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User: aepervius

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  1. "the USPS is the envy of the world." on How the USPS Killed Digital Mail · · Score: 1

    Citation for that please. Our postal service offer the same service as USPS, without the added junk. The added junk is actually done by separate private guy going from door to door. I get far far less junk in germany than my US friends living near Atlanta AND I also get my post on time and whatnot.

  2. 75% tax on rich does not exist on Google May Be $1 Billion Behind In Tax Payments To France · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have no idea where you are getting that idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... there is a 60% tax on inheritance but only if you are a remote relative. There are high income tax on very high income (41% top), and there is a very low tax on wealth (around a 1% if you are millionaire , and atround 2% if youa re over 10* millionaire). As for the article it does not speak at all about a 75% tax. As for the article, it was really written by an american "France is famous for its generous social benefits, somewhat relaxed work ethic" there are country (like germany, Sweden) which have as generous and as relaxed "work ethic". In fact I suspect the usage of the word "ethic" here as being american prejudice only.

  3. The best game are the one I remember the story on Why Should Game Stories Make Sense? · · Score: 2

    Ultima 4, 5, 6, 7, 7-2 (even the bad one 8,9), I remember the protagonists background and motivation. Heck Planescape torment, who can even forget that ? "What can change the nature of Man ?". I disagree that the story is not important. The story as a motivation well done IS important. The problem is that since the game are sold globally now, and the cultural difference between market are so huge, it is increasingly difficult to come up with a story sensitive to all cultures.

  4. The conclusion is valid on Blood of World's Oldest Woman Hints At Limits of Life · · Score: 1

    Even a few century ago you could live without teeth so your analogy isn't even good. I have no idea where you got that. I never heard also anybody pretending that. But ever tried to live without any blood white cell whatsoever ? You can't. The environment fungi, bacteria, virus, and even your own bacteria will kill you. Quickly. in short order. Why do you think "bubble baby" need to be utterly separated from their environment baring grafts ? Why do you think people with AIDS dies ? That's not the HIV which kill them but the opportunistic infection which do them in without immune system.

    Now the argument is, can we completely remove that problem ? If we cannot then the lifespan of a human is limited, even if we can extend it by slowing that problem down. At this point in time, with the technology we have and the biology as we know it, the conclusion is valid.

  5. Only if you allow it on Facebook Data Miner Will Shock You · · Score: 1

    Since it has been known there has been addon and programs to randomize that for you adding/removing unused fonts/drivers/codecs/etc.... Naturally this is an escalation race until then next one they use to identify. But in the mean time good luck linking all my persona together.

  6. *shrug* on NASA Chief Tells the Critics of Exploration Plan: "Get Over It" · · Score: 0

    Me quoting the demon-haunted-world does not mean I would agree 100% on everything Sagan Said. I am not sure why it is surprising. I recommend the book as introduction of science, rational thinking and skepticism. Not because Sagan made a nice prosa on a Pale Blue Dot.

  7. comparison is out of whack on NASA Chief Tells the Critics of Exploration Plan: "Get Over It" · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Those comparison human ability versus rover crack me up. The problem is that they are comparing one single rover against one human. What they should compare is the energy and material resource expanded to 1) launch a human 2) make sure it arrives alive 3) stay alive long enough to do stuff 4) we are not even considering it coming back alive 5) we are not even considering the horrendous cost of setting up a colony (when we aren't even a step nearer to do one on moon) 6) and we will also ignore that rover are expandable I.O.W. if the first rover crash and burn, resend another one. If you DO the comparison, then it is much cheaper to make a serie of automated vehicule which can gather stuff analyze it, and if you see you are missing info or one break, send another one.

    Human on mars is only a question of fulfilling a dream, a dream which is completely cut off from the reality of cost. it is nice for you to have a dream, but some of us prefer practical solutions.

  8. Mexico and russia ? on L.A. Science Teacher Suspended Over Student Science Fair Projects · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The reason western europe and canada is compared to USA, rather than say mexico and russia, is because they are the one which ressemble much the cultural, economical environment but also far more important political environment of the USA. Mexico and russia may fullfil one or two of those, but not all 3.

  9. There is a difference on Americans Uncomfortable With Possibility of Ubiquitous Drones, Designer Babies · · Score: 1

    Drone are actually at this day, used to kill people in other part of the world. They were not back in then 1980's. Furthermore with the incisingly militarisation of the police in the USA, the two fears are : 1) it will make it very easy to itnroduce massive "eye in the sky" surveillance everywhere in the US 2) that the drone will not stay "passive civilian like" but acquiere first strike capabilities on US soil too.

    And seeing the evolution of the no knock raid, and the surveillance society the US is building, either toward the inside or the outside (NSA), I don't think this is that an ungrounded fear.

  10. You misunderstand PhD on U.S. Biomedical Research 'Unsustainable' Prominent Researchers Warn · · Score: 0

    You do not take a PHD because you prepare for a job. You take it because youa re passionate for the subject and might hope to continue the subject. if you think a PhD is to prepare for an job, or even education in general at high level, you got it wrong. Anyway i disagree about not being a good preparation either : the autonomy and the effort needed to do a PhD "over prepare" for practically any job except a few % out there.

  11. Actually not true on Nat Geo Writer: Science Is Running Out of "Great" Things To Discover · · Score: 1

    If you watch the last century, we added limitation to the world instead of removing them. Back to newton : infinite speed possible infinite acceleration possible and while the greek had a concept of the non divisible (atoms), there was no theoretical "limit" on isntrumentation ,it was still thought you could transmute stuff into other other stuff in the middle age. And the unvierse could go on forever. Nowadays we know that inifnite speed is not possible, infinite acceleration is not possible, there is a limit on what you can measure (uncertaintly principle), transmutation is an energy expansive process, the universe will wind down forever, and there is a maximum limit on how much energy can be extracted, and do not get me started on "you can't win , you can't get out of the game etc...". From all point of view, we discovered new phenomenon, but all those resulted in imposing limitation on everything everywhere. We have discovered new phenomena, but each refined our understanding and added new limitation on what is possible. I'll grant you we have open point as we cannot go smoothly from infinitely small to infinitely big.


    Although I would not bet the house on it, I contend that it is entirely possible that we have discovered the rough outline of most laws which drive the universe, and that warp drive and worm hole are stuff of the imagination which have no place whatsoever here. And that in future we might discover refinement and new phenomenon, but none which breaks utterly all those intrinsic limitation, they might even impose on us even *more* limitation on what is doable.

  12. And yet at some point the age of consent in Uk :12 on Scientists/Actress Say They Were 'Tricked' Into Geocentric Universe Movie · · Score: 1

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

    Technically only for female, no age of consent for male. Also technically it made what we consider children prostitution (12)legal. In fact if you compare mariage age without parent assent to age of consent it was
    pretty clear the age for mariage was only to make sure the previous generation had a strong say in how the assets were handled and only that. I would also had that in welsh the mariage age was 12-14 (1550 or so). Age of consent was only raised to 16 much later (19th century).

  13. "Allow me to propose a simple rule-of-thumb for Bible readers (both "the faithful" and the skeptics) as follows: Do not criticize it any differently than you criticize every other book (i.e. use consistent standards) and do not take individual sentences out-of-context from ANY book."

    I'll do that for the harry potter book as soon as the harry potter book (and every other book) will be taken as "litteral truth" like the bible is by some people.

  14. Expelled no intelligence required on Scientists/Actress Say They Were 'Tricked' Into Geocentric Universe Movie · · Score: 1

    That one with Stein and others from creationist do the same. inf act this is their basic modus operendi : misquoting.

  15. heinz tomaotoe has more effect than homeopathy on Australia Declares Homeopathy Nonsense, Urges Doctors to Inform Patients · · Score: 1

    For one in tomatoe there is a lot of glutamate and other elements. In homeopathic madicine ? lactose , maybe water, rarely alcohol no matter which.

  16. Ha Pareidolia on Rover Curiosity Discovers Australia-Shaped Rock On Mars · · Score: 2

    Without you, how would we ever see jesus in a taco ? Or other places *cough* Like there *cough*

  17. Economically ? Yes. on Mozilla CEO Firestorm Likely Violated California Law · · Score: 1

    Company have no morals they are here to make profits. That's why we have so many rules to force them as a society to do stuff they would not do on their own on pure economical ground. For example all tragedy of common like air pollution, or even not hiring children to work in mines, or pay the same a woman and a man, or not discriminate based on skin color.

    As such If the CEO political position are such that the customer will massively impact the company , then if the CEO really has the responsibility associated with the (usual) high salary, he should leave on his own on pure economical ground for the company. And that include your case.

    Now on the moral position, it is much more iffy depending on what sort of moral you adhere to. In the above case I would say "screw the bigot customer" and try to reposition the company toward non-idiot and keep the CEO no matter the skin color or gender or religion or sexuality or cis/trans or yes indeed politic or whatever people find to discriminate. But it is much harder to define a general point.

    In this specific case, even if I tend to be against idiot bigot living in the 19th century like Eich, but I tend to think that he should not be forced to resign (he was not as far as i can tell) but should resign on his own when his own private life negatively impact the customer base (which he did).

  18. Over generalisation, much ? on German Wikipedia Has Problems With Paid Editing — and Threats of Violence · · Score: 3, Insightful

    " Unlike English WP, the Germans will threaten to 'curbstone' people for saying it."

    Yeah because all german are like that. *eyeroll*. Or alternatively one or two scums doing it for paid money saw the danger of their revenue evaporating, or even more likely, one or two idiot thought it to be fun to threaten that guy.

  19. Re:The new Hitlers The IRONY ! it burns ! on Was Eich a Threat To Mozilla's $1B Google "Trust Fund"? · · Score: 1

    "The militant gay people think they have the right to tell other people what moral values they have to have."

    As opposed to pretty much the christian which think they have a god given right (pun intended) to impose their moral value on people, among others things by refusing those people either the same right as others (gay marriage) or by imposing their moral view to stops some type of operation (abortion) or by imposing their religious view in classrooms (creationism in sheep fell - ID), or even by trying to sneak prayer and religion in government stuff like classroom, courtroom. As opposed to the people which want to be inclusive in rights. Welp. The irony burns deeply in that one.

  20. And confirmation of BS : on Hacker Holds Key To Free Flights · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "He said the model used in all EU airports to check the validity of tickets was "malfunctioning" noting they lacked "direct access to the airliner database", but wouldn't be drawn on whether he tested his research by boarding a flight."

    To that I have to say only "yeah , right" as in very sarcastic. Some airline in europe have spearheaded the interline and ground handling electronic exchange between TKT and CKI systems (using edifact messages TKCREQ, TKCUAC, TKCRES) since.... 2001. Even the medium airline are using the itnerline access. only very very small airline are still using offline process like ETL list.

    That "security" researcher never checked in real life its results.

  21. Bullshit on Hacker Holds Key To Free Flights · · Score: 4, Informative

    All the CKI system i know of, count the pax boarded against the pax list in the CKI system. If they find a discrepancy, they check the one in addition and ask to check the ticket. Good luck making your explaining.

    The bottom line was that the secure (relatively) thing is not the boarding pass but the ticket. Now if you could free ticket i would be downright impressed. Free boarding pass have long been known to be insecure. They are not there to be secure but to count boarded pax on the system against real boarded on plane, to be able to remove the one which are No-Show and remove their baggage.

  22. Victory for the Thought Police? No. on Brendan Eich Steps Down As Mozilla CEO · · Score: 1

    You reap what you sow. That guy meddled with private issues with prop 8 and decided that he did not want others to get benefits they should be awarded in a society which gives equal coverage by law. And now he got beaten the same way by having his private stuff smeared on his face. How does this shit sandwich taste like, mr bigot CEO ?

  23. You are not a sociopath on Job Automation and the Minimum Wage Debate · · Score: 1

    magine a world where a computer can always do it cheaper than a human. In that case, no humans will be employed. In this scenario, what is the harm in providing people with income via fiat money creation? I don't see much harm as long as it does not spend past the point of rampant inflation, and I sure as hell can see the harm in letting people go hungry without hope of income.

    The problem is, our democratic and capitalist system promote more easily people with less empathy, or even far more sociopath to the top. You do not see any harm in the above and see harm when people go hungry. The problem is that those at the top are far more likely different. See for example how some republican decry food aid.

  24. Already hapenning on Job Automation and the Minimum Wage Debate · · Score: 1

    In some MacDonald i was there was a terminal you could put your bank card and order stuff, you would get a slip with a number you can present. The local worker made me very clear that if I order from that terminal, I will be the *last* served, they will ignore the machine telling them to fulfill my order until they felt like it. My conclusion :
    1) The cashier are intelligent enough to understand their job is on the line with those machines
    2) they are dumb enough to tell me I will not get food quickly and will intentionally make it slow
    3) I'll never go again to that macDonald.

  25. Disagree on In the Unverified Digital World, Are Journalists and Bloggers Equal? · · Score: 1

    If journalist were giving the "analyst programmer" type of info and news I would agree. But at the moment frankly it feels they are giving you the junior first level tech level support (to continue your analogy). In fact when it comes to technical knowledge , blogger give you are far higher quality technical knowledge that the regurgitated newspaper and tv news.