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User: FooAtWFU

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  1. I have a better next step. on OKCupid Warns Off Mozilla Firefox Users Over Gay Rights · · Score: 1

    OKCupid's next step should be a button all users see on login: "Do you support the marriage-equality movement?" [yes/no]. If you click No it deletes your account.

    In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

  2. Re:Unsurprising ... on Minecraft Creator Halts Plans For Oculus Version Following Facebook Acquisition · · Score: 2
    No, it's not about money. It's about fulfilling his adolescent fantasies of being the guy who programs a lame facebook-branded Second Life knockoff. I MEAN, programming the Metaverse from Snow Crash.

    (Sorry, dropped out of the fantasy too early there.)

  3. Re:Interesting Math (like there's another variety) on Meat Makes Our Planet Thirsty · · Score: 2

    Good luck trying to convince people to not have children, especially the Bible Belt people who literally believe it's their God-given right to litter the Earth with their offspring.

    It's not just the Bible Belt -- the UN Fundamental Declaration of Human Rights (article 16) declares that "men and women of full age ... have the right to marry and to found a family." It's pretty totalitarian to suggest otherwise... which you really should try to be more aware of, lest it damage your pitch...

  4. Re:Dumb ruling on Using Handheld Phone GPS While Driving Is Legal In California · · Score: 1

    Dumb ruling, or accurate ruling on a dumb law?

  5. Re:First blacks, on Apple Urges Arizona Governor To Veto Anti-Gay Legislation · · Score: 1

    It is no longer strictly a private affair. However, if the government decides to make certain laws that substantially burden some individual's ability to exercise his religion, such as by limiting the conditions under which he may operate a business, then those laws may be found unconstitutional -- something about "congress shall make no law" blah blah blah.

  6. Re:First blacks, on Apple Urges Arizona Governor To Veto Anti-Gay Legislation · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I think it's not as simple as that and we're being confused by the proximate issue. I know that a typical case is "is it okay for a business run by some fundamentalist Christians allowed to refuse service to bake cakes or provide flower arrangements a gay wedding." Let's use different groups here to make the issues clearer. Is it okay for an event-planning business run by a Buddhist to refuse service to plan a KKK rally? To refuse to bake a cake that says [insert offensive thing a KKK member might want on a cake here]? How about just to refuse to provide services to a KKK member? Refuse to provide sale of goods?

    If the answer is "no" to the Christian baker's refusals and "yes" to the KKK rally refusal, what are the differences between these hypothetical situations? If relevant, what are the differences between the rally and the general sale of goods? What are the differences between these hypothetical situations and the law(s) being proposed?

  7. I don't care, I'm still free. on These Are the Companies the FAA Has Sent notices To For Using Drones · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You can't take the sky from me.

  8. This isn't about advertising. on Supreme Court To Hear Aereo Case · · Score: 2

    The thing is, broadcasters aren't bringing this case over lost advertising revenue. And they're not bringing it over increasing the size of the broadcast area.

    They're bringing this case because if Aereo-like services lets people access the broadcasts within the broadcast area in more convenient ways, that means the broadcasters can't make as much money from selling more-convenient access to their content (e.g. by charging cable-TV retransmission fees, or making a deal with Time-Warner Cable to let subscribers visit special subscriber-only webpages or install subscriber-only apps to stream content).

  9. Re:Cant be worse on Largest Bitcoin Mining Pool Pledges Not To Execute '51% Attack' · · Score: 1

    Yes, indeed: depending on who you believe you could believe in a bias in either direction. :P

  10. Re:Cant be worse on Largest Bitcoin Mining Pool Pledges Not To Execute '51% Attack' · · Score: 1
    Inflation is like a tax on accounts denominated in dollar amounts, it's true. However, you'll also note that inflation in the US is relatively steady since the 1980s when Volcker took over. That's why the US dollar is relatively steady right now - unlike in 1981, when inflation was 13.5% . The dollar is trusted as far as it proves trustworthy.

    But you can still get monetary shocks even if you don't depend on fiat currency: read up on the inflationary consequences of the gold rush of 1849 on the (gold-backed) money supply: "Soaring gold output from the California and Australia gold rushes is linked with a thirty percent increase in wholesale prices between 1850 and 1855."

  11. Re:Cant be worse on Largest Bitcoin Mining Pool Pledges Not To Execute '51% Attack' · · Score: 1

    Yes, well, insofar as the US Government promises not to substantially manipulate the dollar, the dollar is stable. Insofar as they don't, the value of the dollar falls relative to other, more trustworthy currencies (and commodities) and people demand higher interest for government bonds, loans, and similar instruments, to compensate for the decaying value of the dollar.

    (Of course, some "manipulation" is necessary to match fluctuations in the overall state of the economy and achieve a stable dollar. But even in ancient economies with commodity money, persistent deflation and monetary shocks were reasonably common.)

  12. Re:Put a fork in it, it's done. on FBI Edits Mission Statement: Removes Law Enforcement As 'Primary' Purpose · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It's the distance.

    The US parties may collude on a variety of things (like counterterrorism, or if you prefer, "counterterrorism") but they have significantly differing views on the relationship of the role of government to the citizenry and the economy. For instance, on the national level, the US Democratic party has been pushing for things like the recent health-care reform laws (for good or ill), additional environmental regulation, increases in the minimum wage, and other increases in taxes and spending which see the government taking a larger role in the economy, including transfer payments (welfare, etc). They also resent military spending as a rule. The Republican party pushes for less government involvement in the economy, lower/flatter tax regimes, market solutions to issues like healthcare and wages, and a regulatory regime which is not simply less stringent, but also more streamlined where it is in fact present (and they do not resent military spending, at least not as a rule).

    Things are different outside the economic arena, true, but 2008-2016's top issues were, in order: the economy, the economy, and the economy. So.

  13. Re:Cost? on Linksys Resurrects WRT54G In a New Router · · Score: 1

    Clearly you don't do a lot of networking between home computers like a NAS or something.

  14. And this on Bitcoin Exchange Value Halves After Chinese Ban · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And this is why we're still decades away from having mortgages denominated in bitcoin. :P

  15. Re:We vote on leaders not lightbulbs on US Light Bulb Phase-Out's Next Step Begins Next Month · · Score: 1

    Did our ancestors imagine they were giving the Federal government the right to ban speech?

    OF COURSE THEY DID. That's why several of the prominent political ones went to extra lengths in an attempt protect us from it, with their early amendments to the Constitution.

  16. Re:The worst thing... on GitHub Takes Down Satirical 'C Plus Equality' Language · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, I don't think it's ridiculously unreasonable that a site meant to host software projects has a requirement that hosted projects actually be software projects.

    But it doesn't. "Meet the projects that prove GitHub is a collaboration tool for all stripes". Well, all stripes except for collaborative satire against the wrong group of people.

  17. Re:Free speech on GitHub Takes Down Satirical 'C Plus Equality' Language · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well. Github's Terms of Service clearly identifies that "We may, but have no obligation to, remove Content and Accounts containing Content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, obscene or otherwise objectionable". I assume they used that discretion to find it either "offensive" or "otherwise objectionable". And clearly Github is well within their legal rights to take down this content.

    But it does illustrate the limits of Github's commitment to freedom and openness: if it offends Github's staff, or if Github thinks it offends people who could get them in some level of trouble, they'll take down your content. So, you can still use Github as a platform to effect change in the world, but only insofar as Github&co agree with you.

  18. While we're at it on GitHub Takes Down Satirical 'C Plus Equality' Language · · Score: 5, Interesting
  19. Re:The remedy on UK Men Arrested For Anti-Semitic Tweets After Football Game · · Score: 1
  20. Re:$591.25 a pop, for the antenna alone ! on High-Gain Patch Antennas Boost Wi-Fi Capacity In Crowded Lecture Halls · · Score: 1

    Geez. You could buy an Aruba AP-93 Instant for that price, and it comes with a cone-antenna built in.

  21. Re:Rail? on Atlanta Man Shatters Coast-to-Coast Driving Record, Averaging 98MPH · · Score: 1

    If you really wanted to build a high-speed rail system in a hurry and not deal with land issues, you'd piggyback on the right-of-way of (and possibly even steal some lanes from) a convenient interstate highway. (Not that this is zero-side-effect, of course.)

  22. Re:Rail? on Atlanta Man Shatters Coast-to-Coast Driving Record, Averaging 98MPH · · Score: 1

    Except cost (and profitability, if you're a Republican and think it should be less subsidized than the roads).

    A 29-hour coast-to-coast bullet train isn't competing with roads. It's competing with 5-hour coast-to-coast air travel. The unpleasantness and other limitations and subsidies of air travel notwithstanding, a bullet train which takes ~6x as long will also need to have a price-per-trip that's at least somewhat competitive with coast-to-coast air travel for most people to bother considering it.

    Notably, the extant US passenger rail system is not very competitive with air travel on most routes outside of the Boston-Washington corridor.

  23. Menlo Park? on Facebook Building a Company Town · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Legally it's Menlo Park, but that's just because of the gerrymandering. If you'd asked me, I'd say Facebook HQ is in East Palo Alto, a high-crime/low-income area that most people in the area know only by its IKEA. Between the safety and the paucity of relevant local stores/services/etc, it's not exactly the number one place you'd choose to live. (That said, if you're over there, try some Jamaican food at Back-a-yard.)

    They've also got Fremont nearbyish (across the bridge) - it's reasonably affordable for the area, but it's all sprawling-suburbs and is very quiet. Palo Alto is the next town over the freeway; if you don't mind fighting rush-hour traffic for half an hour to go a few miles, it's probably the most interesting place to live. Menlo Park proper has limited housing stocks. Atherton is even worse (it's a series of sprawling mansions, though a pleasant drive).

    If living near work keeps some employees sane, these apartments will be a godsend. Of course, the real question is "why did facebook put its headquarters in the armpit of the Bay?"

    I'm in Brooklyn now. Subway to work. :D

  24. Re:Do they have a braille score? on MuseScore Aims Make 50,000 New Braille Scores Available To Blind Musicians · · Score: 1
  25. Re:Taxi Medalion on California Becomes First State In Nation To Regulate Ride-Sharing · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "This is a pure case of upstarts rather than entrenched interests with political connections in California finding a way to make a profit and the state can't allow that."

    Adjusted that FTFY of yours for you. (Because there are a few notable non-corporate examples from time to time.)