Scanning your email is standard practice ever since the wild success of Gmail, and Lavabit is long gone now - where are all of these dissatisfied people supposed to go? Unless they're planning to::gasp:: pay for their email service, they don't have any other options.
Maybe if you're specifically worried about surveillance from law enforcement and you don't care who else reads your email, or who they sell your information to, or who those people sell your information to (probably law enforcement), then maybe you've got some choices. But it takes some pretty selective blinders to fall into that camp.
Oh for gods' sake, they oppose voter ID laws because those laws exist only to subvert elections. And while I don't like how the Democratic primary was handled at all, primary elections are not part of the democratic process. They are a method which private organizations (political parties) utilize to make decisions, while publicly adopting the veneer of democracy.
Well... Okay, but actually I meant that lobbyists do exactly this. Lobbyists are interested in influencing public policy and one way they do that is to go directly to the legislators, but that isn't the only way. Convincing constituents of the need to give lots of money to industry X is another part of that.
Well I'm not the grandparent, and I don't agree with the grandparent, but I'll respond anyway:
Your first question is flamebait. The non-trollish way to phrase that would be something like: "How is this qualitatively different from other campaign propaganda?" And the answer would be something along the lines of: It's true that campaign ads and other tactics can be flat-out deceitful, but there is some measure of difference between deceptive ads and astroturfing. Neither are good, both are working against us, but one exploits our trust in the honesty of our peers and in doing so sabotages our basic ability to communicate with one another.
For your second question: I don't think it is worse. It's not better either, it's basically the same - lobbyists are doing exactly this, constantly. They deceive constituents and organize campaign contributions all in an effort to get their legislation passed. What is this doing? Deceiving constituents in an effort to get someone elected, who will then go on to pass legislation. No difference.
Your last question though, "Why should this be of any concern to anyone?" is... what? This should be of tremendous concern to everyone. The fact that it isn't is part of the problem.
The only way to do that is to go to a single payer health care system. Has worked well for a lot of countries so it's not a bad idea.
This isn't the only way, it can be done through collective bargaining - in principle, this is part of what health insurance companies is for. This came up back in the early 2000s when there was a big $200 billion pharmaceutical bill intended (originally) to alleviate some of the high cost of drugs. The problem is that certain legislators got an amendment passed which explicitly prevented medicare from doing any kind of bargaining, which meant that the drug companies just raised their prices by exactly the same amount which the bill had reduced. So most people didn't even know about it, and the drug companies wound up $200 billion richer.
However, the point is that single payer isn't the only way to control the cost of drugs.
So are you saying that the GOP commissioners probably aren't hiding anything? They're just refusing to turn over documents in order to stall the process and make sure nothing gets done?
What's your point? The GOP launched an investigation into the FCC rule making. This necessitated the creation of an investigatory committee and, as with any such committee, the committee members are bipartisan. The GOP FCC commissioners have failed to provide documents as instructed, and the Democratic committee members have called them on it.
Is that confusing? I said that the GOP have launched an investigation, I did not say that the congressmen demanding the documents were GOP.
It's not hard to see why they would do that, OpenCL is the open standard while CUDA is Nvidia's proprietary crap. "Why doesn't Apple support Glide?" you ask, well CUDA is the same thing. (That's almost literally true, Nvidia hired a lot of 3DFx employees when that company went under.)
But, all right, I'm complaining about one little thing, the rest of your point is well made. The real reason is because Apple has abandoned the idea that computers should be functional devices, rather than magic boxes which generate revenue.
It's rather invasive for Google to demand that if you're willing to trust someone with your location than it must be them. Still, you're right, the title is alarmist: if you switch off location services for all apps then there's no need to remove Google Play or Google Maps. Since there are no apps that I trust with that information, this is a non-issue for me.
I'm not sure that blaming Facebook is the right call for this particular censorship. The picture was removed for containing underage nudity, which is accurate. The fact that society and the law has become so very intolerant of anything even remotely related to sex and children is the root of this, and napalm girl isn't the first time it has come up.
Well maybe. I suppose you could say that your friend was speaking in a sort of sign language, which was different from the Chinese that you were speaking, and his sign language was better than your Chinese. I'm not sure that just being able to communicate is quite the right definition for language, but in this case maybe that applies.
It's specificity which makes a word. If you scream inarticulately it may mean that you're afraid, but if you have different screams for "Shark!" and "Orca!" and so on, then you're using words.
What's with the quotes around "words" and "language"? Languages and words don't count if they're undocumented? I can understand the quotes around "sentence" maybe, since that implies a grammar which hasn't been verified, but words are fundamental. If they make a noise which has a specific meaning, that's a word.
Also, thumbs up to the editor for the last line there. I laughed, ruefully.
Well okay then, that's pretty neat. It does seem like a bursty thing though - the link the other person gave had 80 hp for six seconds. That's a supplement to batteries rather than a replacement. Could make a fine replacement for a super capacitor maybe.
They're using flywheels in cars? How does that work? Flywheels have to be massive to function, cars need to be light to be efficient.
Not to mention the danger of having a flywheel in a moving object that's prone to crashing. I mean, I get that the car itself has a lot of kinetic energy when it's moving, but the flywheel has to have even more if it's the thing that's pushing the car.
Well of course you could do something about it, virtually all of the driving force behind this is either economic or due to the expanding population... but it would require something from you. It would be more expensive and less convenient than doing nothing, and it would not entail solving the problem by yourself. It would mean contributing to the solution in a small way for which you wouldn't receive any praise or gratitude, and for which some people would dismiss and insult you.
Maybe the parent was intended as sarcasm, but this is one of those cases where it's hard to tell.
Why is there a question mark at the end of that statement? GoG doesn't sell new big-budget games, excluding their own. I don't know what you mean by "inroads," I welcome you to provide some counter examples, but there basically aren't any. A few scattered oddballs like Shadow Warrior and Divinity, and that's it. And the Humble Bundle sells lots of new big-budget games... on Steam. They basically just sell Steam codes. Whoop-dee-do.
And yes, DRM which doesn't require an internet connection is "less DRM" than that which does. So I will tell myself that, but I will also tell you because there seems to be some confusion.
Slashdot Mirror
Scanning your email is standard practice ever since the wild success of Gmail, and Lavabit is long gone now - where are all of these dissatisfied people supposed to go? Unless they're planning to ::gasp:: pay for their email service, they don't have any other options.
Maybe if you're specifically worried about surveillance from law enforcement and you don't care who else reads your email, or who they sell your information to, or who those people sell your information to (probably law enforcement), then maybe you've got some choices. But it takes some pretty selective blinders to fall into that camp.
Oh for gods' sake, they oppose voter ID laws because those laws exist only to subvert elections. And while I don't like how the Democratic primary was handled at all, primary elections are not part of the democratic process. They are a method which private organizations (political parties) utilize to make decisions, while publicly adopting the veneer of democracy.
Well... Okay, but actually I meant that lobbyists do exactly this. Lobbyists are interested in influencing public policy and one way they do that is to go directly to the legislators, but that isn't the only way. Convincing constituents of the need to give lots of money to industry X is another part of that.
Well I'm not the grandparent, and I don't agree with the grandparent, but I'll respond anyway:
Your first question is flamebait. The non-trollish way to phrase that would be something like: "How is this qualitatively different from other campaign propaganda?" And the answer would be something along the lines of: It's true that campaign ads and other tactics can be flat-out deceitful, but there is some measure of difference between deceptive ads and astroturfing. Neither are good, both are working against us, but one exploits our trust in the honesty of our peers and in doing so sabotages our basic ability to communicate with one another.
For your second question: I don't think it is worse. It's not better either, it's basically the same - lobbyists are doing exactly this, constantly. They deceive constituents and organize campaign contributions all in an effort to get their legislation passed. What is this doing? Deceiving constituents in an effort to get someone elected, who will then go on to pass legislation. No difference.
Your last question though, "Why should this be of any concern to anyone?" is... what? This should be of tremendous concern to everyone. The fact that it isn't is part of the problem.
It's not substantially different, lobbyists do the same thing. They don't it "shit posting" though, so maybe this is more honest.
The only way to do that is to go to a single payer health care system. Has worked well for a lot of countries so it's not a bad idea.
This isn't the only way, it can be done through collective bargaining - in principle, this is part of what health insurance companies is for. This came up back in the early 2000s when there was a big $200 billion pharmaceutical bill intended (originally) to alleviate some of the high cost of drugs. The problem is that certain legislators got an amendment passed which explicitly prevented medicare from doing any kind of bargaining, which meant that the drug companies just raised their prices by exactly the same amount which the bill had reduced. So most people didn't even know about it, and the drug companies wound up $200 billion richer.
However, the point is that single payer isn't the only way to control the cost of drugs.
Assange has a connection to Manning (allegedly). Snowden has nothing to do with Assange.
So are you saying that the GOP commissioners probably aren't hiding anything? They're just refusing to turn over documents in order to stall the process and make sure nothing gets done?
Sorry, that little comment about confusing reads as being unnecessarily insulting. Didn't mean it like that, just trying to clarify.
What's your point? The GOP launched an investigation into the FCC rule making. This necessitated the creation of an investigatory committee and, as with any such committee, the committee members are bipartisan. The GOP FCC commissioners have failed to provide documents as instructed, and the Democratic committee members have called them on it.
Is that confusing? I said that the GOP have launched an investigation, I did not say that the congressmen demanding the documents were GOP.
Who are the hypocrites? The GOP have launched an investigation into FCC rulemaking only to catch... the GOP FCC commissioners?
All right, so there's no indication of anyone being guilty of anything here as yet, but this doesn't say "hypocrites" to me, this says "hilarious."
Apple refuses to support CUDA in favor of OpenCL.
It's not hard to see why they would do that, OpenCL is the open standard while CUDA is Nvidia's proprietary crap. "Why doesn't Apple support Glide?" you ask, well CUDA is the same thing. (That's almost literally true, Nvidia hired a lot of 3DFx employees when that company went under.)
But, all right, I'm complaining about one little thing, the rest of your point is well made. The real reason is because Apple has abandoned the idea that computers should be functional devices, rather than magic boxes which generate revenue.
It's rather invasive for Google to demand that if you're willing to trust someone with your location than it must be them. Still, you're right, the title is alarmist: if you switch off location services for all apps then there's no need to remove Google Play or Google Maps. Since there are no apps that I trust with that information, this is a non-issue for me.
I'm not sure that blaming Facebook is the right call for this particular censorship. The picture was removed for containing underage nudity, which is accurate. The fact that society and the law has become so very intolerant of anything even remotely related to sex and children is the root of this, and napalm girl isn't the first time it has come up.
Well maybe. I suppose you could say that your friend was speaking in a sort of sign language, which was different from the Chinese that you were speaking, and his sign language was better than your Chinese. I'm not sure that just being able to communicate is quite the right definition for language, but in this case maybe that applies.
It's specificity which makes a word. If you scream inarticulately it may mean that you're afraid, but if you have different screams for "Shark!" and "Orca!" and so on, then you're using words.
Yeah, that is pretty slick.
What's with the quotes around "words" and "language"? Languages and words don't count if they're undocumented? I can understand the quotes around "sentence" maybe, since that implies a grammar which hasn't been verified, but words are fundamental. If they make a noise which has a specific meaning, that's a word.
Also, thumbs up to the editor for the last line there. I laughed, ruefully.
Well okay then, that's pretty neat. It does seem like a bursty thing though - the link the other person gave had 80 hp for six seconds. That's a supplement to batteries rather than a replacement. Could make a fine replacement for a super capacitor maybe.
Well, that is super interesting. Thanks.
They're using flywheels in cars? How does that work? Flywheels have to be massive to function, cars need to be light to be efficient.
Not to mention the danger of having a flywheel in a moving object that's prone to crashing. I mean, I get that the car itself has a lot of kinetic energy when it's moving, but the flywheel has to have even more if it's the thing that's pushing the car.
but who in tech support would tell anyone someone's password ?
Someone they hired after they fired all of the competent people following the Snowden leaks?
Well of course you could do something about it, virtually all of the driving force behind this is either economic or due to the expanding population... but it would require something from you. It would be more expensive and less convenient than doing nothing, and it would not entail solving the problem by yourself. It would mean contributing to the solution in a small way for which you wouldn't receive any praise or gratitude, and for which some people would dismiss and insult you.
Maybe the parent was intended as sarcasm, but this is one of those cases where it's hard to tell.
It's not the title I submitted: "Scientists create invincible super bacteria in order to make a cool video"
Oh well, it bothers me more that they changed "couldn't" to "can not." Let it be known: I got the tense right.
Why is there a question mark at the end of that statement? GoG doesn't sell new big-budget games, excluding their own. I don't know what you mean by "inroads," I welcome you to provide some counter examples, but there basically aren't any. A few scattered oddballs like Shadow Warrior and Divinity, and that's it. And the Humble Bundle sells lots of new big-budget games... on Steam. They basically just sell Steam codes. Whoop-dee-do.
And yes, DRM which doesn't require an internet connection is "less DRM" than that which does. So I will tell myself that, but I will also tell you because there seems to be some confusion.