Before this discovery, they used to inject rabbits with the substance being tested, and measured if the rabbits got a fever. It was obviously not a great way to do things. Wasn't very quantifiable or sensitive. Source.
Another bit of trivia: one of the other major commercial uses of horseshoe crabs is cutting them up for bait. Works well for that, but you obviously use up the crabs quickly. So we can inconvenience them for a life-saving medical wonder, or we can kill them for a few pounds of fish to eat. Naturally, using them as bait has not been outlawed.
One last bit of trivia: this isn't really news. I mean, I obviously find it cool, but seriously, 1960 was the discovery. Beta isn't bad enough, now they're altering the content too?
What's the problem. If they trick you into making a google + account, and you never use it, it's not as if they get additional personal information from you that they don't already have. You pay nothing for it. Can people add you as... circles or whatever and tag you in photos without your approval? If so that seems like a problem independent of making you sign up for a + account.
The youtube real name controversy I can at least understand on some level. I can't sympathize too much since I suspect most people getting upset about that are just mad because their names might be attached to stupid and/or racist stuff they post there.
I'd suggest reading the summary and realizing that 1. The censor is Ubisoft and 2.Ubisoft is not a location or government. Although, if you weren't able to understand that from the short summary, I'm probably just talking to myself here.
In theory, it should be more efficient to use existing infrastructure and buildings when possible, rather than building new ones. I realize this is rarely true in terms of direct costs, hence the motivation.
These are some stupid corporations. Start selling the dirt in the middle east. Best case scenario: you'll make bank from selling it to stupid terrorists who think it will be useful for making dirty bombs (and it will be, for certain definitions of "dirty"). Worst case scenario, the government will decide maybe they SHOULD clean it up.
Honestly, why bother with even that. Manning, Assange, Snowden... the character assassinations have been redundant with national attention span. Someone exposes some wrongdoing you did? Instead of shooting them or saying mean things about them, just wait. Wait... wait... aaand everyone has forgotten what they said on their own.
I feel like the character assassinations, legal attempts, and perhaps actual murder attempts are absurd symptoms of the people at the NSA et al genuinely thinking of themselves as the good guys and everyone who isn't with them as bad guys. The spooks seem to be drinking their own koolaid. I'm not sure if that's more terrifying than an efficient, cold-blooded, impassionate government conspiracy or not.
It's an interesting thought, but I'm not sure anyone can predict the future. I was sure I would be driving a flying car by now on my way to a building-sized computer. I'll decide what choices I'm going to make in the future, IN the future. It's not like we can do anything about cybernetic immortality or what have you besides wait for it anyway.
TSA's screening gates are far from the only things done to increase security. If you sell the public on the idea that terrorists are out to kill them and that massive spending to your friends is the only way to keep them safe, then you'd better actually do some things to discourage terrorist attacks.
I'd guess that the biggest change was that we hunted the terrorists. I don't want to know how many billions we spend per al-qaeda member killed, but even with such a poor exchange rate, we've spent an insane amount of money, we're going to get a good number fewer terrorists.
That's maybe a bit too optimistic, the more pessimistic reason would be that with all the soldiers we've put overseas, there are more targets for them a lot closer to home, and that keeps them busy. Keep in mind that the vast majority of islamic terrorism is directed at other muslims, they're not all hell-bent on attacking us over here.
Either way, the cost is way bigger than we should have paid, but it has been paid for the moment.
I suspect they're more concerned with backlash. I mean, those long lines AREN'T filled with people who are glad TSA is doing their thing. I don't know what would make them think we've suddenly grown spines after all this time and are going to demand the TSA be abolished. We've swallowed the bullshit about it being essential for security for many times longer than I would think would be needed to make it seem like normal and acceptable to most people. But maybe TSA is privy to data on how frustrated people are by their bullshit, and is worried some congressman will start saying it needs to be cut to save on taxes. There are grumblings evidently about shrinking the military, that's something I didn't expect to hear anytime soon.
Sounds to me like the bad guys are the people deciding to outsource your job, not the people getting ripped off here. Not even the people ripping them off, though they are bad too.
It sounds like you're saying "I have problems too, so why should I care about someone else's problems?" Which is fair, no one is asking you to donate money to help H1V1 scam victims, but "boo fucking hoo" is pointless, and misdirected.
Different forms of communication. You wouldn't say "I'm going to feed my Felis Cattus some Gallus Gallus for dinner." The Linnaeus system is already too specialized to fill in those mad libs blanks, you just use the common names for organisms you deal with regularly. This is for when the Linnaeus system isn't specialized enough. Say you discover through DNA sequencing that your sample of mud from the bottom of the ocean has ten new species of microbes in it. You're probably not going to come up with ten latin names that are particularly memorable. Putting some information in from their genome makes sense.
Sure, we're not the customers, but we are the product and google still has to worry about losing us. The spam filter is good enough for me on gmail, but with so many people on gmail, I'd wager spammers are focusing all their efforts on getting by it. If spam starts seeping in, it won't be too long before the users leave. Having another way to get users to identify which mail is spam could help google with the arms race and keeping us there, with our information, and keeping that ad price high.
Is there a paid e-mail service that filters out spam better? I'm aware I could set up my own e-mail server, but I'm also aware that's not something I'm capable of.
The article was written like a really subtle Onion article. It talks about how google went to surprising lengths to identify the problem and fix it, then has some asshole criticizing google for sending wifi balloons to Africa rather than giving it away for free in kansas city.
Fun fact: Kansas City public schools lost their accreditation in 2012 and haven't regained it. The entire school district. The public schools are too shitty to meet even Missouri's standards. It's not the first time either. I'm not sure what they've done to fix the schools, but since the upper and middle classes in KCMO send their kids to private schools, I can't imagine it was anything like increasing taxes. And given teacher union power, I can't imagine it was anything like firing bad teachers. But no, lets talk about how Google is increasing social stratification. Not anything that Kansas City is intentionally doing and has been doing for decades to keep the have nots separated from the haves.
I mean I see the appeal, sarcasm aside. Google is a big international company, has that motto of "don't be evil" and it's fun to act like they're hypocrites. Blaming the residents is just depressing as hell.
Man, that wasn't at all what RGreen was suggesting. Also, name one time it's honestly been attempted. Just once. WRONG! Whatever you're thinking, that was some power hungry selfish people who thought they might be able to use that as an excuse to wrest power away from other power hungry selfish people. Had nothing to do with serving the people.
You might argue that's why it can never work. That's probably true. Good thing, again, that RGreen was not suggesting we do that.
But think of how awkward it would be when the N runs into S or A at the spy conventions. They'd reminisce about the old times of spying on millions of Americans. They'd probably laugh about some guy on deviantart drawing naked women and crying while masturbating. Then N would be like "So, you guys want to get out of here" and the A would be like "N, look, we can't. S and I have a good thing going, you're just too crazy for us, lets just be friends," and N would be like "Sure yeah, no you're right, it's cool." But it won't be cool. N will finish his drink and then leave, all three of them will feel bad. A and S will go home and start getting intimate, but S won't be able to get it up, thinking about how bad N must feel.
Judging from the summary and wikipedia article, it sounds a lot like text messaging. Not a social media facebook thing. Facebook has it's own chat, and was trying to get into SMS like functions, presumably hoping that people would leave facebook open on their phones at all time and use it for everything, but that doesn't seem to have gone anywhere.
I think it's probably an honest attempt. I guess they might be thinking that google plus or someone else might successfully integrate text messaging and then topple them, but that sounds pretty far-fetched to me at least.
Slashdot Mirror
Before this discovery, they used to inject rabbits with the substance being tested, and measured if the rabbits got a fever. It was obviously not a great way to do things. Wasn't very quantifiable or sensitive. Source.
Another bit of trivia: one of the other major commercial uses of horseshoe crabs is cutting them up for bait. Works well for that, but you obviously use up the crabs quickly. So we can inconvenience them for a life-saving medical wonder, or we can kill them for a few pounds of fish to eat. Naturally, using them as bait has not been outlawed.
One last bit of trivia: this isn't really news. I mean, I obviously find it cool, but seriously, 1960 was the discovery. Beta isn't bad enough, now they're altering the content too?
What's the problem. If they trick you into making a google + account, and you never use it, it's not as if they get additional personal information from you that they don't already have. You pay nothing for it. Can people add you as... circles or whatever and tag you in photos without your approval? If so that seems like a problem independent of making you sign up for a + account.
The youtube real name controversy I can at least understand on some level. I can't sympathize too much since I suspect most people getting upset about that are just mad because their names might be attached to stupid and/or racist stuff they post there.
I'd suggest reading the summary and realizing that 1. The censor is Ubisoft and 2.Ubisoft is not a location or government. Although, if you weren't able to understand that from the short summary, I'm probably just talking to myself here.
Not only that, but when corporations and their employees DO move into urban areas, they get shit for that too.
There's no pleasing everyone.
In theory, it should be more efficient to use existing infrastructure and buildings when possible, rather than building new ones. I realize this is rarely true in terms of direct costs, hence the motivation.
These are some stupid corporations. Start selling the dirt in the middle east. Best case scenario: you'll make bank from selling it to stupid terrorists who think it will be useful for making dirty bombs (and it will be, for certain definitions of "dirty"). Worst case scenario, the government will decide maybe they SHOULD clean it up.
It's pretty normal for slashdot.
Honestly, why bother with even that. Manning, Assange, Snowden... the character assassinations have been redundant with national attention span. Someone exposes some wrongdoing you did? Instead of shooting them or saying mean things about them, just wait. Wait... wait... aaand everyone has forgotten what they said on their own.
I feel like the character assassinations, legal attempts, and perhaps actual murder attempts are absurd symptoms of the people at the NSA et al genuinely thinking of themselves as the good guys and everyone who isn't with them as bad guys. The spooks seem to be drinking their own koolaid. I'm not sure if that's more terrifying than an efficient, cold-blooded, impassionate government conspiracy or not.
I also like how every time Assange is mentioned, there are comments here about what an egomaniac he is.
Every. Fucking. Time.
And every time, someone asks why that matters. And every time... no real answer. They must not be paying the shills much.
No, my good man, they're talking about NSA, as in National Secularists Association. It's those godless commies who are degrading online discourse.
PS. I may have eaten your lunch. Label your food in the fridge next time.
It's an interesting thought, but I'm not sure anyone can predict the future. I was sure I would be driving a flying car by now on my way to a building-sized computer. I'll decide what choices I'm going to make in the future, IN the future. It's not like we can do anything about cybernetic immortality or what have you besides wait for it anyway.
TSA's screening gates are far from the only things done to increase security. If you sell the public on the idea that terrorists are out to kill them and that massive spending to your friends is the only way to keep them safe, then you'd better actually do some things to discourage terrorist attacks.
I'd guess that the biggest change was that we hunted the terrorists. I don't want to know how many billions we spend per al-qaeda member killed, but even with such a poor exchange rate, we've spent an insane amount of money, we're going to get a good number fewer terrorists.
That's maybe a bit too optimistic, the more pessimistic reason would be that with all the soldiers we've put overseas, there are more targets for them a lot closer to home, and that keeps them busy. Keep in mind that the vast majority of islamic terrorism is directed at other muslims, they're not all hell-bent on attacking us over here.
Either way, the cost is way bigger than we should have paid, but it has been paid for the moment.
I suspect they're more concerned with backlash. I mean, those long lines AREN'T filled with people who are glad TSA is doing their thing. I don't know what would make them think we've suddenly grown spines after all this time and are going to demand the TSA be abolished. We've swallowed the bullshit about it being essential for security for many times longer than I would think would be needed to make it seem like normal and acceptable to most people. But maybe TSA is privy to data on how frustrated people are by their bullshit, and is worried some congressman will start saying it needs to be cut to save on taxes. There are grumblings evidently about shrinking the military, that's something I didn't expect to hear anytime soon.
TFA mentions that the maximum liability is $5000, and that the actual damages will probably be closer to $100.
Sounds to me like the bad guys are the people deciding to outsource your job, not the people getting ripped off here. Not even the people ripping them off, though they are bad too.
It sounds like you're saying "I have problems too, so why should I care about someone else's problems?" Which is fair, no one is asking you to donate money to help H1V1 scam victims, but "boo fucking hoo" is pointless, and misdirected.
Different forms of communication. You wouldn't say "I'm going to feed my Felis Cattus some Gallus Gallus for dinner." The Linnaeus system is already too specialized to fill in those mad libs blanks, you just use the common names for organisms you deal with regularly. This is for when the Linnaeus system isn't specialized enough. Say you discover through DNA sequencing that your sample of mud from the bottom of the ocean has ten new species of microbes in it. You're probably not going to come up with ten latin names that are particularly memorable. Putting some information in from their genome makes sense.
Sure, we're not the customers, but we are the product and google still has to worry about losing us. The spam filter is good enough for me on gmail, but with so many people on gmail, I'd wager spammers are focusing all their efforts on getting by it. If spam starts seeping in, it won't be too long before the users leave. Having another way to get users to identify which mail is spam could help google with the arms race and keeping us there, with our information, and keeping that ad price high.
Is there a paid e-mail service that filters out spam better? I'm aware I could set up my own e-mail server, but I'm also aware that's not something I'm capable of.
I think I covered that with the last line. But fine, I'll explicitly say, communism is probably impossible to do well in reality.
The article was written like a really subtle Onion article. It talks about how google went to surprising lengths to identify the problem and fix it, then has some asshole criticizing google for sending wifi balloons to Africa rather than giving it away for free in kansas city.
Fun fact: Kansas City public schools lost their accreditation in 2012 and haven't regained it. The entire school district. The public schools are too shitty to meet even Missouri's standards. It's not the first time either. I'm not sure what they've done to fix the schools, but since the upper and middle classes in KCMO send their kids to private schools, I can't imagine it was anything like increasing taxes. And given teacher union power, I can't imagine it was anything like firing bad teachers. But no, lets talk about how Google is increasing social stratification. Not anything that Kansas City is intentionally doing and has been doing for decades to keep the have nots separated from the haves.
I mean I see the appeal, sarcasm aside. Google is a big international company, has that motto of "don't be evil" and it's fun to act like they're hypocrites. Blaming the residents is just depressing as hell.
Man, that wasn't at all what RGreen was suggesting. Also, name one time it's honestly been attempted. Just once. WRONG! Whatever you're thinking, that was some power hungry selfish people who thought they might be able to use that as an excuse to wrest power away from other power hungry selfish people. Had nothing to do with serving the people.
You might argue that's why it can never work. That's probably true. Good thing, again, that RGreen was not suggesting we do that.
If only I had mod points today... I had some last week, so I'll be right back.
Sincerely,
A confocal microscope
But think of how awkward it would be when the N runs into S or A at the spy conventions. They'd reminisce about the old times of spying on millions of Americans. They'd probably laugh about some guy on deviantart drawing naked women and crying while masturbating. Then N would be like "So, you guys want to get out of here" and the A would be like "N, look, we can't. S and I have a good thing going, you're just too crazy for us, lets just be friends," and N would be like "Sure yeah, no you're right, it's cool." But it won't be cool. N will finish his drink and then leave, all three of them will feel bad. A and S will go home and start getting intimate, but S won't be able to get it up, thinking about how bad N must feel.
You really want to do that to N, S, and A?
On the other hand, when I'm running late to work "Sorry, car rebooting" seems like an excuse that would confuse my boss into accepting.
Actually, come to think of it, that might work already...
Judging from the summary and wikipedia article, it sounds a lot like text messaging. Not a social media facebook thing. Facebook has it's own chat, and was trying to get into SMS like functions, presumably hoping that people would leave facebook open on their phones at all time and use it for everything, but that doesn't seem to have gone anywhere.
I think it's probably an honest attempt. I guess they might be thinking that google plus or someone else might successfully integrate text messaging and then topple them, but that sounds pretty far-fetched to me at least.