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User: CatWrangler

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  1. Re:Its racist on Lessons From the Papal Conclave About Election Security · · Score: 4, Informative

    Show the documentation that Mickey Mouse voted. This is false. The Mickey Mouse thing is legitimate. It's been distorted like the McDonalds coffee case. If you hand somebody a registration form, and they put Mickey Mouse on it, BY LAW, you are not allowed to discard it. You MUST turn it in. What most groups like ACORN did was segregate these suspicious registrations before turning them in. Legally they had no choice. It has become a right wing talking point that they were all eager to register Mickey Mouse. This is false. Quit believing email forwards from your grandparents.

  2. Familial Hits on US Set on Expansion of Security DNA Collection · · Score: 1

    One of the biggest concerns on privacy is that the computers can spit out near hits. You have a brother who has been previously arrested for a crime and is in the database. Just say you were in the apartment of somebody who later was murdered. You used a razorblade shaving. They take the DNA from there, and discover that a very close relative of this criminal was in the apartment. You will be getting a visit very soon. They don't need to get everybody's DNA. They just need enough people closely related by blood to everybody to get a good idea about it. Every single piece of your body that secretes DNA is good enough to near identify you now as long as you have a close relative in the system.

  3. Re:Could we charge the police with a crime? on Court Rules GPS Tracking Legal For Law Officers · · Score: 1

    That was an episode of "The Practice" actually. I have no idea if it was based in reality, or just a plot line.

  4. Re:WOW! Could it live up to his hype? on Inventor Slims Down Exoskeletal Body Armor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nah, bank robbers would love to have these. Run into a bank, take a few shots from the security guard before disarming him. You are "disguised" and if the police pull up, you have a good chance of again taking them out before they get you. A suit like this is a criminal's wet dream (if it works).

  5. 95 year protection? on UK Think Tank Calls For Fair Use Of Your Own CDs · · Score: 4, Informative

    A drug company spends several hundred million to develop, test, and market a drug, and they get less than 20 years until generics can replace them. Milli Vanilli is supposed to get 95 years now? That's fair.

  6. Culture of Death on Paypal Co-Founder Backs Anti-Aging Research Prize · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Even with our "short" life spans now, people commit suicide, engage in risky sexual practices, talk on the cell phones while driving, eat fettucine alfredo, etc, etc. What indication is there for a great public need for extended lifetimes? All this will mean is more work. Retirement at 85 until you can get SS benefits? No thank you. Lifespan is pretty ok right now. We need better quality, not quantity of life.

  7. Bored on CCTV Cameras In UK Get Loudspeakers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, just because it may be boring to you, does not mean it doesn't exist. We are rushing headlong into an age of massive amounts of ability to violate privacy due to the ability to store the data, and the medium to create it. We are not having a true debate in society about how to balance safety and privacy. It's a pity it bores you, but for some of us, we can at least make an attempt to have some dialogue about the issue before we jump into the abyss.

  8. Privacy will become a commodity on CCTV Cameras In UK Get Loudspeakers · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They aren't even close to being as ubiquitous as they shall be in the not too distant future. They will be linked to your driver's photo, your credit cards, you name it. People will pay money to live in the country side behind gates, with guards, but no cameras. Only the poor and middle class will have to live under this great experiment in voyeurism. The criminals will find ways around detection. The rest of us will lose more and more of our privacy rights. Kids born today will be numb and accustomed to the lack of freedom, just as our overlords want.

  9. Another brick in the wall on Samsung Breaks the 4G Barrier · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The entertainment industry will have to come up with a new business model, such as product placement instead of ad space due to the speed and the storage levels on the horizon. It's actually old school. Texaco theater might make a come back. Or, like ESPN does with Soccer games, there might be split screen ads during credits, little product logos in the corner, etc. Crack may kill, but speed is going to bring death to modern advertising.

  10. Re:jesus christ, what a bunch of goddamn luddites on System Integration Leads to MegaFunction Gadgets · · Score: 1

    It's not technology we oppose, just stupid implementations. Slapping my toothbrush and my PDA into one package is "cool" but I don't want stank mouth if my OS crashes. That is not being a luddite, it's being reasonable. I am thinking more along the lines of a shrunk down tower, components that can be swapped out. It can be small. I just don't want to lose 15 functions, when 1 function is lost.

  11. Integration stinks on System Integration Leads to MegaFunction Gadgets · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A good example is the tv sets with dvd and vcr players built in. It's a nice package, but if your dvd busts, you have to give up your tv to get it fixed. Integration is nice, but it comes at a price. I would rather have nodules that are interchangable, flexible than everything in one package. You can have it all, or you can have nothing. Not a good trade-off.

  12. Why was he arrested? on Hacker Resells VOIP For Profit · · Score: 3, Funny

    If he was in the Government, he would have gotten a medal of freedom, and a nice no-bid contract after this was done.

  13. Very Stupid and Shortsighted on No More Next Big Thing? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Cold Fusion could happen by 2099 no? We could also cure cancer, AIDS, and a whole host of other things. Yes, alot of "invention" right now is actually synergy more than anything else, but there still is progress out there. Biotech, human genome project, robotics, etc. Now with current leadership in place, we might be enjoying these things on beach front property in Topeka, Kansas, but all the same, invention will continue.

  14. This is great on Quantum Telecloning Demonstrated? · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now I can be screwed in 32 different states. Kinda like Madonna.

  15. Re:I would think it is obvious.. on Rumsfeld Requests 24-hour Propaganda Machine · · Score: 4, Funny

    To be fair, you go to war with the Secretary of Defense you have, not the one you want or need, to paraphrase Rummy himself.

  16. Stopping on Near Light Speed Travel Possible After All? · · Score: 1

    If I am reading this correctly (IIARTC), there is no way to safely stop with any foreseeable technology. If the anti-gravity wave reduces to near nothing, as you approach near nothing speed, than you have to be pretty damned sure that you aren't bumping into the satellite for Alpha Centauri news when you near it. With unchartered space, a collision is bound to happen when you slow down unless your sensors can detect something oh say the size of a buick from 1,000,000 miles ahead when you tap the brakes.

  17. Re:1 + 1 on Introducing Probability into Chip Design · · Score: 1

    There is a 90% chance that you are correct. But there is only a 50% chance of that.

  18. Re:maybe 100 years.... on Will Humanoid Robots Take All the Jobs by 2050? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If they ever simulate our fingers and our hip, wrist, ankle, knee joints only then will most people be in trouble. Yes robots are now "stronger" than humans, but they don't have our dexterity to match it. They simply aren't close. Once they reach that stage of critical mass, the ball game is over. Does anybody honestly think that wealthy people are going to pay for a strange woman from El Salvador to clean their houses, once a machine can do it to such an exacting standard, that there are actual microscoptic samples being done of dirt particles done on every floor and wall of the house? If your robotic "maid" can be programmed to clean every time you aren't around for example. Detecting the moment you go outside to take a 2 mile brisk run as a great time to clean maniacally for 15 minutes. When you head to the bathroom, it decides to do a 3 minute spot clean up in the kitchen or take out the trash. There is no way that once prices are right, that anybody is going to give this type of job to a human for any other reason than charity.

  19. Beavis on Corn-Based Plastic · · Score: 1

    Condoms made of this stuff would be fun. Think of Beavis' alter ego.

  20. Re:A little late in the game on Case to Step Down from AOLTW · · Score: 2

    Remember when people thought he might be a counter balance to Bill Gates? While not a fan of his, or his crappy software, at least it was another option.

  21. Conflicting Trends on Low Profile Satellite TV Antennas for Vehicles · · Score: 5, Interesting
    On the one hand, we have those who telecommute and stay off the roadways, on the other, there are those who basically live in their cars. I know several people, personally, who commute 4 hours a day in bumper to bumper traffic.

    It sounds bad, in that it might cause accidents, but it may in effect encourage carpooling. If folks had a wide array of entertainment options on their trips, this may actually encourage more responsible commuting.

  22. Scientists on Habitable Planets May Be Common · · Score: 5, Interesting

    First they tell us the earth ain't flat, then the Universe doesn't resolve around our planet... then the fake moon landings, now this. Good thing we have fundamentalists around telling us it isn't so. Seriously, unless there is a nature of physical or sound travel that we are unaware of, it really doesn't matter much to us that much if there is a civilization 1000 light years away. In the 2,000 years it would take to get a super amplified light message to them and back, will we still be around to listen?

  23. Working for Peanuts on Techies Working for Peanuts · · Score: 5, Funny
    Working for Peanuts is ok. If I get to work with Marcie and Peppermint Patty... Can you say threesome?

    I don't know what these guys are complaining about anyways.

  24. Wrong Direction on iRobot Moves Into Your House · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Little droids are not the answer. Smart technology that is seamless, like an anti electo static floor that is combined with low lying filters that suck up dust bunnies will be more practical and marketable in the long run.

    Robots are cool at first, but they will become as obtrusive as a visit from the mother-in-law. You do not want to trip over one of these things at 2am when you are raiding the fridge.

    It is also bad enough when the dog is looking at you when you are having sex, but a robot running around the room straightening up while you are doing the nasty is probably worse(unless you are into that kinda thing).

    Give people seamless technology, that is as unobtrusive and "invisible" as possible, and you will have a winner.

  25. Why does Valenti have any credibility? on Hollings vs. McCain on Broadband and Copyrights · · Score: 3, Insightful

    He claimed that VCR's would doom the industry, and they turned out to be their saviour. So, other than him being able to write checks to politicians, is there anything he has to say on this issue that isn't suspect on the face of it?