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  1. Re:Not sure DRM is the biggest issue at the moment on How Publishers Are Cutting Their Own Throats With eBook DRM · · Score: 1

    no, they aren't. they are barely 30, and always on the best seller 20% off section. realistically, I have never paid over 25 bucks for any new book.

  2. not a good area for data on Laptops In the Classroom Don't Increase Grades · · Score: 1

    this study completely misses the point, this was a school with a 31 student classroom size, in a area with a decent mean income. Our schools don't have too many troubles teaching our children, and they actually do pretty well compared to other nations if you factor schools with a high rate of poverty. The laptops didn't make a big change because these kids most likely had access to computers already, now they where just in school. Where laptops in schools would be invaluable is for the poorer kids who don't have access to one otherwise.

  3. old news on New Bacterium Lives On Caffeine · · Score: 1

    I think I "discovered" this bacterium years ago, he was named harold and worked right next to me...

  4. Re:"There is no right to play" on DRM Broke Dragon Age: Origins For Days · · Score: 1

    it's actually really common for businesses to put unenforceable clauses into their agreements, on the basis that you don't know they can't enforce it, and will therefor quit demanding them to stop screwing you or give you your money back when the clause is pointed out. A more common one is something along the lines of "company x reserves the right to change this agreement when needed." But anytime they change it, the contract is null and void. Try it with your cellphone company sometime, they update their agreement very often, and might claim you can't get out of it for free, but if you keep at them that it isn't the contract you signed, they'll let you out with no termination fee because they have to.

  5. Re:No Force or Effect on House Votes To Overturn FCC On Net Neutrality · · Score: 1

    so a pretty small point to nitpick, but Obama's approval rate is 51% by the most recent poll. So clearly the public does seem to be at least one bit happy about it.

  6. Re:some day on Congressman Wants YouTube Video Covered Up · · Score: 1

    If we are taking wealth from other people, why does the top 1% have a larger percentage of the wealth than they used to?

  7. Re:Ah, the Republican Party ... on Congressman Wants YouTube Video Covered Up · · Score: 2

    And yet, we aren't taxed enough already. Everyone talks about budget cuts, but simply restoring the taxes on the wealthy to their historical mean would solve our budget problems. So would closing the corporate tax loopholes so that the revenue from corporations goes back to it's historical ~30% instead of it's current 7%. The single greatest expansion in government has been the military, which accounts for a massive amount of our budget, and not a single TEA party politician suggests cutting that.

    The TEA party gets made fun of because they are mostly lower class citizens voting to cut taxes on the richest 1% who are already paying some of the lowest taxes in our history, when they even pay them instead of hiring someone to find hole after hole in our tax code.

    I suggest you read the papers and letters of your founding fathers.

    "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs."
    - Thomas Jefferson

    That monied aristocracy? That would be the extremely wealthy that you keep trying to make life better for.

  8. Re:well, he might be right on MS Global Strategy Chief: Tablets Are a Fad · · Score: 1

    Seriously, have you ever used an e-reader? I can read my nook comfortable for as long as i care to read. Several hours at a time. even if you have the lighting for it, it would give me a massive headache to try to do that on a tablet, not even bringing battery life into it. The color ones might die, but honestly, that e-ink screen is just too good. it won't die out until tablets use a screen that is similar, but can also do everything they need to and be touchscreens. so nowhere near the foreseeable future.

  9. Re:How cheap is cheap enough? on Cutting Prices Is the Only Way To Stop Piracy · · Score: 1

    I'm not saying a buck is a bad price, I'm just saying I never considered it a concession.

  10. Re:How cheap is cheap enough? on Cutting Prices Is the Only Way To Stop Piracy · · Score: 1

    I'm a musician, and though it costs more than $1 to make a song, I also sell it to more than one person. I can keep selling it as long as I keep gigging and keep people interested, and I only paid to record it once.

  11. Re:Oh he gets it on Poole To Zuckerberg: You’re Doing It Wrong · · Score: 2

    so it will be a win because the future leaders of america will all have little to no experience with actually living, and where such sociopaths that they decided by about 16 to never have a drink with friends because they wanted to run for public office. Many of our greatest presidents did things in their youth that if well documented and brought up in a campaign in todays political environment would keep them out of office.

  12. Re:Roald Dahl called this 50 years ago... on Is Software Driving a Falling Demand For Brains? · · Score: 1

    Maybe, but Mr. Bucket's 40 coworkers didn't all get a job fixing the machine. Who knows, maybe 9 others also learned how to fix it, but Mr. Bucket was just the one who got the job. what do the other 39 people do? or the 9 people who trained to fix the machine, but learned that the machines take very little fixing, and several people at every toothpaste factory are competing for that job, as well as kids coming out of trade school who are trained on the newest models of toothpaste machine. So now even the forward thinking ones are struggling on all their bills along with their wife and kids because they lost their old jobs, and now have education loans to pay back on top of it with no work.

    Also, now the area has become a low income area, and everyone is out of work. The house is worth less than the mortgage now, and the bank is threatening to foreclose, and the local public school is getting worse, forced to have less teachers and more students per class due to lower property taxes. Studies have shown time and again that being from a lower income area greatly hurts students test scores and future performance, so now there is a new generation mired in poverty.

    I've seen it happen, i'm from an area that was a booming coal town, and it's had less and less industry and more poverty every year.

    you can't stop technology, but to say that you can just focus on less automated tasks and learn to do those is a fallacy. Automation cuts down on the necessary workforce dramatically. End of story. If even a third of the employees being laid off could just find better and more skilled jobs with higher pay, companies wouldn't bother to pay the sink cost to implement the automation.

  13. Re:America has jumped the shark on Teachers Back Away From Evolution In Class · · Score: 1

    what about breeding animals selectively? that clearly ends up with far different traits and breeds of dogs. We let them all live, but a chiwawa can breed with a german shepard, they are all dogs. Is it so hard to imagine the enviroment over a long period of time setting up situations where certain traits get more mates, and more kids? what

  14. cruelest conqueror? on Genghis Khan, History's Greenest Conqueror · · Score: 1

    I've always felt Genghis got a bad rap as a cruel conqueror. Did he commit acts of intense barbarity? Yes. But considering the amount of land slaughtered, the number of people killed by him was surprisingly low, the fear enticed many people to surrender without a fight, and life in the horde was almost always an improvement over the old ways. He was tolerant of any religion, made trade flow, and implemented fair laws. Killing everyone taller than the handle of an ox cart is certainly shocking, but for some reason killing more people in the traditional way, and then oppressing them is merciful and just.

  15. appeal to their competitive natures. on Are 10-11 Hour Programming Days Feasible? · · Score: 1

    set a group of bounties on a big whiteboard, similar to achievements in games, but more along the lines of "first person to finish their portion of project x" or whatever goals you have, and let them know that they can work late if they choose, but are in no way obligated.

    you would be stunned at how much more a competitive group gets done in 8 hrs compared to a group slogging out for 12, and the bounties cost significantly less than paying everyone overtime, just enough to be nice and make them compete.

  16. Re:Correct on Graduate Students Being Warned Away From Leaked Cables · · Score: 1

    if only i had mod points...

  17. Re:What does Wikileaks get from this? on UK Asks News Outlets Not To Publish WikiLeaks Bombshell, US Prepares For Fallout · · Score: 1

    right,which is why the gap between the richest 1% and the rest of america has grown astronomically over that time period, because the rich are over taxed and over regulated.

  18. Re:PvP emphasis on Diablo 3 Hands-On · · Score: 1

    that isn't true though. For instance if you had gordon ramsay make you chicken while bobby flay made you vegetables, it would likely be very good. If you had them both make the chicken, they would probably butt heads, and you'd end up with something with flavors of both, but not enough of either one of them to really shine. probably still good, but not as good as giving one of them control over the entire thing.

  19. Re:Maybe for a home run... on Rounding the Bases Faster, With Math · · Score: 1

    Man, every single dollar spent on mathematics is an exercise in I wonder, that's actually the point of the entire field. Check out the mathematician's lament sometime (http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf). but surveying and launching things into orbit and all that is pretty neat, so we let it go. It also is just federally funded schools spending the money how they choose, as is their right.

  20. Re:Summing it up on How Google Avoided Paying $60 Billion In Taxes · · Score: 1

    actually, they don't. They destroy large businesses, which I'm okay with.

  21. Re:Summing it up on How Google Avoided Paying $60 Billion In Taxes · · Score: 1

    How is this for "fair" I pay my taxes, which go towards roads, the military, schools, the military, welfare, the military, and of course the military. Despite me paying my taxes, we are massively outspending our budget. Should we cut the budget? Probably, but no one wants to mention that if we cut the military budget in half, we would still outspend the next 7 nations combined, but this is a different argument.

                    You say that fair means you pay I benefit, and that half of Americans pay No federal income tax, but the simple fact is that I am paying, and We are outspending, because They are avoiding taxes in oversees tax shelters, and in living trusts, and a thousand other dodges. I pay my share to keep America safe, and have roads to drive on, and yes, for the military whose budget increases even though our roads have potholes, and we are facing a serious sewer problem because we don't spend on infrastructure. and yet despite my calculated share of the taxes being paid, I am getting screwed. Because the people who control 90% of the nations wealth are not paying theirs.

          For those of you playing along at home, that means that the 50% of Americans who pay no income taxes (and that is a statistic that includes children), control about 2.5% of it. I am far more concerned with a 20 to 30 percent avoidance on 90% of the wealth than even if we taxed the bottom 50 percent at a 90% tax rate and they could somehow pay it.

    I am an American, and I pay my taxes. I would like the infrastructure I am paying for

    source: http://trueslant.com/sahilkapur/2010/04/09/the-mind-blowing-surge-of-wealth-inequality-in-america/

  22. Re:So.... on High Fructose Corn Syrup To Get a Makeover · · Score: 1

    I smoke dried tobacco leaf out of my pipe on occasion, which would be a natural plant extract, but I don't think it's good for me either. Although I do think it's better than consuming an average of 35.7 lbs of HFCS a year (from TFA).

  23. Re:LOLWUT? on Newspapers Cut Wikileaks Out of Shield Law · · Score: 1

    the answer is education, and sufficient food and medicine to help buffer them at least into early adulthood. It's not even an argument, go ask any expert on developing nations.

  24. immediate problem! on The Doctor's Every Journey · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's not a crowdsourced dataset, it's more of a big timey-wimey ball.

  25. Re:Alternate solution on Is a US High-Speed Railway Economically Feasible? · · Score: 1

    rural areas don't generally have over broad highways, at least in PA where I live, it's mostly smaller township roads (maintained by the townships) until you reach a place with a decent population, or you hit a highway going between two cities anyways, and having on ramps every 20 miles is at least as much of a benefit to travelers needing gas. I freely admit to having no knowledge of how it might work in your state.

    I was really more responding to the implication that somehow living in a rural area meant that you
    where being subsidized by people living in the city. I'm not really against gas taxes. I'm not sure they are the best idea, but I don't think they should be thrown out of consideration.