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  1. Re:Great on Tibetans Inherited High-Altitude Gene From Ancient Human · · Score: 1

    None of these quotes are signs, Republicans believe Blacks — or any other race — are inherently inferior. Every party would rather a constituent group, that overwhelmingly favors their opponents, didn't vote at all — be they seniors, White men, or pregnant Jews. That's just political calculus — not racism.

    Ann Coulter was making a statement against affirmative action, even if it may have hurt the particular pilot's feelings. Affirmative action is racism — bigotry of lower expectations. Its proponents claim, that Blacks are inferior — because they can not succeed without special privileged treatment from the rest of the society. Ann's opposition to that makes her non-racist.

    And, for a little variety, David Duke switched from being a Democrat to a Republican.

    Mr. Duke may be a prominent racist, but he is not a prominent Republican...

    And this is what I turned up from Google in under 2 minutes.

    Yeah, keep trying.

  2. Re:Great on Tibetans Inherited High-Altitude Gene From Ancient Human · · Score: 1

    Quote me Nixon or any other two prominent Republicans claiming anything remotely like "group of brown people isn't human". Put up or shut up, so to speak.

  3. Re:Great on Tibetans Inherited High-Altitude Gene From Ancient Human · · Score: 0

    More ammunition for the Republicans to claim that another group of brown people isn't human.

    Ku-Klux-Klan were Democrats, not Republicans.

  4. Were Denisovans really a DIFFERENT SPECIES? on Tibetans Inherited High-Altitude Gene From Ancient Human · · Score: 2

    inherited from an ancient species of human

    One of the definitions of "species" states, that if two can breed and produce viable offspring (unlike, say, donkey and horse or lion and tiger, which produce sterile hybrids), then they are the same species...

    Why are Denisovans considered different species, rather than simply a different race (or breed?) of the same Homo Sapiens?

  5. Ok, human beings next? on Following EU Ruling, BBC Article Excluded From Google Searches · · Score: 3, Funny

    Supposedly, a way is discovered to make people forget certain things. Not far-fetched — we can already plant false memories...

    I am asking the proponents of this wonderful "right to be forgotten" legislation, whether they would approve of a law, that would allow people to demand, their ex-partners be forced to undergo a procedure to make them forget of the good time the have once shared, for example.

  6. Re:Better applications on Hierarchical Membrane For Cleaning Up Oil Spills · · Score: 1

    Mayonnaise is also one of earth's nastiest substances

    This is only true about factory-made mayonnaise. The original recipe is drastically different — but can not be stored for more than a few days. If you are willing to deal with such quickly-expiring product, you can make your own at home. Recipes abound.

  7. Maxwell's Daemon next? on Hierarchical Membrane For Cleaning Up Oil Spills · · Score: 0

    The Demon would guard a door letting fast-moving molecules of some gas (or liquid) through, but blocking the slow-moving ones. Thermodynamics will never be the same!

  8. Re:Fundamental reform? on Lawrence Lessig Answers Your Questions About His Mayday PAC (Video) · · Score: 1

    Really? You mean there were no slaves and women could vote?

    This is a red herring. Whoever can vote, whether or not slavery is legal, is irrelevant. By 1913, for example, slavery has been (highly) illegal for decades — but there was no Federal Income Tax (the major step towards today's slavery).

    By 1920 women got their right to vote (19th Amendment), but Roosevelt's confiscation of gold — to finance his government-expansion — remained years away.

    Bit by bit the people in government — sincerely convinced, they can do better for us, than we can ourselves — insist on "taking care" of us. And life changes for the worse every time the ratchet turns towards greater governmental control over the subjects. Undoing it even a little bit would be a great relief.

  9. Re:And good riddance! on Mayors of Atlanta & New Orleans: Uber Will Knock-Out Taxi Industry · · Score: 1

    Cities can allow for-profit companies in on the transportation game and regulate them to serve the public fairly.

    Why is it more fair to compel a driver to go to a dangerous neighborhood, than for a passenger, who wants to go there, to pay extra? Because an Uber driver may choose to accept the higher risk in exchange for higher pay — whereas for an ordinary cabbie that's not a legal option.

    The other option, would be if the city took over all paid transport as part of the public infrastructure. No private taxis, no uber

    Not in a country, that still has any pretense of being free.

  10. Re:And good riddance! on Mayors of Atlanta & New Orleans: Uber Will Knock-Out Taxi Industry · · Score: 1

    Uber drivers don't have to, and will almost certainly not take fares to sketchy neighborhoods.

    Why not? If they know, they are picking up a known Uber-user and also know, where he wants to go — and may even be paid extra for going into such a neighborhood.

    Which has the end result that some of the poor with the most need to "get around", won't be able to.

    Why do you deem it more fair, to compell the cabbies (themselves hardly "rich" by any standard) to go, where they'd rather not go, than to charge people wanting to go to a sketchy place extra?

    some cabbies won't pick up a black fare just on the off chance that they'll have to go to a rough neighborhood.

    Oh, so you are afraid, Uber will introduce a problem, that already exists with the official taxis?..

  11. Re:Tools Command Language (TCL) on Ask Slashdot: Choosing a Web Language That's Long-Lived, and Not Too Buzzy? · · Score: 1

    Space delimited

    You must be talking about Python...

  12. Re:I love getting into strangers' cars on Mayors of Atlanta & New Orleans: Uber Will Knock-Out Taxi Industry · · Score: 1

    It used to be that if you wanted a higher quality, you had to find a quality brand you could trust, and if the market doesn't favor lots of competition for whatever reason, a quality brand just wouldn't exist without government intervention. After all, why would a rational profit-seeking corporation do anything right if it put them at a cost disadvantage

    The only reason you might not be able to find something of higher-quality is because not enough others want it. Internet or not, if demand exists, it will be fulfilled — glory be to our Free Market (whatever is left of it).

    Internet may be making the market more efficient by facilitating information exchange, but it is not required. Nissan created Infinity and Toyota — Lexus before there was Internet. Cognacs are available in different (standardized) quality-levels — and have been since 1800-eds, when even telephone did not exist.

    The taxi market is traditionally so monopolistic that the only way to make good quality available is to legally require it from everyone

    It is monopolistic, because there are virtually no repeat customers — even if you really liked the guy, who last drove you, you will not be waiting for him, when you need a cab again. You'll just hail whoever drives by. The tips are supposed to compensate for this absence of incentive, but aren't doing it, because many people tip — out of politeness — regardless of the service-quality.

    But you are right that the feedback forums — which can make or kill a particular maker/seller/service-provider — are changing everything. For the better.

  13. Tools Command Language (TCL) on Ask Slashdot: Choosing a Web Language That's Long-Lived, and Not Too Buzzy? · · Score: 1

    TCL is both awesome and mature. It is also evolving, but the maintainers are very careful to maintain backwards-compatibility (unlike the Ruby-crowd). Two different Apache-modules exist.

    Unlike with PHP, you can also write long-living TCL-programs — though PHP core is Ok, various extensions leak memory because nobody really uses the language for anything other than short-lived web-pages. Adding a GUI to your non-web program is also easy (with Tk), as is handling the cases, where GUI is not available — you can degrade gracefully to a non-GUI mode, rather than see the program refuse to even start.

    The only real competitor to Tcl is Python, which is what Google are using, but extending Tcl with your C/C++ code is much easier, than extending Python (or any other candidate — Tcl's API is the best thought-out and stable).

  14. Re:Fundamental reform? on Lawrence Lessig Answers Your Questions About His Mayday PAC (Video) · · Score: 1

    This being the case, I find entire line of reasoning invalid.

    I too found the page to be rather hard to process. The reason I linked to it was to illustrate, that the issue discussed is, indeed, directly connected to the First Amendment and that those unhappy with it would have to modify the Amendment itself.

  15. Fundamental reform? on Lawrence Lessig Answers Your Questions About His Mayday PAC (Video) · · Score: -1

    We’re kickstarting a Super PAC big enough to make it possible to win a Congress committed to fundamental reform by 2016.

    Haven't these same people already elected a President committed to fundamental transformation of America? Has it not proven to be a disaster both inside and outside the country?

    Now they ask for your money to put more of the same people into Congress — because "this time it will be different"?

    And how will that help their lesser goal — that of altering the First Amendment?

  16. Re:I love getting into strangers' cars on Mayors of Atlanta & New Orleans: Uber Will Knock-Out Taxi Industry · · Score: 2

    I'm sure that will be a great comfort to those who are the reason for those bad ratings. You know, the people who get ripped off, kidnapped and held for ransom (I need another $500 or I'll just dump you here), or worse.

    Well, those felons, whom taxi-licensing (unlike Uber's lax policies) would've prevented from ever becoming a taxi-driver in the first place, have killed/kidnapped/or held for ransom somebody else before — while doing something, that did not require a license, such as walking on a sidewalk.

    Should we allow anybody to do anything without one? Why should walking down a street be allowed without a license, but not driving a cab?

  17. Re:I love getting into strangers' cars on Mayors of Atlanta & New Orleans: Uber Will Knock-Out Taxi Industry · · Score: 2

    Reviews depend on after the fact; which is pointless if you are dead.

    One of the dangers, that the GP is afraid of, is being driven by a sex-offender. I — an ugly middle-aged man with portbelly — have no fear of being raped and no prejudice against known sex-offenders trying to work for a living. Why would I be any more "dead" driven by such a person, then by somebody else? And why shouldn't I be allowed to be driven by such a person, if that's 1 cent cheaper per mile or if he can get to me 3 minutes earlier? What safety — permanent or even temporary — is gained by depriving him and me of this essential liberty to engage in a mutually-agreed upon business transaction?

    This isn't an liberal / conservative issue.

    Requiring a license for more and more activities reduces our freedom to engage in them — sometimes in direct and obvious violation of the Constitution even. This makes such requirements illiberal and people, who advocate them — whatever they call themselves — illiberals.

  18. Re:I love getting into strangers' cars on Mayors of Atlanta & New Orleans: Uber Will Knock-Out Taxi Industry · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why shouldn't one need to demonstrate a higher level of skills in order to be allowed to get paid to drive other people around.

    Why must one be allowed to get paid in the first place? And why must "higher level of skills" be a requirement — even for the customers, who are perfectly satisfied with average level of skills?

    Uber's background check that somehow missed one of their drivers was a sex offender.

    So what? Plenty of locales allow (ex-)felons — including sex-offenders — to drive taxis today.

    If you want to be driven by above-average drivers only, you can request a higher-rated driver from Uber (and pay more per mile) or — if Uber's vetting process seems insufficiently rigorous to you — go for a different company altogether. But don't try to impose it on the rest of us.

  19. Re:I love getting into strangers' cars on Mayors of Atlanta & New Orleans: Uber Will Knock-Out Taxi Industry · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I am sure drivers are perfectly law abiding and safe without any background checks and drug testing.

    The ratings-and-feedback systems maintained by Uber and others is more efficient at flagging bad drivers, than any government-run certification authority can be.

    It is completely impossible to have part time and internet enabled taxi drivers who are still checked out and issued a license.

    What's with this obsession with licensing? Why must engaging in more and more activities be turned from a right (which only the Judiciary can suspend after a trial) into a privilege (which the Executive may or may not grant on a whim)?

    Serving alcohol? Must have license (100 years after the "Dry Law" was abolished). Serving "hard liquor"? Need another license. Performing in costume? Need a license for that... Wish to keep and bear a weapon — something explicitly enumerated in the Constitution as a right — need a license... Where do you, Illiberals, get off?

  20. And good riddance! on Mayors of Atlanta & New Orleans: Uber Will Knock-Out Taxi Industry · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Taxis exist not to provide income to drivers or tax-revenue to medallion-issuing locales. We want them to get around. If a better way to do that arises, great. Have them disappear the way horse-drawn wagons got "knocked-out" by the automobiles.

  21. Re:Interesting... on Boston Trying Out Solar-Powered "Smart Benches" In Parks · · Score: 1

    I don't think they're trying to upload data through your phone without your knowledge

    That would've been a relatively small problem and is not, what I meant. My suspicion is, they may try to collect data from the plugged-in phone. Call-logs, pictures, locations you've visited — all those things, police now need a warrant for — unless express consent by plugging your phone into their socket.

    What data can be collected may depend on your device's model and settings, but apparata for extracting information from (uncooperative) phones exist, and police are already using them.

    and noise-level data

    This too seems like a euphemism for recording conversations held by people resting on the "smart bench". Hardly unheard of either... Sure, the self-identified "Liberals" of Boston would not approve of such snooping. But, if it is presented as merely "monitoring noise levels", then it is Ok.

  22. Re:"also collects and shares a wide range of data" on Boston Trying Out Solar-Powered "Smart Benches" In Parks · · Score: 0

    That'd better not be from my phone...

    By plugging it in, you've agreed to the EULA...

  23. Re:how long before on Boston Trying Out Solar-Powered "Smart Benches" In Parks · · Score: 0

    how long before the NSA hacks these into spy-benches?

    What makes you think, they aren't from day one? The write-up talks about "collecting and sharing data", and TFA says:

    The benches also connect wirelessly, using Verizon’s network, to the Internet to upload location-based environmental information, such as air quality and noise-level data. City officials said the first units in Boston will be funded by Cisco Systems, a leader in development of smart city solutions, at no cost to the city.

    Khm... At no cost to the city?

  24. Re:Interesting... on Boston Trying Out Solar-Powered "Smart Benches" In Parks · · Score: 0

    Boston apparently has no potholes that need to be repaired and they have surplus transit money to spend on curbside campsites....other cities can learn.

    Your sarcasm may be closer to target, than you realized: MBTA fees are going up (again) tomorrow.

    "The bench has a USB outlet, and also collects and shares a wide range of data, including location-based information, as well as air quality and noise-levels"

    But what wouldn't a benevolent progressive government pay for the ability to collect more data? Especially from the phones voluntarily plugged-in by unsuspecting residents?

  25. Re:Zimmerman telegram? on Germany Scores First: Ends Verizon Contract Over NSA Concerns · · Score: 1

    Not at all clear. Just as many have blamed America itself for the 9/11, plenty of people thought, those, who died from the German submarines, had only themselves to blame. Public opinion was rather split — the large Irish population, for example, was heavily anti-British. It is not obvious, we would've sent actual troops to Europe — or as many, had it not been for the intercept... We didn't have much of a standing army back then — the call-up consisted of President asking the State militias to, please, contribute the troops.

    Some of Robert Heinlein prose (Lazarus Long going back in time to meet his grandfather and parents), while nominally science-fiction, describes that period in fine detail.