you would have something to attack. The articles linked contain 1 confirmed case of this happening, far less than the number of confirmed US seizures, and a suspected number which may equal the number of *confirmed* US seizures.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/laptop-border-searches/

And at no point did anyone imply the same level of operation. We have the same certainty that it is possible now, having confirmed cases on both sides, and the same certainty that caution should be exercised in both countries.

The only reason why no have a "Travel Light to US" article is that it has essentially been covered here. And the news in this case isn't that it happened, it's that business essentially accepts it as a given that you will be spied on. As opposed to coming to America, where it is not yet a given. So no, not the same level, but that wasn't implied. "It has happened so you should plan on it happening" applies both ways.

It also seems that 75% cut is still a lot for copying an mp3 file and drawing up some paperwork. Even if the label also provided the recording studio, etc, it seems like the artist is still getting the short end of the stick.

Except that the cut of sales that the label takes doesn't even include studio time etc! That's all billed to the artist's tab, which must be repaid in full before the artist sees a penny (and then the revenues are split between all band members, plus manager, producers, agents etc). The only reason bands have money to splash on the high life is the label gives them an "advance" - which again is added to their tab.

When labels and the RIAA talk about artists being robbed of the income through file sharing, they're talking BS and they know it. Most artists don't see a penny from music sales - they make money from live performances and merchandise sales, both of which *benefit* from the artist's music being as widely shared as possible.

David Byrne, who has seen both the artist (Talking Heads) and label (Luaka Bop) perspectives of the industry, does an excellent job of telling it how it is in his 2007 Wired article "David Byrne's Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars".

We need to find a good way of protecting the folks who invest in that first copy. If that means patents, I think that's fine.

Let's try avoid reliance on this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_scarcity

Specially designed to inspire shareholder confidence if you're a believer, or to lower his tax bracket if you're a cynic.

Lets make sure Interpol gets the benefit of the doubt, even when it's used to round up those guilty of speech criminalized by theocracies, or activists that anger great powers. After all, Interpol isn't American. Or something.

This is purely media and not real life, but a central plot line in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1318514/) was testing cutting edge Alzheimer's medication without approval, and the consequences (obviously, perhaps overstated, but who knows).

I had a dear family member recently pass who had Alzheimer's and dementia. I'm sorry to hear about your father, and his pain, and you and your families' pain. I understand the frustration of hearing about possible solutions and not seeing them real or come about fast enough.

All I can suggest is, there are definitely risks. Do what you feel your heart tells you is right out of compassion and love, and maybe is what your father would have wanted (or his will/legal documents, if he had them, said). Most of all, remind your dad every day that you love him, and that you will still love him forever, no matter what may come.

Tracking down the exact people who are doing the research is always worthwhile, even if it is hard.

Lastly, I recall an article from Wired - http://www.wired.com/medtech/genetics/magazine/17-02/ff_diygenetics?currentPage=all - I don't know if it helps you at all.

Good luck, ffflala.

The recent Wired article about Khan Academy makes me think there's a bit more to it than that.

Apparently actual classrooms are using it in an "inverted" model, where students watch the lectures at home and then do work in class. That way the students are already prepared to understand the classroom assignments, and if they need help the teacher is there for them.

Would be interesting to see if this model works for every subject and with every lecturer, or if there's something particularly good about Khan's lessons.

Jury sends Doyle packing!

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/interactive-web-patent/

I mean, seriously... should you ever come across such an HDD with classified, secret or even top secret data on it, what are you supposed to do? You can't even send it back, because you will be charged for having had a glimpse at classified information, right? But if you simply reformatted the drive, or destroyed it, you may have nuked important information that may not have been backed up. Pretty hairy stuff.

Finally, whales can't talk, so asking them what they think probably won't result in any useful answers.

Yet. What they say 100 years from now will burn your ears off. Their epic ballads used to make the elves cry, but ever since the rise of the throbbing container ship, they dish more scat than Mozart.

"Mommy, I'm going to get a tattoo!"

"You stay away from licorice pasta (*). You hear me! Have you never heard old Missus Sturm (**) sing that horrible coda? She crooned and crooned for half an hour. It was the worst thing ever (***). "

Every breath you take
Every move you make
Every bond you break
Every suck you take I'll be watching you

"How did it come to this? Calves these days all want to emulate Marimba Moby. Let me tell you, they didn't call your pop the Big Maraka for nothing. Anything to stand apart. Honestly." (****)

(*) From Giant squid

Giant squid and some other large squid species maintain neutral buoyancy in seawater through an ammonium chloride solution which flows throughout their body and is lighter than seawater. This differs from the method of flotation used by fish, which involves a gas-filled swim bladder. The solution tastes somewhat like salmiakki and makes giant squid unattractive for general human consumption.

(**) Sperm Whales May Have Names

(***) From The Giant Squid:

For an hour and a half the monster clung to the whale trying to drown it as the whale's mother watched helplessly. "The little whale could stay down for 10 to 12 minutes, then come up. It would just have enough time to spout - only two or three seconds - and then down again." The squid finally won and the baby whale was never seen again.

(****) From Sperm Whales Dominica

Thirty thousand beaks have been found in a sperm whale stomach indicating they had eaten 15,000 squid as squid have upper and lower mandibles.

The transcript of the case is also available. Basically the judge said nothing but, 'there's no irreparable harm, so there won't be a preliminary injunction. Nothing was found legal or illegal, there will be a full case before anything can be said about that. Although the Judge hinted he expects ReDigi to loose the case, he explicitly stated the sole reason for denying the preliminary injunction was the absence of irreparable harm.

They aren't confused. The RIAA/MPAA aren't trying to stop piracy, they are trying to keep prices high. They are trying to stop the Internet from changing their market. They want to keep their distribution oligarchy, and not compete in market of cheap, long-tail, indie producers. They want to keep $200 million dollar movies and abusive record deals. They want to create the new hit song they way they always have; by paying radio stations to play it over and over.

What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. -- David Byrne 12.18.07

brianerst pointed out:

King's "I Have a Dream" speech has rather famously been the source of numerous copyright lawsuits by the King Estate. See here for example.

The PBS special the OP was speaking of was "Eyes on the Prize", which was out of print for years until the producers got nearly $1 million in grants in order to pay off copyright holders after their original five-year rebroadcast rights had expired.

I would think that most everyone here knows that just because something can be found on YouTube doesn't mean that it's there legally. The vast majority of music on that site violates US copyright law.

Now, this deserves a +5 Informative mod (although it actually got a +5 Insightful one, instead).

The King estate copyright claim (and MLK's original claim) IS abuse of the copyright system. I'm old enough to have watched the "I have a dream" speech live on TV, before a crowd that covered the Mall, and it seems to me that a challenge to the original copyright claim could and should have been mounted right after King made the speech - and I think it would have succeeded, then. The other part of the problem here is the concept of legal precedent, which idiotically holds that, once a court has ruled on an issue, that decision is somehow graven in stone, and, in subsequent trials of approximately-similar cases, the judge must abide by the arguments advanced by the judge who presided over the original case, no matter how fallacious his/her logic might be, and irrespective of actual facts.

For example, take the odious decision in State of Ohio v Anderson (please forgive the horrible PDF scan), where Justice Resnick, writing for the Ohio Supreme Court, retails a laundry list of supposed characteristics unique to pit bulls that includes a staggering number of misrepresentations (e.g. - pit bulls are the only dogs that bite and hold), assertions unbacked by evidence of any kind (e.g.- pit bulls are the only dogs that can climb trees!), and outright fabrications (e.g. - pit bulls bite with a force of 2000 pounds per square inch, a bite force unmatched by any other breed). These canards, in turn, are all based on State of Florida v Peters (a much-better-quality PDF), a case in which the Peters's defense counsel should have been shot for gross incompetence for not challenging the assertion of fairy tales as fact. And the U.S. Supreme Court denied review of Anderson, despite the clearly-unconstitutional assertion by Resnick that any law enforcement officer is capable of determining whether a mixed breed dog is or is not a pit bull, and that anyone who is unsure whether the dog they propose to adopt is a pit bull in the meaning of the law can definitively determine that question by asking any clown with a badge to pass judgement (totally ignoring the excellent possibility that some other cop will reach a different conclusion, and charge you with violating Ohio's requirement that you maintain $100,000 in liabilty insurance for each pit bull you own - insurance that it's impossible to obtain, unless you're a licensed breeder, btw). And this is not a mere theoretical conundrum of which I speak. I'm currently charged with exactly this crime, for owning a bullmastiff mix, even though the Ross County Dog Warden has evaluated her and stated (before four witnesses), "There's no pit in this animal." (I'm also charged with the same "crime" for owning a boxer that my wife and I adopted from the county animal shelter two years ago.)

It's not just copyright law - the legal system itself is broken. And the MAFIAA is no worse than your typical local prosecutor - because, just like the MAFIAA, the prosecutor's favorite exercise is overreaching.

None of which obviates my point that only Congre

"Protecting intellectual property" seems to encircle almost everything people with money don't like.

Used a photo to criticize shitty photoshop job? DMCA'd.

Posted a video endorsing filesharing site? We'll take it down for copyright infringement (and not even lawfully at that)

And so on, and so on.

"We're only chasing pedophiles, terrorists and counterfeiters", sure.

I look more like a young Steve Jobs than a terrorist.

Note that Steve Jobs' father is from Syria, and thus Jobs was likely a terrorist (according to TSA's definition at least).

This drivel was rated Insightful +5? You have got to be kidding me. Kennedy's inaugural address is available on Youtube. So is MLK's "I have a dream" speech.

King's "I Have a Dream" speech has rather famously been the source of numerous copyright lawsuits by the King Estate. See here for example.

The PBS special the OP was speaking of was "Eyes on the Prize", which was out of print for years until the producers got nearly $1 million in grants in order to pay off copyright holders after their original five-year rebroadcast rights had expired.

I would think that most everyone here knows that just because something can be found on YouTube doesn't mean that it's there legally. The vast majority of music on that site violates US copyright law.

ANd they dont need a warrant to place a GPS on your car if they do it while parked out in the open. The only place they cant do it is in your own garage. Your driveway is however fair game.

No, they do need a warrant. However, the recent SCOTUS ruling was a bit more convoluted than I initially understood when I first heard about it -- http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/scotus-gps-ruling/

You apparently can use spider silk for cloth if you really try hard enough. (Warning: NSF arachnophobes.)

Not only can a brain-computer interface decode thought words...it can Tweet them! The Maya were right. This, truly, is the end of the world. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/braintweet/

I saw this article a couple of weeks ago, and wrote a response to it. Here it is again...

My only complaint with this article is the title. This is NOT a failure of science. This is exactly what science is supposed to do. This is a failure of our understanding: scientific research doesn't guarantee absolute answers. It doesn't guarantee that we'll understand any specific thing at the end of the research. It's not a way to make money. It's simply an attempt to show that a given guess is or isn't correct. "Science," in every case mentioned in the article, is doing exactly what it is supposed to: proving an incorrect hypothesis to be incorrect.

I think the critical part there is "[Science is] not a way to make money." The author refers to science as "failing" in industry because the industry can't make money off it. That's not what it's for. It's a nice side effect, granted, but it's not the point. What we call "science" is a set of guidelines for testing guesses. Sometimes those tests show that our guess is probably accurate. Sometimes they show that guess is just plain wrong. In both cases, "science" is doing what it's supposed to do.

Re Its pretty hard to sneak up on someone and plant an emitter "of some sort" on them
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/06/spy-chips-guiding-cia-drone-strikes-locals-say/
The going price was $122 :)

And they even sent dozens of cops to arrest the fat, scared owner of the website

Forgive me if I somehow fail to see this guy as a scared, intimidated victim...

a self-styled âoeDr. Evilâ of file sharing... ...has made a career out of being larger than life, which seems appropriate for a six foot, six inch man... ...said he had hacked hundreds of US companiesâ(TM) PBX systems and was selling the access codes at $200 a pop, bragging that âoeevery PBX is an open door to me.â He also claimed to have developed an encrypted phone that could not be tapped, and to have sold a hundred of them...

In his 2001 interview with the Telegraph, he also claimed to have hacked Citibank and transferred $20 million to Greenpeace...

He also claimed to have hacked NASA and said that he had accessed Pentagon systems to read top-secret information on Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War.

He bought stolen phone card account information from American hackers. After setting up premium toll chat lines in Hong Kong and in the Caribbean, he used a âoewar dialerâ program to call the lines using the stolen card numbersâ"ringing up â61,000 in ill-gained profits.

set up a computer system for the uploading and downloading of pirated PC software, charging people for access.

And on, and on, and on. And all of this is stuff he brags about in interviews.

The guy is not a victim.

I know amazing right? Why would they just stand there and ask "how high?" when Symantec says jump when they should just start jumping, right? We all know how infallible Symantec is after all.

Who said the FBI was behind it? It looks to me like the Wall Street Journal (now under new management).

The US Constitution applies within the US. Around the edges (100 miles) stop and question, anywhere without suspicion is just fine.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/10/aclu-assails-10/
Enjoy that border search exception too. Better make sure you computer or storage device is band new/clean too.