Yea but... they only have to pull it off at 1 theater. And it doesn't have to be NK that does it... some crazy nut job could... and Sony would be on the hook for liability.
If Sony were smart (which they definitely are not) they would have leaked the movie as a torrent themselves, blamed North Korea, and then with the Sword of Demaclese now lying squarely at their feet moved on with their lives. They may have pulled the movie from theaters but it could still get released, and until that threats gone NK will continue with the pain.
...the "mostly by Cubans in exile" is the important part.
As someone who occasionally orders Cuban cigars from the Swiss, I can tell you that they're simply not any better than the same cigar from the same company from their Dominican or Nicaraguan plants....especially since the same seeds grew the tobacco. Cigar Aficionado likes to perpetuate the mystique. They benefit from it.
meh... You seem to be arguing that people of Cuban decent do not have magical cuban pixie dust that makes them taste better. Ok... I guess we can agree.
But that's like saying (since you mentioned the Swiss) that you know a Swiss guy living in North Dakota that makes watches just as good as Swiss watches, so clearly Switzerland ain't all that great at watches... But there's certainly a cultural interest in Switzerland of making fine watches, and a long and storied history of them doing so. Are all Swiss watches perfect? Can no other country or ethnic group produce a good watch? The answer to that question is about as dumb as asking it.
There are many fine Cigars made in Cuba. Those that enjoy smoking fine Cigars will be happy that they have a new and interesting place to buy them from. Would they be as excited if we normalized realizations with North Korea and they could finally get those fine North Korean Cigars? No... and that has nothing to do with "hype" and has everything to do with a real and notable difference in the quality of products coming out of those 2 countries.
[citation needed]. Outside of the 'neat' factor of buying a cuban cigar, there are equally good makers in other countries.
How about the fact that the primary magazine dedicated to cigars has an entire wing of their site dedicated to Cuba? http://www.cigaraficionado.com...
Go check out their reviews...Most of the top reviewed were either made in Cuba, or by Cubans in exile in the US. Clearly they're doing something right.
I doubt the US administration "realized" anything.
Very likely a conglomerate of US companies sees business opportunities and is pulling strings behind the scene.
Pretty much every business in the US has wanted to reopen trade with Cuba since the day after the US Closed it. They've been tugging on those strings for a long time with no luck.
Umm, this is not the methane you simple person know; or think you know. For one thing, temperatures on Titan are somewhat different than that on Earth, so please try again to recompute what you once thought you knew. Seas of frozen methane do exist, take Titan for example.
He's just being pedantic about a phrase in the summary.
The bodies of water appear to be made mostly of methane, and not mostly ethane as previously thought.
A "Body of water" can't be made of methane.
Not that it matters. People like to post stuff like this AC and then mod themselves up... so they get to post AND mod in the same thread. I wish they'd just stop allowing AC posts to get modded, but oh well...
Interesting, but I can't help wonder if this enzyme exists for a reason. I presume these scientists are working hard to determine what evolutionary role it fills (before working on selling it as part of an anti-aging cream)
I hear this a lot... There seems to be a lot of misconception about evolution and the body. We gain and lose traits when they affect our ability to reproduce... and at no other time. So, at some time, this enzyme increased our ability to reproduce in some way. It did not need to increase our chances of survival because, evolution only cares about getting us to reproductive maturity. So, whatever reason that enzyme helped us in the past may be long gone and it's just a vestige of that time. It'll not be bread out of us until it hurts our chances at reproduction and since "Wrinkly skin" isn't going to hurt that until we're in our 40s, well outside of normal reproductive age, there's no reason it would become an evolutionary disadvantage. What I'm saying is, Evolution doesn't care if you get ugly, contract cancer and die in your 50s. If this thing doesn't make you less attractive or hurt your chances to make it into your teens and early 20s, evolution doesn't even notice it.
Certain types of black people get treated very well in Chicago by the police, others like trash. That is not racism, there is another kind of social stratification going on.
suggesting adoption for purpose of making social experiment is silly.
Yes, if they would just behave properly they'd not have a problem. That's what you're saying? Because... that's what you're saying.
Change the above experiment into one where guys pop out from behind dumpsters with guns and test who the cop shoots with those laser tag guns. I don't think either of have any illusions about the result of that test.
Im white and I'll be honest, I dont much care for inner city police either. Somehow I dont have trouble with cops outside the city either.
Could it maybe be that turning everything into a race issue is dumb?
"Everything" isn't a race issue. You're correct. The problem in inner city Chicago however is without a doubt a race issue. If I follow the path I think you're reasoning is taking me, it leads me to it being a poverty issue. But if you look up poverty numbers by race in Chicago, it immediately becomes an race issue again. And if you rich and black in Chicago, and get pulled over by police, it's not like they're going to ask you for your check stub before they unload their sidearm into you.
hmm... not sure what you're saying but I think you're making an improper assumption about the number of children I have. But hey, don't let me stop you from your going on with your typical personal attacks rather than discussing the actual issue.
I've an easier method. Adopt an African American Child. I did and my view on many social issues pretty much changed overnight.
You tell your kids not to go to Chicago because of the crime, I tell mine not to go because of the police. I don't need a VR headset to see that reality.
There's a period of time between when you click "Submit" and when the order goes through. It's like a few minutes or and hour... anyways, until that happens, either end of the transaction can easily cancel it. In fact, until it's shipped I believe you can as well. Once I had an order that got screwed up horribly bad... I got into an argument with the owner in the comments section to the point that he got so mad, he stopped shipment on my order and refunded my money (which was what I wanted anyway) So yea, until the package arrives on your doorstep and you accept it, you can still cancel. But I'd not recommend it after it ships. If you reject it when the UPS man walks up and it gets lost on the way back you're on the hook for the full payment I bet.
Officially, we don't have any pennies; we have One-cent Pieces. They are colloquially known as pennies, named after the British Penny. Sorry, the anal-retentive numismatist in me had to interject.
Wait... you're a real live British person? While we have your attention... please explain Jaffa Cakes to us. They're about the most disgusting things I've ever tasted, and trust me, that's a high bar. Why would you intentionally make something taste stale?!? And orange jelly? With chocolate?
As an engineer who worked with Eastlink a few years back, I can say with 100% certainty that the RCMP monitor every fucking packet that traverses Eastlink's network. I know because I assisted in the installation of the RCMP's "blackbox" that sits on the inside perimeter of Eastlink's boarder routers. Big Brother HAS ALWAYS been watching, folks.
Yes, but you're neglecting to explain why they want/need them.
Prior to IP phones, the feds would get their court order, go directly to the targets residence, and put their recording device on the pedestal outside to record their analog call directly. They didn't even need to contact the phone company.
Then, along came digital. Now the traffic at the pedestal is white noise. They go to the phone company to ask them to record the call... the phone company would look in the documentation for their Softswitch and say "FBI phone tap isn't a checkbox we have..."
So what are the feds to do? Well, they just stick your typical Packet Analyzer on the network (thats what that blackbox is) and then somehow flag the traffic they want to get. I'm not sure how they flag it... I suspect they do something to the targets phone. About 5yrs ago I handled the CALEA requests for a telco and I never saw anything relating to those boxes, so whatever it is they do, it doesn't have anything to do with the phone company.
The one thing I do know is that those boxes (carnivore) cannot be recording all calls. There's just too much traffic for a rack-mount box to be able to gather all of it, or even decode a good portion of it to find interesting bits.
I think that what the telcos are saying here is "Don't make us do anymore of this carnivore stuff... the softswitch stuff is improving and in the near future it'll be just as easy to record as the old analog lines were. Maybe even easier!"
I'm not arguing for or against it... I'm a pretty big privacy advocate... but it's not nearly as black and white as you're making it seem.
As someone that gets pretty much all of my media from peering... they didn't "Quash" anything. They (or someone) used to upload all kinds of fake files to try and disrupt the community a few years back. They even got clever and would intentionally fake seeders so it'd look very popular.
That's why the aggregate sites have a comments and up-vote section. There are usually dozens of versions of any particular movie and you can sort by vote. That effectively killed the attack. They don't really try this anymore because their fake will get down voted almost instantly. You can even preview what you're downloading in most clients.
To be honest, I think they should be happy with the system they have now. It's pretty hard to get something before it hits DVD in a quality that's worth watching. If you want to see what's new and hot, you need to go to the theater. Getting a DVD or better quality version of a film is difficult enough that I bet most people just buy it. Their real problem is their continued fight against modernizing with some sort of streaming service. For example, imagine if you had a "Pandora" television station... TV shows were sent to you, you upvoted/downvoted them, etc... I'd pay for that. Keeping track of thousands of files for my kids TV shows is a PITA.
I think the heart of the issue is That she signed a release for one use but the film was completely different that what she was told. To me it would seem that any release she signed would be invalid and she would have the same rights as someone who did not sign a release. Any film maker would know that everyone in the film must sign a release.
...and the net affect of your assertion would be that anyone... in any video... could demand take down of any video they were in and claim there was no release. Then Google would have to track down the person that posted it, and then the person that recorded it, ask for their "releases" and judge if it covered what was in the video?
Rulings like this are what will kill the internet. If they rule in the way you suggest, no videos will be on the internet at all. No-one will want the hassle.
No, the taxi drivers are arguing they can be the only ones to drive people to their destination and charge them for the ride.
Which is still wrong. This right here is a perfect example of what's wrong with government regulation. If you regulate an industry, that industry will, understandably, use that regulation to their advantage. They get the government to institute regulation that prevents anyone from competing and the industry becomes a closed system with no outside competition and new ideas die before they even have a chance. There's arguably benefits to this as well, you know exactly what to expect when you get in a cab... there are never any surprises.
But in reality, the regulation is there to prevent the unsuspecting of getting ripped off. In the case of Uber and services like it, the people using that service know exactly what they are getting into. Grandma isn't going to fire up uber and get ripped off. If she wants to get from point A to point B she's going to do it the only fashion way and not worry about it. If some 20-something wants to try it out and accept the risk that the driver might suck and not have insurance, he can do that. It's not like the app puts an artificial Taxi sign on your car.
If the Taxi drivers think the Uber drivers have too much of an unfair advantage, I recommend that they to take off their Taxi signs and sign up for an account.
Right... Digital is superior in every measurable way to vinyl. The "lossyness" of vinyl does, however, have the effect of putting a filter on the audio output. It rolls off the highs and lows, leaving you with a warm, low-mids heavy mix. Some people like that sound... great! But you can get that same effect with an EQ and still enjoy all of the benefits of digital.
That said... Digital can suck if the wrong person rips the song or over compresses it. Also, Vinyl is fun. I have a small vinyl collection myself. There's no way I'd listen to my old Eddy Murphy, Richard Pryor, or Steve Martin recordings. Led Zeppelin is fun to. But that has nothing to do with sound quality. Anyone that suggests otherwise has no idea what they're talking about.
How is he throwing them under the bus? This isn't something they contest. They have already told the court they did this, because they were contractually obliged to do so by the record labels. All he's doing is supporting their version of events.
I'm sure they fought tooth and nail to try and give their competition a fair chance to compete. Those evil record companies, forcing Apple to be anti-competitive when, before this, Apple was a model for fair business practices right? lol
Green peace, Peta, and other "Groups" like them stopped being about the "issues" a long time ago and have since turned into ego trips for its members. It seems like a game for them to pull off the biggest stunt. Do they seriously think world leaders are "unaware" of renewable energy? Seriously?
That message wasn't for world leaders, it was a dick measuring contest with other activists.
I'm just a lowly engineer, but for me "dark matter" has never passed the sniff test. It's a kludge factor thrown in to make equations balance. And a kludge factor so huge that "dark matter" is supposed to outweigh all of the observable matter in the entire universe. The only reason this doesn't sound ridiculous is because we've been hearing it for so long.
If you need a kludge factor that big, it is far more likely that the equations are wrong.
There are other possible explanations. For example, if the speed of light were a function of space and time, then the situation changes completely. All observations of the distant/ancient universe are suddenly thrown into question; the interactions within that distant/ancient universe were also different from what we see locally, today. This particular theory (variability of C) is one that crops up periodically, most recently in 2013. It is difficult to prove, but really, it's no more unlikely than the existence of huge amounts of dark matter that stubbornly refuse to interact with the known universe.
Yes, but Variable c would open up many, far far more dire problems than Dark Matter.
Scientists aren't suggesting that dark matter is definitely a particle. That's one guess, but it could very well be some artifact of some underlying physical reality that we just don't understand yet just like you suggest. But the speed of light isn't variable.
Slashdot Mirror
Yea but... they only have to pull it off at 1 theater.
And it doesn't have to be NK that does it... some crazy nut job could... and Sony would be on the hook for liability.
If Sony were smart (which they definitely are not) they would have leaked the movie as a torrent themselves, blamed North Korea, and then with the Sword of Demaclese now lying squarely at their feet moved on with their lives. They may have pulled the movie from theaters but it could still get released, and until that threats gone NK will continue with the pain.
Neckbeards having sex with drunken Muslim fundamentalists?
I think you might be on to something...
Nah... When getting concerned about control, the following usually holds true:
Rules that inform are good.
Rules that control are bad.
This rule informs. It's good. :-)
This has been a public service announcement.
...the "mostly by Cubans in exile" is the important part.
As someone who occasionally orders Cuban cigars from the Swiss, I can tell you that they're simply not any better than the same cigar from the same company from their Dominican or Nicaraguan plants. ...especially since the same seeds grew the tobacco. Cigar Aficionado likes to perpetuate the mystique. They benefit from it.
meh... You seem to be arguing that people of Cuban decent do not have magical cuban pixie dust that makes them taste better. Ok... I guess we can agree.
But that's like saying (since you mentioned the Swiss) that you know a Swiss guy living in North Dakota that makes watches just as good as Swiss watches, so clearly Switzerland ain't all that great at watches... But there's certainly a cultural interest in Switzerland of making fine watches, and a long and storied history of them doing so. Are all Swiss watches perfect? Can no other country or ethnic group produce a good watch? The answer to that question is about as dumb as asking it.
There are many fine Cigars made in Cuba. Those that enjoy smoking fine Cigars will be happy that they have a new and interesting place to buy them from. Would they be as excited if we normalized realizations with North Korea and they could finally get those fine North Korean Cigars? No... and that has nothing to do with "hype" and has everything to do with a real and notable difference in the quality of products coming out of those 2 countries.
> Cuban cigars are desired because they're good.
[citation needed]. Outside of the 'neat' factor of buying a cuban cigar, there are equally good makers in other countries.
How about the fact that the primary magazine dedicated to cigars has an entire wing of their site dedicated to Cuba?
http://www.cigaraficionado.com...
Go check out their reviews...Most of the top reviewed were either made in Cuba, or by Cubans in exile in the US. Clearly they're doing something right.
I doubt the US administration "realized" anything.
Very likely a conglomerate of US companies sees business opportunities and is pulling strings behind the scene.
Pretty much every business in the US has wanted to reopen trade with Cuba since the day after the US Closed it. They've been tugging on those strings for a long time with no luck.
No one's ever tried to issue a takedown notice like that...
Really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
They haven't?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Tried this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
Because, the last I checked...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
It was happening
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
all the time...
Umm, this is not the methane you simple person know; or think you know. For one thing, temperatures on Titan are somewhat different than that on Earth, so please try again to recompute what you once thought you knew. Seas of frozen methane do exist, take Titan for example.
He's just being pedantic about a phrase in the summary.
The bodies of water appear to be made mostly of methane, and not mostly ethane as previously thought.
A "Body of water" can't be made of methane.
Not that it matters. People like to post stuff like this AC and then mod themselves up... so they get to post AND mod in the same thread. I wish they'd just stop allowing AC posts to get modded, but oh well...
Interesting, but I can't help wonder if this enzyme exists for a reason. I presume these scientists are working hard to determine what evolutionary role it fills (before working on selling it as part of an anti-aging cream)
I hear this a lot... There seems to be a lot of misconception about evolution and the body. We gain and lose traits when they affect our ability to reproduce... and at no other time. So, at some time, this enzyme increased our ability to reproduce in some way. It did not need to increase our chances of survival because, evolution only cares about getting us to reproductive maturity. So, whatever reason that enzyme helped us in the past may be long gone and it's just a vestige of that time. It'll not be bread out of us until it hurts our chances at reproduction and since "Wrinkly skin" isn't going to hurt that until we're in our 40s, well outside of normal reproductive age, there's no reason it would become an evolutionary disadvantage. What I'm saying is, Evolution doesn't care if you get ugly, contract cancer and die in your 50s. If this thing doesn't make you less attractive or hurt your chances to make it into your teens and early 20s, evolution doesn't even notice it.
Certain types of black people get treated very well in Chicago by the police, others like trash. That is not racism, there is another kind of social stratification going on.
suggesting adoption for purpose of making social experiment is silly.
Yes, if they would just behave properly they'd not have a problem. That's what you're saying? Because... that's what you're saying.
Change the above experiment into one where guys pop out from behind dumpsters with guns and test who the cop shoots with those laser tag guns. I don't think either of have any illusions about the result of that test.
Im white and I'll be honest, I dont much care for inner city police either. Somehow I dont have trouble with cops outside the city either.
Could it maybe be that turning everything into a race issue is dumb?
"Everything" isn't a race issue. You're correct. The problem in inner city Chicago however is without a doubt a race issue. If I follow the path I think you're reasoning is taking me, it leads me to it being a poverty issue. But if you look up poverty numbers by race in Chicago, it immediately becomes an race issue again. And if you rich and black in Chicago, and get pulled over by police, it's not like they're going to ask you for your check stub before they unload their sidearm into you.
hmm... not sure what you're saying but I think you're making an improper assumption about the number of children I have. But hey, don't let me stop you from your going on with your typical personal attacks rather than discussing the actual issue.
I've an easier method. Adopt an African American Child. I did and my view on many social issues pretty much changed overnight.
You tell your kids not to go to Chicago because of the crime, I tell mine not to go because of the police. I don't need a VR headset to see that reality.
If he's an undocumented immigrant, why don't they just deport him instead of going through all of this?
They get paid to arrest one... and have to pay to deport the other.
Jeez, I know we've all got super-fast broadband and the like, but is there really any good reason to have a 31 megapixel background image?
Remember, every byte transmitted hastens the heat death of the universe!
Actually, that image is the actual add from the magazine!
Thanks for pointing that out... the schematic is hilarious!
There's a period of time between when you click "Submit" and when the order goes through. It's like a few minutes or and hour... anyways, until that happens, either end of the transaction can easily cancel it. In fact, until it's shipped I believe you can as well. Once I had an order that got screwed up horribly bad... I got into an argument with the owner in the comments section to the point that he got so mad, he stopped shipment on my order and refunded my money (which was what I wanted anyway) So yea, until the package arrives on your doorstep and you accept it, you can still cancel. But I'd not recommend it after it ships. If you reject it when the UPS man walks up and it gets lost on the way back you're on the hook for the full payment I bet.
Officially, we don't have any pennies; we have One-cent Pieces. They are colloquially known as pennies, named after the British Penny. Sorry, the anal-retentive numismatist in me had to interject.
Wait... you're a real live British person? While we have your attention... please explain Jaffa Cakes to us. They're about the most disgusting things I've ever tasted, and trust me, that's a high bar. Why would you intentionally make something taste stale?!? And orange jelly? With chocolate?
As an engineer who worked with Eastlink a few years back, I can say with 100% certainty that the RCMP monitor every fucking packet that traverses Eastlink's network. I know because I assisted in the installation of the RCMP's "blackbox" that sits on the inside perimeter of Eastlink's boarder routers. Big Brother HAS ALWAYS been watching, folks.
Yes, but you're neglecting to explain why they want/need them.
Prior to IP phones, the feds would get their court order, go directly to the targets residence, and put their recording device on the pedestal outside to record their analog call directly. They didn't even need to contact the phone company.
Then, along came digital. Now the traffic at the pedestal is white noise. They go to the phone company to ask them to record the call... the phone company would look in the documentation for their Softswitch and say "FBI phone tap isn't a checkbox we have..."
So what are the feds to do? Well, they just stick your typical Packet Analyzer on the network (thats what that blackbox is) and then somehow flag the traffic they want to get. I'm not sure how they flag it... I suspect they do something to the targets phone. About 5yrs ago I handled the CALEA requests for a telco and I never saw anything relating to those boxes, so whatever it is they do, it doesn't have anything to do with the phone company.
The one thing I do know is that those boxes (carnivore) cannot be recording all calls. There's just too much traffic for a rack-mount box to be able to gather all of it, or even decode a good portion of it to find interesting bits.
I think that what the telcos are saying here is "Don't make us do anymore of this carnivore stuff... the softswitch stuff is improving and in the near future it'll be just as easy to record as the old analog lines were. Maybe even easier!"
I'm not arguing for or against it... I'm a pretty big privacy advocate... but it's not nearly as black and white as you're making it seem.
As someone that gets pretty much all of my media from peering... they didn't "Quash" anything. They (or someone) used to upload all kinds of fake files to try and disrupt the community a few years back. They even got clever and would intentionally fake seeders so it'd look very popular.
That's why the aggregate sites have a comments and up-vote section. There are usually dozens of versions of any particular movie and you can sort by vote. That effectively killed the attack. They don't really try this anymore because their fake will get down voted almost instantly. You can even preview what you're downloading in most clients.
To be honest, I think they should be happy with the system they have now. It's pretty hard to get something before it hits DVD in a quality that's worth watching. If you want to see what's new and hot, you need to go to the theater. Getting a DVD or better quality version of a film is difficult enough that I bet most people just buy it. Their real problem is their continued fight against modernizing with some sort of streaming service. For example, imagine if you had a "Pandora" television station... TV shows were sent to you, you upvoted/downvoted them, etc... I'd pay for that. Keeping track of thousands of files for my kids TV shows is a PITA.
I think the heart of the issue is That she signed a release for one use but the film was completely different that what she was told. To me it would seem that any release she signed would be invalid and she would have the same rights as someone who did not sign a release. Any film maker would know that everyone in the film must sign a release.
...and the net affect of your assertion would be that anyone... in any video... could demand take down of any video they were in and claim there was no release. Then Google would have to track down the person that posted it, and then the person that recorded it, ask for their "releases" and judge if it covered what was in the video?
Rulings like this are what will kill the internet. If they rule in the way you suggest, no videos will be on the internet at all. No-one will want the hassle.
No, the taxi drivers are arguing they can be the only ones to drive people to their destination and charge them for the ride.
Which is still wrong.
This right here is a perfect example of what's wrong with government regulation. If you regulate an industry, that industry will, understandably, use that regulation to their advantage. They get the government to institute regulation that prevents anyone from competing and the industry becomes a closed system with no outside competition and new ideas die before they even have a chance. There's arguably benefits to this as well, you know exactly what to expect when you get in a cab... there are never any surprises.
But in reality, the regulation is there to prevent the unsuspecting of getting ripped off. In the case of Uber and services like it, the people using that service know exactly what they are getting into. Grandma isn't going to fire up uber and get ripped off. If she wants to get from point A to point B she's going to do it the only fashion way and not worry about it. If some 20-something wants to try it out and accept the risk that the driver might suck and not have insurance, he can do that. It's not like the app puts an artificial Taxi sign on your car.
If the Taxi drivers think the Uber drivers have too much of an unfair advantage, I recommend that they to take off their Taxi signs and sign up for an account.
Right... Digital is superior in every measurable way to vinyl.
The "lossyness" of vinyl does, however, have the effect of putting a filter on the audio output. It rolls off the highs and lows, leaving you with a warm, low-mids heavy mix. Some people like that sound... great! But you can get that same effect with an EQ and still enjoy all of the benefits of digital.
That said... Digital can suck if the wrong person rips the song or over compresses it. Also, Vinyl is fun. I have a small vinyl collection myself. There's no way I'd listen to my old Eddy Murphy, Richard Pryor, or Steve Martin recordings. Led Zeppelin is fun to. But that has nothing to do with sound quality. Anyone that suggests otherwise has no idea what they're talking about.
How is he throwing them under the bus? This isn't something they contest. They have already told the court they did this, because they were contractually obliged to do so by the record labels. All he's doing is supporting their version of events.
I'm sure they fought tooth and nail to try and give their competition a fair chance to compete. Those evil record companies, forcing Apple to be anti-competitive when, before this, Apple was a model for fair business practices right? lol
Green peace, Peta, and other "Groups" like them stopped being about the "issues" a long time ago and have since turned into ego trips for its members. It seems like a game for them to pull off the biggest stunt. Do they seriously think world leaders are "unaware" of renewable energy? Seriously?
That message wasn't for world leaders, it was a dick measuring contest with other activists.
I'm just a lowly engineer, but for me "dark matter" has never passed the sniff test. It's a kludge factor thrown in to make equations balance. And a kludge factor so huge that "dark matter" is supposed to outweigh all of the observable matter in the entire universe. The only reason this doesn't sound ridiculous is because we've been hearing it for so long.
If you need a kludge factor that big, it is far more likely that the equations are wrong.
There are other possible explanations. For example, if the speed of light were a function of space and time, then the situation changes completely. All observations of the distant/ancient universe are suddenly thrown into question; the interactions within that distant/ancient universe were also different from what we see locally, today. This particular theory (variability of C) is one that crops up periodically, most recently in 2013. It is difficult to prove, but really, it's no more unlikely than the existence of huge amounts of dark matter that stubbornly refuse to interact with the known universe.
Yes, but Variable c would open up many, far far more dire problems than Dark Matter.
Scientists aren't suggesting that dark matter is definitely a particle. That's one guess, but it could very well be some artifact of some underlying physical reality that we just don't understand yet just like you suggest. But the speed of light isn't variable.