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User: brasselv

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  1. This submission is bizarre.
    Even for trolling standards, the "news" is unbelievably silly.

    Any communication online (and offline for that matter) will be used to exchange illegal stuff.

    You can replace "Telegram" with "Email", "Google Drive", "Usenet" - or even "FedEx" and "Telephone".

    Any of those things are used for much worse than pirating content: *terrorists and rapists* use them for nefarious goals. So what?

    I don't hear "Telephone" getting the blame. Nor I hear Gmail being asked to pay more attention to the content of those emails. You don't expect the provider of such services to police private communications.

    What's the point of singling out Telegram, of all things?

    (In case this is Ivan following on today's directive "Find something to attack Telegram", then it's a very lazy attempt. Can do better, Ivan.)

  2. Re: Trump is a big sellout ! on Trump Proposes Rejoining Trans-Pacific Partnership (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Your ideas are intriguing to me
    and I wish to subscribe to your vodka supply.

  3. In typical conditions it's very resilient because of the nature of the service and its size.

    But because of the same reasons it can prove extremely fragile under a number of special circumstances that can trigger a downward spiral difficult to stop.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

  4. that's possible.
    it's also possible that they are being careful using a stat that is still fluctuating and may change in the future against them.

  5. Re: Convinces me Uber is at fault because of 1/R^4 on Police Release First Video From Inside the Uber Self-Driving Car That Killed a Pedestrian (recode.net) · · Score: 1

    you are showing insensitivity towards corporations, that after all are people too.

  6. Re: How motherfucking hard is it on Comcast Hints At Plan For Paid Fast Lanes After Net Neutrality Repeal (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    "right" is determined by the social/historical context.

    If internet is the key to primary services, education, decent life - then yes, it obviously becomes a right worth defending.

    Also, such rights have squat to do on whether privates are involved. Baby food is sold in supermarkets - yet we think kids have a right not starve.

  7. Re: Slightly misleading headline on NASA X-Ray Tech Could Enable Superfast Communication In Deep Space (space.com) · · Score: 1

    Also, while on earth the "actual speed" of each bit is actually irrelevant as long as at or around the speed of light, FTL information would be a game changer in space, no matter the bandwidth.
    (Of course, physics and all that, not a possibility as far as we know)

  8. There are probably ways to make the electoral system better - and there are almost certainly ways to screw up royally.

    After Al Gore lost the 2000 election (and yes, he really did lose, The New York Times did an in-depth analysis after the election of votes cast, showing al Gore lost fair and square), Democrats ran around with their hair on fire, arguing that we MUST roll out, expensive, vulnerable, and frail electronic voting ASAP to avoid another 'uncertain' election outcome.

    Fast-forward 16 years, now Democrats are running around with their hair on fire, insisting that THE RUSSIANS are going to upset the coming election, and the only solution is for DHS to provide 'oversight' in all elections this November 'just in case' those pesky Russians try anything.

    The sitting party wants the ability to second-guess every state election, presumably with the ability to invalidate results they find 'suspect' - sounds great, doesn't it?

    How does this relate with the opportunity, or not, to have a debate on the overall electoral system? No irony, just an open question.
    The sitting party, either one, is sitting because it has been voted.
    Am I missing your point entirely?

  9. I hear you,
    but the the first thing you want is a mainstream debate on IF, and HOW, the electoral system can be made better.

    [Mainstream means: people get stuff about it on their facebook feed, see the topic on the opinion page of their favorite newspaper, hear about it on TV etc. This is currently not happening. ]

    There are probably ways to make the electoral system better - and there are almost certainly ways to screw up royally.

    Let's face it: With all the faults you may find, the current system has historically served the U.S. people well. Some reforms are probably a good idea, but we better come up with something really, really smart.

  10. be as it may, one of the two is going to be president.
    not one of the four, or six.

    there are ways to reform the system, but voting for someone who is sure to lose is not one of the best ways. you risk effectively favoring the candidate you dislike the most.

  11. God is quite an elusive idea - but I do like very much the idea of loving your neighbor!

    But if really boils down to that, why carrying forward all the baggage that can be summarized in that one wise and precious sentence?
    Why loading yourself with the need to explain away everything else, when you could just choose any modern philosopher (say, Peter Singer) that says essentially the same thing, but without the references to goats, stoning and the like? It appears on the face of it an enormous effort and rather a waste of energy. What am I missing?

  12. thanks for your answer, I mean it!
    one thing I don't understand is the following - maybe you can help (no irony)

    the new testament is not getting into details on topics that many Christians seem to care about. topics like human sexuality, origins of the cosmos, laws of nature, and more.
    when many Christians are looking for answers on such topics, they tend to refer to the old testament. however, when such answers appear unpalatable in the old testament (see e. g. stoning), they use the argument that the new testament has supeseded those things.

    is it a fair reading? how do you know when something is superseded and when?

  13. Re: "it was used for children's writing exercises" on Computers Decipher Burnt Scroll Found In Ancient Holy Ark (nationalgeographic.com) · · Score: 1

    atheism does not require believing anything of the sort. why you say that?

  14. Re: Older = Better on Computers Decipher Burnt Scroll Found In Ancient Holy Ark (nationalgeographic.com) · · Score: 1

    if you tried living in a cave, fighting bears with bare hands, surviving the decimation of your tribe by a neighbor tribe, to then die at age 25 of a small infection, all the while believing that the god of blood and thunder rules the forest, and moves the sun, his slave and concubine through the sky... ... you would have a different opinion.

  15. "At least in my church our pastors preach FROM THE BIBLE. They give more than a damn about what is written in the Bible"

    I don't know how to say this as nicely as possible, but..
    are we sure we are talking about the same book? I would be surprised if your pastors advocate the stoning of undisciplined pupils.

  16. Re: With the way the world is... on Bank of America Analysts Say There's A 50% Chance We Live In The Matrix (independent.co.uk) · · Score: 1

    not sure, but maybe he's trying to say that math *may* not be the universal language of all the possible universes, but just a result of how out particular simulated universe is organized.
    i certainly can't imagine how a universe with non mathematical laws would be like; I suspect nobody does. It could, however, just be a distortion field of our point of view, I. E. a lack of perspective. I also can't imagine a quantum world, but I accept its because I didn't evolve in one (ok, I did, but you know what I mean)

  17. Re: not necessarily a bad thing on Someone Is Learning How To Take Down the Internet, Warns Bruce Schneier (schneier.com) · · Score: 1

    ditch tap water, people were doing just fine taking a walk to the next river.

  18. Re: Why do they not have on Elon Musk Asks Twitter For Help In Finding Cause of SpaceX Explosion (gizmodo.com) · · Score: 1

    maybe they have them, but any additional data point still helps?

  19. Re: Travelling at 20% of the speed of light on Earth-Like Planet, With Ambitious Life Possibility, Found Orbiting the Star Next Door (nature.com) · · Score: 2

    "The biggest difficulty is transmitting useful data back to Earth as there's going to be very little power available."

    wouldn't be possible to send many of those at regular intervals on the same path, and use the them as a line of breadcrumb repeaters of sorts?

  20. Re: So glad I don't work with her on 'Only Voice Memos Can Save Us From the Scourge of Email' (qz.com) · · Score: 1

    this.
    the most annoying is when you are looking for a very specific, trivial piece of information.
    E.g., you need the factory default password of a router X, and you are forced to listen to a 15 minutes explanation of what a router is, and why it's good for you.

  21. "Cut me some slack."
    no worries... it was actually meant largely as a self deprecating joke... (because I myself get annoyed maybe 100 times a day for things that I immediately feel guilty for getting annoyed... things like if one badly designed toothpaste tube doesn't let you squeeze it all out... so I have to constantly remind myself "yeah, first world problems".. Btw, I guess this constant self reminding is actually a first world problem in itself, or a first world metaproblem..) cheers!

  22. "which was desperately needed "
    I know what you mean, but I can't help thinking 'first world'...

  23. Re:Free Speech Must Be Stopped!!! on Former Twitter Employees: 'Abuse Problem' Comes From Their Culture Of Free Speech (buzzfeed.com) · · Score: 2

    Some humble thoughts:
            - The UK has a conservative government, and had one for some time.
            - The current Scotland Yard commissioner was appointed by Boris Johnson, a staunch conservative, when he was Mayor of London.
            - The legislative background of this supposed initiative is the so called Malicious Communications Act, which at least in its most recent incarnations is again a brainchild of a conservative government.
            - According to the narrative you suggest, the liberal media would be conspiring to cover up the presumed misdeeds of a conservative appointed commissioner, under a conservative government, trying to (mis)use a law squarely backed by conservatives.
            - That does not honestly appear to make much sense, especially in the current UK political climate.
            - The "next article" on the page you link as reference has the following headline (copy pasta) : "I could do that: Woman who thinks she's faster than Usain Bolt claims she could sprint 100 metres in just SEVEN seconds." You know, that's the Daily Mail, that's what they do. So really take anything they write with more than one grain of salt.
            - The Independent article you mention is available in the google cache: http://webcache.googleusercont...
            - The Independent traditionally has mixed views, but in the most recent occasion they endorsed a conservative-led coalition: "For all its faults, another Lib-Con Coalition would both prolong recovery and give our kingdom a better chance of continued existence.". Hardly a fortress of the "left".
            - The UK Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron appears in this case to be quite reasonable. (For our American friends: In UK 'liberal' has a different meaning than in the US, but liberals are still considered on the "left" of the conservatives, for the ones that are especially attached to those labels). So, Farron is on the record as saying about this initiative: “Online bullying is an increasingly serious problem but police should not be proactively seeking cases like these and turning themselves into chatroom moderators. With such measures, even if well-intentioned, there is a real danger of undermining our very precious freedom of speech.”
            - I don't know why the article from the Independent appears to have been removed since publication. But I very much doubt, given what above, that one should think of a grand liberal conspiracy as the likely explanation. Unless liberals are conspiring against themselves, using a conservative-endorsing newspaper as their outlet.
            - For that matter, I equally very much doubt there is any ongoing grand conspiracy of conservatives (and I am not too convinced with this grand conspiracy of cats either). Maybe I am hopelessly naif, but in general, I like to start with the simplest possible explanations and move from there. In this case the Independent suddenly realizing after publication that they "like the idea of a leftist Thought Police", is NOT the simplest explanation - it's rather at the "WTF" end of the spectrum.

    In general, a very friendly advice that I try to regularly also give to myself: try to focus on the issues, avoiding to rely too much on precooked but fuzzy categories like "the ruling class" "people on the left" "people on the right" "the liberal media", "conservative something" etc.

    If you want to voice your concerns about the dangers of governmental overreach on digital media, I'm happy to join my concerns to yours. But you lose me fast if you throw around, in support to your concerns, suggestions of conspiracies and labels like "leftist Thought Police" recycled from a page on the Daily Mail.

  24. Re: Good luck with that. on Astronomers To Announce Discovery of a Nearby 'Earth-Like' Planet (seeker.com) · · Score: 5, Funny

    "With an evironment like that, we can rule out higher life forms."

    Centaurians called.
    They wanted to know how can we sustain higher life forms on Earth - since we have neither the cyclic megahurricans that are essential to recharge cyclic biotanks, nor we have a proper dark side of the planet where we can comfortably hatch our silicon eggs.
    To be frank, they sounded rather narrow minded about any real possibility of life without those things.

  25. Re: interstellar mission on Astronomers To Announce Discovery of a Nearby 'Earth-Like' Planet (seeker.com) · · Score: 1

    I believe your heart is in the right place, but you won't help this challenging endeavor by calling names your fellow human travelers.