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User: GofG

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  1. Re:So, that's about... on In Australia, Apple Fined $2.5 Million For '4G' Advertising Claims · · Score: 1

    As stated above, apple makes 2.8mil per hour. The fine was for less than that. This made no dent.

  2. Re:Obligatory question on South Korea Surrenders To Creationist Demands On Evolution Textbooks · · Score: 1

    This is slightly misleading.

    Here is how it actually works:

    You have Allele A, which has a comparitive 3% fitness advantage (organisms with A have 1.03x more kids), meaning that it only takes ~768 generations in a population of 1 million (average human population, excluding the last 5,000 years) for A to become reliably present in the community.

    At this point, Allele B, which depends on Allele A and has a comparitive 3% fitness advantage on its own, can start to spread amongst the population. After another 768 generations, it is a reliably present dependency.

    After this, a modified version of A, which we will call A*, comes about, which is dependent on B and backwards-compatible with A, so B still works with the new A*, and A* has some comparitive fitness advantage so it spreads too.

    Along comes C, dependant on B and A*, and then along comes B*, dependant on C and A*, and then along comes D, dependant on A* and B* and C... etc

    at the end, you get a crazy fucked up archlinux-style dependency hell where if you remove one thing everything breaks, but this absolutely does not mean that the system could not have evolved incrementally. To say so is retarded.

  3. Re:not sure on Windows 8: More EULA, Fewer Rights. · · Score: 1

    This is nonsense (in North Carolina, anyway); I recently took someone to small claims court over $240. The judge ruled in my favor, and the other party had to pay my legal fees, court fees, and a sum of money towards my lost wages (though not a complete refund).

  4. Re:Thanks for reminding me... on US ISPs Delay Rollout of "Six Strikes" Copyright Enforcement Framework · · Score: 1

    Whoosh :)

  5. Re:Free speech? on Pakistan Blocks Twitter Over 'Blasphemous' Images · · Score: 1

    You don't think David Irving has had to worry about credible death threats from Israeli extremists?

    I didn't say we couldn't be disgusted at retaliation of the violent nature; I said we couldn't be disgusted with cartoons aimed to show western hypocrisy. if we censor holocaust denial and not Muhammad, then the only difference between us and Iran is what is culturally offensive, not the level of censorship, which is equal.

  6. Free speech? on Pakistan Blocks Twitter Over 'Blasphemous' Images · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Before we get all high and mighty about stupid a-rabs getting upset over pictures of muhammed, lets remember that holocaust denial is illegal pretty much everywhere in eastern europe and is strongly censored everywhere else in the modern world. This is important because even though holocaust denialism's arguments have been thoroughly refuted on every front, they still aren't allowed to make them. This is a very strange policy and likely leads to more suspicion in this day and age, with censorship of an idea almost automatically giving weight to that idea.

    So when we have mass huge contests for drawing pictures of muhammed, demonstrating our right to free speech with such a dividing, needless, harmful exercise, alienating an entire region of the earth, just remember: you aren't allowed to be disgusted when the islamic world responds with an International Holocaust Cartoon Competition.

  7. Re:A high schooler? on Judge to Oracle: A High Schooler Could Write rangeCheck · · Score: 2

    Never hire?

    Oracle's lawyer is David Boies, who is widely reputed to be the best lawyer around today. He did Microsoft vs United States, he did Justice Department vs IBM, he did Bush vs Gore (!!!!!!!!!!!!).

  8. Re:Hypocracy on Growth of Pseudoscience Harming Australian Universities · · Score: 2

    We owe way more to Hippocrates than we do to Ancient China, and Hippocrates believed that all illness was caused by an imbalance of the four biles, which is absolutely ludicrous and shares absolutely no notions with reality.

    Everything today owes everything to the past. To say that the past is in any way better or more important than the present, however, is hugely ridiculous.

  9. Re:This company scares me more and more on Schmidt: Google Once Considered Issuing Currency · · Score: 2

    In order to live in the United States, you must pay the United States Government a tax. This tax must be in the form of United States Dollars. You can always use USD to pay your taxes. The government is never going to accept anything other than USD, and so there is an anchoring point for USD where there is none for, say, bitcoins. That is what makes USD legitimate; the fact that you can *always guaranteed* use it to pay your taxes.

  10. Re:Free2play in games... on Why Freemium Doesn't Work · · Score: 1

    I'm not saying this isn't a few, I'm just saying that it's a career opportunity you might not have thought of if you didn't know about it, and it's related to open source. Large companies paying people to write good code for the open source things that they want to use. That's how linux gets developed nowadays.

  11. Re:Free2play in games... on Why Freemium Doesn't Work · · Score: 1

    Only a few people make a living off of open source?

    A fortune 500 company I am familiar with, NetApp, has over 300 employees on the payroll whose job is to contribute *good* code to the open source projects which NetApp uses. I would assume many many companies do the same thing.

  12. Re:pretty sure congress is supposed to make laws on Why Politicians Should Never Make Laws About Technology · · Score: 1

    The useful part of this idea (making all drugs OTC) is that the consequences are negative enough for natural selection to take effect.

    That is, people who go to their drug store and buy $100 worth of methylenedioxypyrovalene are going to *die* and will not reproduce.

    So, unlike most other 'remove-the-warning-labels' arguments which will simply inconvenience everyone because there are no REAL negative consequences in today's society, people will become more intelligent.

    Assuming the trait 'researches drugs before taking them' has a 10% advantage over the control 'does not research drugs before taking them' trait, it will only take around 380 generations before all humans research their drugs. And because this advantage would be hardcoded into our genetic material as opposed to relying on the memory of society, it would be a true improvement.

    380 generations is only like 7600 years! We should get started.

  13. Re:He misses one HUGE assumption on Limits On Growth of Energy Use and Economies · · Score: 1

    In medieval times, conquerors used to go around and lay siege to towns. it would take a long time. they would usually salt the fields of the city.

    scientists in medieval times (usually advisers to advisers to kings or something) had uncovered a marvelous fact: if conquerors continued to do this at the rate which they had been, the entire earth would be salted within a hundred years.

  14. Re:The sad thing is... on Emacs Has Been Violating the GPL Since 2009 · · Score: 2

    Here is the difference:

    The GPL implies free-as-in-beer, which is a major point. If there were a story about a copyright violator who downloaded Inception.720p.xvid.GROUPNAME from thepiratebay, burned lots of copies of it to DVD, and then sold each copy on the street, I have no doubt every person on slashdot would see this as a morally reprehensible act (perhaps some would say that "turnabout is fair play" but even these people see it as an ethical wrong.)

    Copyright is supposed to keep *that* from happening. Making a profit off of someone else's creativity without permission. That is what most GPL violations are.

  15. Re:we could take back control... on Court Approves TSA Body Scans, But Calls For Public Comment · · Score: 1

    I'd just like to point out, in support of the argument against back-scatter Xrays, the dosage of radiation from them for a single scan on a human is around 0.009 mrems. While this is insignificant and will result in roughly 4 cases of cancer per million people, the number of people who will develop cancer from these scans per year outweighs the number of people who were killed in US-centric terrorist attacks in the last decade, including 9/11.

  16. Re:Huh? on IETF Mulls Working Group For IPv6 Home Networking · · Score: 2, Funny

    Readers be aware, please, that the parent has a 4-digit UID and if Appeal to Authority were not fallacious, this user's word would be fact.

  17. Re:Single user system on PlanetLab Creates a More Advanced Sudo · · Score: 1

    Yes. Clyde does exactly what yaourt does, except much faster and better. There are also many other options, but Clyde is the best.

  18. Re:Location Tracking a Good Thing on Google Sued For Tracking Users' Locations · · Score: 1

    I thought it was because he had a PS3, and his address, credit card, etc were hacked with the other millions. The hackers saw an entry for "osama bin laden" in their brand new database and forwarded it to the gov't for amnesty.

  19. Re:good on Google Sued For Tracking Users' Locations · · Score: 1

    It makes sense for the cell phone companies to be able to track you. Google, however, should not.

  20. Re:Shitty Complaint on Research Credibility In the Video Game Violence Debate · · Score: 1

    Whoosh!

  21. Re:No. on Is Science Just a Matter of Faith? · · Score: 1

    As a post script:

    I would say that most scientists would be willing to accept that they might be wrong, even if you just casually asked them in conversation, rather than forcing death as the alternative.

  22. Re:No. on Is Science Just a Matter of Faith? · · Score: 1

    I would say that having people be willing to die for their beliefs rather than accept that they are wrong is a *bad* quality, rather than a *good* quality, of a framework for understanding reality.

    The ability to revise your beliefs based on new evidence is *exactly* what separates the "culture" of science from the "culture" of religion, even if as you claim they are both founded on faith.

  23. Re:Suspension? Yes. Expulsion? No. on Students Suspended, Expelled Over Facebook Posts · · Score: 1

    The kid who apologized and realized the gravity of a false rape accusation was only suspended. The kid who refused to admit they were wrong was expelled. Seems simple.

    The kid who refused to admit they were wrong was the kid who accused his teacher of being "bipolar".

    The kids who threw the words "pedophile" and "rapist" around were obviously wrong. This third child, however... the label "bipolar" is much more complicated than the label "pedophile" or the label "racist". Who is to say that they're wrong? It would require a lot more investigation first.

    What if a couple years down the road, the teacher gets a psych evaluation for whatever reason and discovers he is bipolar? Is it still libel? Is it still a false accusation?

  24. Already a feature? on Firefox 5 To Integrate Tab Web Apps · · Score: 1

    I am running FF4b10 right now, and as far as I can tell, "App tabs" have been a feature since the onset of FF4.

    See screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/ZkZVF.png

  25. Re:Human video projectors on BitTorrent and Khan Academy To Distribute Education · · Score: 1

    Actually, in this instance, it's an adjective modifying "teachers".