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User: ChrisMaple

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Comments · 11,051

  1. Re:Prison time on CHP Officers Steal, Forward Nude Pictures From Arrestee Smartphones · · Score: 2

    Stalking involves both following and threatening.

    What's going on here is invasion of privacy, and illegal search and seizure. If the images were actually stolen (copied and the original destroyed) as opposed to just copied, there's also petty theft and/or willful destruction of private property. There's also criminal conversion and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

  2. Re:um, BIG difference omitted... on How To Beat Online Price Discrimination · · Score: 1

    That is NOT as it should be. Wrong is wrong, evil is evil, and no vote turns evil into good.

  3. From the article on Decades-old Scientific Paper May Hold Clues To Dark Matter · · Score: 2

    "All of this has to be done in a very tight straitjacket."

    Pretty much sums up the whole subject.

  4. Re:Why on Shooting At Canadian Parliament · · Score: 1

    The "radicalized" Canadian was not a terrorist, he was a disturbed individual who latched onto the ideology on his own accord.

    No difference. If you embrace Islam and try to kill in the name of Islam, you're an Islamic terrorist. Trying to make a distinction between a crazy person and a Muslim is doomed to failure.

  5. This is just wrong. on FTDI Reportedly Bricking Devices Using Competitors' Chips. · · Score: 2, Informative

    Unless the non-FTDI chips are using some patented technology without permission, or are using FTDI trademark, they are doing no wrong. Second-sourcing of integrated circuits has been going on for at least 45 years, and it's completely legal. The fact that their silicon looks completely different indicates that the copiers are not violating copyright as far as the chip is concerned. Unless I'm missing something, FTDI is engaging in willful destruction of private property and should suffer immense fines.

  6. Re:Telomeres, tiny 'hairs' that split DNA for dupi on Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres · · Score: 1

    The CO2 makes sodas quite acidic, and the sugar frequently encourages the stomach to produce HCl. The combination can be a problem, particularly when it's habitual. Think esophageal cancer, for instance.

  7. Re:Cumulative? How about other quantities? on Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres · · Score: 1

    If you can tolerate it, 5 minutes of running a day will bring down your blood pressure substantially in a month.

  8. Re:Overly broad? on Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres · · Score: 1

    A quite common preservative is sodium benzoate. Sounds pretty nasty, huh? Well, it's a natural constituent of cranberries, prunes, and apples. It also is useful against schizophrenia and urea cycle disorders.

    Then there's ascorbic acid used as a preservative. It's an essential nutrient.

  9. Re:Overly broad? on Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres · · Score: 1

    There are a number of good reasons to care. One is that it adds a valuable bit to a person's general store of knowledge. Another is that it might suggest a way to make an equally tasty beverage that does less damage. Still another is that it may cause a person to choose a better drink from among already available alternatives.

  10. Re:Overly broad? on Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres · · Score: 1

    It's good to have some carbohydrates, but that doesn't have to mean sugars. Starch is broken down into maltose and glucose, but starch is not a sugar.

  11. Re:Overly broad? on Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres · · Score: 1

    HFCS is widely used because U.S. cane sugar lobbyists successfully pushed for high duties on imported sugar: this allowed U.S. producers to push up the price of cane sugar. Big users of sugar in processed foods then looked for cheaper ways to get the same sweetness, and HFCS became a practical substitute. If common sugars are all made more expensive, the search for practical alternatives will intensify. Perhaps someone will find a way to make the sugar alcohols like xylitol or other chemicals tasting very much like sugar such as inositol, cheap enough.

    Actually, cane sugar (or the equivalent beet sugar) is quite cheap, and the price would probably have to more than double to cut down much on most people's intake.

  12. Re:You keep using that word... "basically"... on Soda Pop Damages Your Cells' Telomeres · · Score: 1

    Sugar is usually used to make foods "sweet enough", and according to Pearson and Shaw fructose is almost twice as sweet as cane sugar (in cold foods). If you're eating for taste rather than an energy boost or a sugar buzz, fructose has the advantage that less is needed - not that food buyers have much choice about sugar content of foods they don't prepare themselves.

  13. Re:WHO's on first? on Canada Will Ship 800 Doses of Experimental Ebola Drug to WHO · · Score: 1

    Won't get fooled again.

  14. Re: I don't follow on Apple Doesn't Design For Yesterday · · Score: 5, Informative

    Helvetica was invented in 1957, so it wasn't created by Apple either. And no sans-serif font can be "most readable".

  15. Re:One crap audio brand battling with another on Despite Patent Settlement, Apple Pulls Bose Merchandise From Its Stores · · Score: 1

    People who create music go to a lot of trouble to make it sound just right. If your playback system isn't flat, it doesn't sound like its creator intended, so it's inferior.

  16. Re:Let me get this right on Bill Gates: Piketty's Attack on Income Inequality Is Right · · Score: 1

    Any high level of taxation is stupid; the higher the stupider. High levels of taxation mean that people will act in ways that minimize the tax they pay; instead of producing or enjoying themselves, they are living their lives to avoid government burdens. High taxes of any form distort the economy. Short term, high taxes make most people worse off, long term everybody is worse off (because of the loss of technological advances.)

    If the tax burden is low, it's not worth the effort to avoid it, and most people can't be bothered when they have something better to do.

  17. Re:That ain't working on Bill Gates: Piketty's Attack on Income Inequality Is Right · · Score: 1

    Comparing to things that don't exist (color TVs in 1914) is fallacious and silly. It's hard to compare anything given that technology makes things easier to create, but commodities like gold trade for 60 times more dollars and bread 25X.

  18. Re:Let me get this right on Bill Gates: Piketty's Attack on Income Inequality Is Right · · Score: 1
    According to a study cited by the Washington Post, 14.7% of the wealth of the top 1% was inherited or received as a gift. That's nowhere near a majority. Furthermore,

    Wolff and Gittleman also find that because wealth transfers generally make up a bigger portion of the wealth of poor and middle-class people, they actually reduce wealth inequality, in aggregate. “Our simulations show that eliminating inheritances either in full or in part actually increases overall wealth inequality and, in particular, sharply reduces the share of the bottom 40 percent of the wealth distribution,” they write. So while there’s no doubting that the rich are inheriting a lot of money — 14.7 percent of the wealth of the top 1 percent isn’t nothing, after all — it remains the case that inheritance does not increase wealth inequality.

    Think about it: if you're poor and inherit a tiny slum house, it's proportionally a greater portion of your wealth (which might previously have been negative) than a million dollar estate to someone who has already accumulated, e.g., $300,000.

  19. Re:Let me get this right on Bill Gates: Piketty's Attack on Income Inequality Is Right · · Score: 1

    A: the purpose of the zoning code is to keep the poor and minorities out of middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods,
    B: and that in turn restricts economic mobility,
    C: keeping the poor dependent on social programs for their livelihood.

    It is completely absurd to claim that A implies either B or C.

    Where I live, the zones are 1. Village 2. Rural 3. Industrial 4. Recreational (a ski center)
    The divisions are based on existing business (no housing allowed in the industrial zone) and the necessity for a water and sewage system in the more densely populated village zone.
    Would you like to explain how those zones "keep the poor and minorities out of middle-class and wealthy neighborhoods"?

  20. Re:Let me get this right on Bill Gates: Piketty's Attack on Income Inequality Is Right · · Score: 1

    One person can only buy so much.

    There are far more things available for purchase than any one person's money can buy; he'll run out of money before he runs out of things to buy or time in which to buy them. Consider politicians, they're very expensive and don't even stay bought!

    Money saved at a bank doesn't stay in Scrooge McDuck's money bin; banks need to loan it out so that they can offer interest, pay their employees, and make a profit. Most of the money in savings accounts is loaned out to allow housing construction.

  21. Re:Let me get this right on Bill Gates: Piketty's Attack on Income Inequality Is Right · · Score: 1

    You're assuming democracy is a good hing.

  22. Re:Let me get this right on Bill Gates: Piketty's Attack on Income Inequality Is Right · · Score: 1

    Under your system the person who chooses to keep his money under his mattress is punished with additional taxation. Also, a person who accumulates goods in preparation to starting a business has those goods counted as consumption, which will be disproportionally taxed. It's an additional barrier to new businesses, particularly sole proprietorships.
    In addition, there's no allowance for catastrophic losses like theft or fire.

  23. Re:Let me get this right on Bill Gates: Piketty's Attack on Income Inequality Is Right · · Score: 1

    Material costs are not properly considered expenses to be calculated into deductions. What is taxed is profit, not cash flow.

  24. Re:Let me get this right on Bill Gates: Piketty's Attack on Income Inequality Is Right · · Score: 1

    The Fair Tax (and other vastly simplified systems) has the advantage that it removes one burden on the economy: people whose business is to calculate and/or minimize taxes.

  25. Re:The Middle Class is the Bedrock of Society on Bill Gates: Piketty's Attack on Income Inequality Is Right · · Score: 1

    If you don't control something, you don't really own it. Heavily regulated industries aren't a characteristic of capitalism. Regulation has never been heavier than it is now; regulations by just the federal government are more than a person could read and understand in a lifetime. Regulations are increasing by 80,000 pages a year.

    Government growth is primarily the domain of leftists and Democrats, and labor unions align with them. That labor unions are becoming weaker is a function of more people seeing through the union fallacy and the passage of laws preventing forced unionization and preventing intimidation by union thugs.