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1) Not all "masses" have internet. 2) Many of the "masses" don't know about Khan Academy because: a) They might not seek it. b) They have nowhere to hear about it from.

More ISP competition is indeed the perfect world, long term solution. However even if we as a societiy somehow came up with a mechanism by which we could incentivise fledgling ISPs to lay down the infrastructure to produce at least four options for most all Americans - it won't happen. Best case, it's years and years away. The current ISP pipes that run to most homes were created out of government structured monopolies, which were heavily regulated. Until such time there is sufficient competition, we should as a society continue to demand such monopolies be heavily regulated. ISP's are cable companies and telecoms, two businesses that have enjoyed monopolies for decades. For a very long time this worked quite well. The capital investment required to wire our large nation was truly huge - and the result was (for the time) very good. Enter the new millennium, and that model is outdated and broken. The Telcos and Cable companies have reaped the rewards of their initial capital investment many-many times over. They no longer deserve any special status due to their initial investments.

Thats true, but we don't have a single symbol for ten in base-10... otherwise, it wouldn't be base-10, it'd be base 11! And really, a better way of looking at a persons hands is as base-1, since adding one to a base-1 number system just adds a digit. (imagine these are fingers: ||+|=|||) This being, of course, that we make the distinction of each finger being a digit, and having the finger up constitues a 'one'. if we count having fingers down as 'zeroes' it's possible to count in binary using your hands. Furthermore, we say base-10 is base-10 because base-10 has ten possible digits; 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9. We count in base 10, but not because zero is a complicated concept. Our usual systems of numbers don't usually work without zeroes, although in some cultures they effectively had a zero, but simply omitted any digit at all where a zero should be. One last thing, sure. Our hands can be base 11, but if thats the case, both your hands together count as only one digit in base-11. We use the same word for fingers, so answer me this; do hands have 10 digits, 11 digits, or 1 digit?

They need to make it like putty: Select whatever to copy, right-click to paste. I need the standard use of Ctrl-C to cancel a command, not to copy.

minimum wage law raises their incomes. This does not happen, it is not true that "minimum wage law raises their incomes". The market corrects for the imbalance and makes their "effective" pay the same as it was before the "raise". Minimum wage was enacted in a time when there was business collusion to fix wages at a low rate. It was a counter measure to correct a problem. Collusion of that sort is illegal now, there are many other methods in place to prevent it and in modern times, the transparency the internet provides, makes that type of collusion impossible. What you do when you raise minimum wage: Mom and Pop: Let's say they generate $6000/week in gross profit, not revenue, gross profit. This is a common and realistic figure, even optimistic, depending where they are located and what they sell. Much of that will go back into the business, restoring supplies and products, lights, rent, gas and such. So let's say that they have 14 employees, not a great many but roughly average for a small business doing that much business. 14 employees at $8/hour, the business stays open 12 hours/day so the store must be staffed 12 hours/day. If it's a Subway or Noodles or the like you cannot simply have one employee on duty at a time. So 2 to open, 8-5, another 2 for lunch, 10-2 and 11-3. Then you need closers, so we'll just say 2 at 5-9. 4 of these people are part time, so they can only work 4-6 days/week, you will play with the specific schedule based on needs, people being out sick, vacations, school. Point is, every week, you pay for employee hours at 32hours/day, or more. We'll be generous and just say 32hours/day. In this, unrealistically optimistic example, only 16 of those are full time employees so you'll pay them $12/hour, which costs you (the employer) about $18/hour, due to taxes mostly, and other expenses. Part timers we'll say get $8/hour, which costs you $10/hour, less because they're only part time. So every day your expenses, just in employees, are about $500/day. Those are weekdays, weekend requires more staff, so we'll call those $700/day. $3900 is your VERY low, incredibly optimistic weekly expense for employees. This is excluding extra staff that you keep on payroll for scheduling conflicts and such. But even being idealistic and naive that leaves only $2,100/week to restock the store, pay the bills and rent, not to mention paying yourself, as the owner. The accounting people, interest on your loans, franchise dues, and all the other expenses associated with owning and operating your own business. You would be lucky to make $50k/year. Which is a lower salary than most corporate jobs pay. Most small business owner's (in the real world, not my idealistic, optimistic example, only take home around 32k/year, which is why they open other locations whenever possible. Now, that I've given you the numbers, what happens when Obama raises payroll taxes? What happens when all of a sudden your employee expenses go up $1500/week from a minimum wage increase? Answer: Either you have to fire people, or close the business to go work for someone else. You have no opportunity to grow, and become large enough to employ more people at higher wages. You could risk raising prices, which if you're lucky you can survive, but this will likely reduce the number of sales, which would reduce total income. So you probably raise prices a little and fire a couple people. So now your customers have longer wait times because there is less staff. Your staff has worse work conditions because now there's no one to cover their shifts when needed, either show up or be replaced.

Ok, as a software engineer with a little background in legal matters involving my work - - I have some serious concerns with this. Hear me out. Law enforcement may be able to misuse this law. They WILL misuse it if provided the chance. Security - is often bad. Saying Law enforcement can only access a device with a warrant - is a good thing. There needs to be a clause which indemnifies people whose devices are open. It's kind of a "if you have a fence up, you expect privacy." If your doors are left wide open and your yard has no fence - how can you be surprised if someone walks in your living room? People who are irresponsible in the management of their devices should not be offered the protection of a law like this. So - password protected accounts or devices that are not publicly accessible should be exempt from this law. If you open your device to the public, you are expressly allowing anyone and everyone to see what is on it. Now - as to WHY I say this, it's for all of our own good. Our devices often connect to other which are open. Sometimes automatically. If there were a law like this on the books - with no protection for connecting to open devices - you could be prosecuted for connections which you may not even be aware of. Requiring that each connections is approved per-connection is a bad idea - unsecured accounts need to be written right into the law with a clause declaring an "unsecured" or "publicly accessible" account implies permission for access. That part of the law would be misused by law enforcement.

I currently cant pull a source out of my ass for this, even though Hawking is a pretty smart guy, there are way better people in his topic, also most of the time his thesis are just some ideas which are not able to be proved. But well for himself going is that 99% of mankind knows him but probably not a dozen of better scientists of today.

He's quite friendly. He

Back in middle school, I very un-ninja-like used the family computer to look at porn, unaware of all the cookies that were being installed. Well, unaware at least, until one day I was watching TV and I hear screams coming from the computer room... I scrambled upstairs afraid someone was hurt, only to find my 8 year old brother in the corner holding his ears, and my mom bright red and livid, looking at me like she wanted to murder me. On the computer was a website with a bunch of women holding their anuses (is that plural for anus?) open for the camera. Shit i never even thought to look at. She was so angry at me she was borderline going to send me to a psychologist. That's what she was yelling at me at least. I tried to reason with her about how this wasn't mine. I was just a healthy, horney boy, jerking off sexual frustration. She eventually calmed down and decided not to get me a psychologist, but from that day on, if the computer ever gets a virus, she thinks its me and my porn. What a reputation. Maybe i should show her this article...

This article was just so far away from reality that it will take the light from reality a thousand years to reach it. For anyone who hasn't read it yet here is a

I find the entitled tone of this title to be indicative of the cause of a lot of societal problems. It's not my internet. It's not your internet. It doesn't really belong to anyone. If you own a company, and you spend millions of dollars on network equipment, and connect your stuff to another company's stuff and share information, you have an internet. You can pay a small bit and use it if you like. If you start a local area network in your neighborhood, and decide to team up with the trailer park down the street and create a larger network, then it's your internet. The utopian ideal of an open, free internet is great. The idea that this is the greatest achievement of mankind, the sum of all human knowledge, herp derp, etc. - awesome. But someone has to pony up the cash for that system. As long as you're not the person building the backbone infrastructure, you really have no reason to complain about a meeting of this type.

It seems to me that routinely canning projects or features that your employees worked very hard on just teaches them that "Hey, my good work is just going to get thrown out, so I might as well half-ass this." This leads to even shittier products because employees figure the company doesn't want or deserve their hard work.

Yaaaay! I love getting a chance to use these numbers: (I'm just going to copy and paste this from a previous comment) The headline a few weeks back was that Android tablets were 30% of the market. That's an insanely incorrect figure - or immensely humiliating if it only refers to "shipments". Only Apple releases actual sales numbers - this is a disturbing state of affairs. The iPad shipments and sales numbers are identical because Apple is selling every one they can make. So far, Apple has sold 28.7 million iPad 1 and 2s combined in 15 months. Larry Page announced 3 weeks ago that Android is running on 135 million devices now. According to [this]( handy Android stat tracker from Google, 1.3% of all Android devices active in the past 2 weeks are running Honeycomb. If you do those quick and dirty numbers, that works out to 1.75 million tablets in the hands of customers. Since we know that the Galaxy Tab runs 2.3, it's reasonable to assert there are a few hundred thousand more "tablets" to add to that total, despite the Tab's questionable claim of being a true 'tablet'. Another good metric from the Google numbers is the screen size. They state that 1.2% of all Android devices are running on x-large (aka tablet) size screens. 1.2% of 135 million Androids is 1.62 million tablets. 30% of iPad + Android tablet sales does not equal 1.35 million. 30% of total tablet sales worldwide is 9.09 million devices which you can not achieve through any interpretation of these numbers. If Android tablets actually ARE 30% of all shipments, that means there are 7.34-7.47 million android tablets languishing on store shelves. Bad news.

Perhaps people who aren't in the 'apple family' thought twice about it and realized that a laptop is a better thing to have than a tablet? You guys make Steve Jobs job very easy being so positive all the time.

As the top domain registrar, they of all companies should realize the negative impact SOPA has on their customers. Also they seem to have helped greatly with the legislation, plus they are exempt from anything negative.

Pure View Pro]( is the imaging system they use. And they make the bullshit claim that it essentially makes optical zoom redundant. Wikipedia warns you that this article appears to have been written like an advert. Other than that, WTF are they doing shipping with Symbian OS!? Didn't Nokia just make their entire Symbian division redundant and make the commitment to Windows Mobile?

It blows my mind how late capitalism's grasp on copyright has lead to a weak public domain... the exact opposite of why copyright was created. It was supposed to give a small portion of exclusivity to creators as an incentive to innovate. Turns out the main problem with this whole thing is that cash gravitates toward cash and by this point there are only a few record labels in control of everything and they're so powerful, they influence the way their content is handled. Lobbying for laws that protect them to politicians who don't know any better, politicians who only 'serve' the public for payment and use lobbiers to supplement their incomes. Nobody is held accountable for all of this. Nobody gets jail time for buying the 'opinions' of those with power. In fact, the law blames those at the bottom of the pile. People who grew up being sold the idea of the free market, first generation university students who were convinced all they had to do was get an education and step in line and everything would be Ok. That our lives would be just like our parents and there'd be a job waiting at the end of our degrees or masters or Ph.D. Exceedingly however, this is not the case. The truth turns out to be what most people have known for a long time. It's not experience or education or opportunity which greases the wheels, it's merely cash. Cash that by this point has gravitated into the hands of a minority and will never leave. It's top down enterprise and the ruling class has to protect their property... their extensive property... property so vast, it extends into your youtube accounts and your technologically savvy ways to further the works of society in artistic and innovative ways. It matters not whether 'illegal downloads' are stealing or whether they're copyright infringement. What is really at hand is how laws are bent and shaped to protect the real interests of those who manage the country's of this World... their wallets.

this only works if you only listen to versions of songs that someone recorded on a home quality audio recorder from the speakers of the origninal. i agree that the riaa/mpaa suck and are complaining about amounts that dont really hurt but this wont do anything to stop them. the organizations clearly know that we dislike them. a better way than mocking these clearly outdated organizations is to support smaller emerging labels and organizations that embrace the modern age and provide services that work with it. for most of us the issue is not paying for music its the fact that the licences and quality provided do not meet the price assigned to them. if your only reason for pirating music is that you dont want to pay for it than what you are doing IS nothing more than stealing and you DO deserve to be punished. not to the extremes that people are but any arguments that claim that piracy is justified morally or legally are just plain wrong. im not against piracy but i dont pretend that i am morally right or legally entitled to do this. i viewed it as the only way to get the quality and services demanded of my music. and now that things like spotify exist there is no excuse for piracy as a way to skirt costs.

the digital copy is as valuable as the physical copy, less the cost to print/ship the physical copy.

When I'm in doubt about what a program/script does I always 'click no'. If it was something important or necassary I'll usually notice quite quickly and install it then. If it isn't important or necassary I'll never notice and not miss it.

Blame engadget. 4 minutes per edit != one edit every 4 minutes (on average). The Telegraph, which engadget name as their source, says it's "just over one [edit] every four minutes". If you know how Wikipedia works, you'll know that it's impossible to reliably tell how long a person has been working on an edit they're submitting. You can make educated guesses based on editing patterns, but that's pretty much it. You don't really know what people are doing between two submissions. All the servers know is that edit X was submitted at time T. There is no firm indication anywhere how long the user might have been working on their edit prior to clicking that Save page button. And if a contributor uses AutoWikiBrowser, it's even easier to quickly submit a large number of edits without spending a lot of time on each one.

Not sure if this is in the emails, but I remember this -> (sorry can't link, ends in a ) so it just fucks it up) from an earlier leak. HIGHLIGHTS: > Ice Cube Incident >A Xenu-like story in which alien invaders in flying saucers "plant" living entities. Says Hubbard in A History of Man, "Here is an intriguing incident which, if your preclear demands, should be audited. This is evidently a method of transportation of beings to a new area. The being is packed in ice, is taken to the new area and is usually dumped in the ocean. Your preclear, if he has this one in restimulation, has very cold hands and feet chronically." Hubbard also notes: "The new crew in the area is later quite surprised to find that their planted beings, so carefully dumped in the sea from a saucer, are being picked up between lives and given "treatment" by an old, established invader whose methods of political control are long since established." (1988 edition, pg. 109) ... > Jack-in-the-Box >According to Hubbard, "here we have an invader trick, a method of trapping thetans." The alien invaders trick the thetans into gathering an endless loop of facsimile pictures and confusing themselves, ultimately ending in an explosion. Hubbard warns auditors, "You will find a preclear with this in restimulation to be very curious about cereal boxes which have pictures of cereal boxes which have pictures of cereal boxes." (A History of Man, 1988 edition, pg. 98-99) ... > Aircraft Door Goals: The Aircraft Door Goals were implanted between 315 trillion[1] years ago and 216 trillion[1] years ago aboard the fuselage of an aircraft, with the thetan held motionless in front of the aircraft door. Hubbard writes that "the goal items were laid in with explosions". The specific goals given in this implant were variants of the command "to create." ("Routine 3N: Line Plots", HCOB 14 July 1963) ... > Gorilla Goals >A black gorilla was said by Hubbard to have been used by the Hoipolloi to implant the Gorilla Goals. According to Scientology, the Gorilla Goals were a series of implants created by invaders from Helatrobus "between about 319 trillion[1] years ago to about 256 trillion trillion[8] years ago". They were given in an amusement park with a single tunnel, a roller coaster and a Ferris wheel ... The symbol of a Gorilla was always present in the place the goal was given. Sometimes a large gorilla, black, was seen elsewhere than the park. A mechanical or a live gorilla was always seen in the park. This activity was conducted by the Hoipolloi, a group of operators in meat body societies. They were typical carnival people. They let out concessions for these implant "Amusement Parks." A pink-striped white shirt with sleeve garters was the uniform of the Hoipolloi. Such a figure often rode on the roller coaster cars. Monkeys were also used on the cars. Elephants sometimes formed part of the equipment. ("Routine 3N: Line Plots", HCOB 14 July 1963)

That's only about 11 teachers per year assuming you're talking about short tons, using the average Oregonian body mass index, and average height of US citizen's (both male/female). The most significant source of error there is probably average height of US citizens since teachers are more frequently female. With that in mind, using the average height of US females over 15 (5'4") you end up with 12 and a quarter teachers per year.

Initially I was wicked excited, but then I realized this still doesn't solve my biggest problem with sharing files via dropbox, Google drive, or any other service. If I'm actively actively working on a file and want to share it with someone, this is perfectly fine and works great. However, if I want to send someone a file as a one-off and essentially forget about it, this doesn't help at all. With email I can share a file with someone and they cab retrieve it at their leisure. It gets stored out of sight and I don't have to think about it again. Hell, I can even delete the sent message and my recipient will still receive the file without issue. With Google's new Drive implementation, I have no idea if the person has downloaded the file or no,t meaning that I need to leave it with all the rest of my files to ensure they get it. And God forbid they need to retrieve it again after I've moved/deleted the file. The better solution would either be allowing users to authorize a folder to be uploaded to by other users. Hell, Google could even use Google+ circles to authorize entire groups of people to upload to your "inbox" on drive.

As someone with a Dell: This computer was the top of the line at the store. We got it for $300 through a stroke of luck. Nevertheless, the CPU was really "average" for the time period in question, and cannot be upgraded without upgrading the motherboard itself. Additionally, it only came with 2GB of RAM and Windows Vista 64 bit edition, which requires its own gig.

lol, not blockbuster the store. I meant a big blockbuster film with large budget and shit. There are some things that you don't have easy access to like game of thrones and shit but hbo is willing to take the hit because of the money it gets from the cable providers. Amazon sells movies, netflix, redbox, the cable providers itself, all allow streaming. Probably other stuff that I don't know of. If you don't want to pay for it fine, but again its a bull shit reason to argue that because you don't like the avenues to get material you will steal it. Pirate if you want but its not a right to download something for free because buying it inconveniences you. Downloading to own is a whole other matter, that is completely different and I don't know who allows that or who doesn't.

It has more to do with unfettered greed. Take a music CD for example. Now add in the studio costs, advertising and expenses. We are talking about a profit margin north of 2-3K percent. On top of that, a lot of artists get gouged. I honestly wouldn't pirate if the media had reasonable prices. 20-25 dollars for a music CD or a movie is too much. I would honestly go legit if movies cost 5 dollars and songs cost 10 cents combined with fair percentages for artists. Unfortunately corporate policies don't work like that. How much you pay isn't about "fair", it's about how much money is the most they can ring out of you. When my private movie/music collection is worth less than my house, then I will pay for movies and music. Do I know what I'm doing is stealing? Fuck yeah I do. Do I give a shit? Fuck no. People like Uwe Boll can make the biggest piece of shit movies and still make a huge profit margin, how does he even exist in a fair market? Even movies that fail in the box office rake in the cash. Why do people wonder why flops continue to happen, yet studios are still making a killing?

I'm probably too late, but here goes - I am a strategy advisor to the media industry. When you think about film revenue, it comes evenly split from three places: 1/3 box office (cinema), 1/3 DVD, 1/3 TV rights. I could be more complicated, but that's basically correct. What we do NOT see socially is substitution between an in-home experience (e.g. people who want a quiet night in, or are at home by themselves) and an out-of-home experience (e.g. people who want a date night, families who want to take the kids out for a treat). Piracy has basically no impact on the box office. This is equally true for the advent of VHS, the DVD, etc., which have all improved the in-home experience. Socially, people decide to leave their home for fun, and that's it. The big competitors are other out-of-home experiences (sports, arts, concerts, outdoor activities, etc.). Piracy has a BIG impact on DVD sales, and to a lesser degree on TV rights. If Hollywood studios lose 1/3 of their revenue streams (the DVD revenue), that's honestly a big deal. Imagine the company you work at, and then imagine it 1/3 smaller in 5-10 years' time. It's still not clear how the studios should react. Raise their fees to pay-TV companies? Probably not - pay-TV operators in the US have flat or declining TV revenue. Raise the box office pricing? Probably not - prices have risen more than inflation for a decade. Expand internationally? That's obvious, and is under way. But making up 1/3 of lost revenue will be tough.

The big impact for me on DVD sales is that I'm not willing to pay $20 for a movie I might watch once a year at best. There's a stock of movies gathering dust on my shelf from before I realized the stupidity of buying DVDs. I'm not even willing to routinely pay for an on-demand movie. What I am willing to do is rent a movie from Redbox or use Netflix or other service that fits my price point.

No, no... The Steam approach to movies would require you to acquire/download/wutevs some bullshit monitoring program you don't want or need just to be able to watch the movie. It would require an internet connection just to watch the fucking movie... May as well torrent the damned thing.

Gaming is getting terrible lately. I am a long time simulation fan. I've played all the Forza's through, Along with Civilization, Pharaoh, Most Sim City, My gf plays the Sims regularly. I could go on and on about my games, the moral is

Well. That's their fault for trying to be helpful. TIL that trying to help will get you banned. Thanks EA games. I wonder if they know why they are being called "Worst Company in America" to be fair I do love some of their games.

Yeah isn't AC2 Ubisoft? I think he was trying to make a point that always-online DRM is killing sales for games that are actually fun to play. I suppose it's important to note that EA isn't the only culprit, Ubisoft does the same shit as well as Blizzard. More and more game companies seem to prefer treating their audiences as untrustworthy criminals. As someone who mainly plays online multiplayer games, the draconian DRM measures don't really affect me in a noticeable way. Still, I thought it was fucked up when I had to be online to play Diablo 3.

Pffft, all the dev's have already received compensation for their hard work; I say fuck EA man. If there's one thing the game industry has taught me it's company heads and CEOs couldn't give two shits about their employers. If you're not pulling your weight, generally meaning you're not putting in 50 hours minimum a week, you're easily replaceable. The little guys have already been paid for their hard work, fuck the big wigs trying to generate maximum profit from them.

Bioware made amazing games before EA bough them and still keeps making amazing games. The poorest game they have made since then is probably DAII (Haven't played their MMO) which I still managed to enjoy greatly after getting out of origins mindset.

I have to agree with this. While it's an unfortunate oversight on the SC team's part that you get hosed if your internet goes down, the assumption that a computer able to play this game should be connected to the internet the majority of the time (single player or not) isn't too far off. I mean, the only time my computer isn't connected to the internet is when I'm moving into a new apartment, or Comcast has fucked something up really, really hard. Assuming that your customers are "always online" is the future. Sure DRM sucks, and it's a bad word, etc, but with any luck, in ten years the idea of not being online will be foreign.

Sorry to disillusion, but here is an example otherwise, of your claim of free-speech. He was cleared on all claims. Was found guilty of translating controversial documents. Guy essentially only has 'unpopular opinions' by translating some old world propaganda documents. Got convicted for nothing but being an internet punk from the governments view; they tried to instigate him, but he never bit down. They tried to create a monster, and he proved to be civilized but with merely an unpopular opinions. He was cleared of most things accused that they tried to make him do. Even was cleared of being in league with terrorists. The document he translated was some guidelines written during the Caliphites. Mind as well convict any investigating/translating paparazzi or propaganda/conspiracy enthusiasts.

Original Comment that this was replying to: It's not that they "can veto Security Council resolutions". It's that they can veto any UN resolution. What goes along with that is bargaining power at the UN. You can not only prevent resolutions, but completely change the discourse by offering less powerful countries political protection in exchange for endorsing your ideas. Notice I also said a lot of non-SC members are pro-censorship. Both SC members and non-members affect the discourse. The effect it would have on internet governance by the UN would be to create a constant hampster-wheel of resolutions being proposed and then vetoed by each side. The US could prevent unwanted changes by veto, but the relative power of the US in the int'l system is declining (relative being an important word here). The US might not always be able to veto whatever it wants while pushing through things it does want, because its bargaining power is declining.

Actually when I am outside of the US if I say anything other than "America" to non-English speaking people they have no idea what I'm talking about (I always try US or United States first). It is extremely common to call the US "America" outside of the US. In fact I have never heard one person bring this argument up except on reddit. Every European, Canadian, and Australian, Kiwi, etc. that is fluent in English that I have met traveling has referred to it as "America." Many non-English speakers that can only say "where you from" only know the US as "America". I also dont understand the reddit argument that "America is a continent not a country so Canadians are Americans too". But South America doesnt count and calling Brazilians or Colombians Americans is just silly. If we are going to have this silly standard everyone on this land mass is an "American".

Whenever I have gotten a flu vaccine I have barely noticed the needle going in any time a decent nurse did it. Just make sure your arm is completely relaxed (not easy when scared of needles) because it will hurt worse otherwise. Even an IV isn't that bad if you have a nurse/doctor that knows what they are doing. I think if I wouldn't have had good experiences with doctors/injections prior to a couple not so skilled people trying to give me an IV I would probably be scared of needles too.

Different compounds behave differently. It's the reason you would gladly drink pure water (H2O), but will die if you drink the same amount of pure hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). The difference is one oxygen, but you'd breathe that all day if you pair it up with another one and mix in a little nitrogen for flavor. Or, to put it with a similar difference of one carbon and two hydrogens, we can look at ethanol versus methanol. Ethanol (C2H5OH) is fairly harmless, you can take a good amount of it with little ill biological effect (social effects are a different matter). Methanol (CH3OH) is some nasty stuff. You try to do a shot of 75% methanol-25% water (Everclear is 75-25 ethanol-water, for comparison), you'll probably end up blind, maybe end up dead. Ethylmercury (C2H5Hg+) differs significantly in biological action from methylmercury (CH3Hg+). Hell, even the same compounds in different configurations can behave very differently. You can look at cisplatinum for an example. It works fairly well as a chemotherapy drug, but if you make the platinum face different directions (trans- conformation versus cis-), it doesn't really work at all.

We're talking about penises. What would you expect?

I have 250 local acquaintances in my "Tampa Bay" circle. About half of them showed up to my last BBQ Meetup. [TBFitClub]( is 140 local fitness enthusiasts who work out together and encourage each other. The list goes on and on.

Let's say that google's services got progressively worse. Gmail lost its clear design, youtube gets shittier with every update (both the design and functionality), iGoogle is going to be shut down... So far every decision was met with backlash from community, but who at google gives a fuck? We are merchandise, not customers. All of above could be averted if after every change there was an option "Keep my shit like it was before", but nooo! Our Great Overlord decides what people like.

Facebook pulls similar shit. I had my account locked down with phone and email verification when I disabled it x years ago. Some 18 months ago, out of the blue, they shot me an email to let me know my reactivation request (wtf?) was successful and my account could now be used again. Between the unique password with over 500 bits of entropy and multi-factor authentication there is no way in hell a random person out there managed to get the info necessary to reactivate my account in an attempt to gain access to it.

That's why you can't have a restricted release for a social networking platform. When G+ came out, there was plenty of anti-facebook sentiment ripe to be tapped in to, but when barely a fraction of my FB friend cohort could switch over, why would I? I'm not about to check two social media sites, and I'm not nearly elitist enough to drop 90% of the people I keep in contact with through FB simply to join something different, regardless of how much I like it.

I see three things in your reply. Dissagreement on the term of elitist and how it is used. My friends on Facebook are the ones that dictate the content I consume. Worring about G+ content, because just like facebook you have the ability to 'control' the content. Privacy. Google is an advertisement agency. I understand that I am handing over my information and advertising to me content they believe is geared to me. I love that Google does this. I understand that they try their best to advertise to us, so they can also make money. They make money and in turn, are able to provide even better services. Hell, Google Voice, is one of the best services they have come out with. As for my friends on Facebook, you seem to think that I friend people that are stupid. The sad part is, I have no control over this. They are my family. The type of family, that gets obsessed if I dont comment/like on their posts. The majority of my other friends are on G+. So, I guess you can say it was more my familily's fault for ruining Facebook. But they are not, they are part of the problem. When myspace was big, they were the type of person to throw on six diffrent songs, to autoplay, the second you checked their page. I hope you remember what I am talking about. I still get shivers to this day about how their layouts would bog down my computer, with my weak internet connection. Facebook will be around for a while. Just like another major gem, World of Warcraft. I am not sure of your knowledge of the game, but it provides a good insight to how I look at social websites. I started the game back in June 2005. I played every day till 2011. The company started to make changes that countered the spirit of the game I started out playing. I voiced my concerns, and came to the conclusion that things would not go back to what it was. I did not enjoy the game anymore. So I stopped playing it, and have not stated my opinion of the game till now. I understand the changes that took place, and I had the option of finding a new replacement. The same thing with Facebook. It was cool, till everyone that honestly had no business (Status update: Hey guys, I just ran out of toilet paper) using Facebook. I went ahead and ignored who I can. The point is, the cruel people are not in mass on G+ as they are on Facebook. You cant control the comments of people you follow. You cant control the people that create content to start catering towards easy views. (TotalBiscuit, I'm looking at you.) Though, I am a cynical person. A perfectionist. If it is not my view it's the highway. I'm working on it, but the things that I enjoy are constantly being ruined by the majority. I shouldn't have to go through crap posts, to find posts such as yours.

It is by no means a piece of literary masterpiece, but the story does explain rather well a decent path to extreme automation, and the effects on society it creates. Should you require an eli5 or

And going outside increases the likelihood that you'll be hit by a car. We take certain precautions to reduce the risk while continuing to live our lives (like wearing a seatbelt while in a car and looking both ways before we cross a street as a pedestrian).

herp derp i patent the technology to stream data between two devices over the internet" I'd have slightly more sympathy for Apple if they didn't have the Swipe to Unlock patent. How else would you unlock a touch screen phone? [Bracing for the downvotes here.] Completely agree on the part where software patents are ridiculous. At maximum they should only last, say, a year or so so the inventor has time to work on it before it's opened up to the world. ̣̣̣ Edit : Woke up to a lot of replies to this, and I want to give a few responses/clarifications here > Apple's patent is on the exact implementation/design of Swipe to Unlock. ["A device with a touch-sensitive display may be unlocked via gestures performed on the touch-sensitive display."]( This is far from a design patent, it's an obvious implementation that any developer or designer would have thought of. And it's so general it could apply to ANYTHING that isn't on the physical device, including passwords if you tried hard enough to say this patent extends to passwords on a locked screen. [England]( and [Germany]( have already realized how inane this patent is on the grounds that it's far too obvious NOT to implement. > Apple needs to protect themselves from patent wars. X company does it too. Sure, I agree with the fact they need to do it given our patent environment these days. However, I disagree with this entire practice, because it restricts creative freedom in the developer world, and should really be done away with a la New Zealand. I said above that I would agree with a 1 year patent so that the inventor can put additional work into it, and must show the progress he proposed at the end of the year or risk a fine (or something), but to buy patents just to sue someone later is an just a dick move. [For this reason, I've also not been a fan of Microsoft lately.]( I do have to give some credit where credit is due though. I don't like Apple products myself, but if you have been the [biggest target of patent trolling in the last five years]( you've probably been doing something right with your products' design. But this just proves one more thing: Apple isn't this fountain of innovation. If 171 patents can say they've been infringed by what Apple is doing, then they're no more innovative than any other organization.

Truecrypt can stack encryptions. Lets say you had a Serpent-AES-Twofish encrypted disk vs just a standard AES. Lets say AES was magically 'hacked' one day. You would still have Serpent and Twofish to break before gaining access. With quantum computing looming, a AES-256 that would take a million years to crack, might only take a week to crack at some point. Having 3 layers of encryption = 1 week to the power of 3 = Back to a very long time.

I believe we can get rid of illegals by fixing the paperwork system. Reduce the wait to to get a green card from 12 years to 3 minutes. That way it's practical enough for people to get them as they arrive at the border. Combine that with removing import taxes, and making importing of drugs and other illegal goods and persons legal, and there will be no need for border guards.

Headlines like this scare me. I really feel like Google is boiling the frog here. I use and enjoy their products, I like their design philosophy and industry forethought. But when I think of them as a whole, I realize they have so much raw power, so much capacity to do evil. They thoroughly surpass peak-Microsoft in their control over the technology sector. Surely people realize that companies are amoral, in the sense that they only process the world and their actions in terms of profits? It's bad for a company to have this much power, even if they haven't used it for evil in the past. The way our society is currently set up, there's little or nothing to stop them from eroding away our rights, or doing something 'evil' once it aligns with their bottom line.

A lot of the T-Mobile love comes from their pre-paid $30 100min/unlim txt/unlim data plan. It's become very popular over on the phone related subs. I use it and it's awesome. Certainly not for everyone, as you gotta jump through some technical hoops to get it to unlim talk via VoIP. But techies are in no short supply around here. This is amplified by the release of the Nexus 5, a flagship device for $350, and not available on VZ. People have been jumping the VZ ship in droves to capitalize on it. You also don't have to sign a contract and their post-paid plans are about $20 to $50/mo cheaper than VZ/att. You can also bring your own device to T-mobile, so no carrier bloatware or waiting for your carrier to approve system updates. It also means no phone financing bullshit (those cheap smartphone prices with a 2yr contract are just veiled down payments). If you want to finance a phone with t-mobile you make a down payment and then monthly payments until you own the phone, with 0% interest. You can pay it off at anytime. Lastly, if you live in a metro area you can expect your coverage to be just as good as VZ/att. There also is the whole Sprint buyout and 700Mhz spectrum thing that has been keeping them in the news.

I actually live in a weird spot. Right across the river and state line from a fairly good-sized city (300,000). Nice 4G coverage extends into our state. The problem lies in home internet service. Our town council has deemed internet service to be a public utility, thus allowing a locally owned provider to maintain a monopoly (the owner also sits on the city council). They forbid all competition except for AT&T which gets away with it because of the use of alternate delivery methods. However, there is very, very limited bandwidth. I can only get 1.5mb service. I could get 6mb from the local provider, but they only let you buy that if you subscribe to (their terrible, overpriced) cable. I have DirecTV, so I can't even buy Internet service from them. So, I use 4g for home internet. With two kids and my wife, and 41 Wi-Fi devices, it eats our data up quick. Part of the reason I decided to abandon unlimited data, was because I was able to upgrade AT&T to 3mb.

If /u/roofied_elephant[1] is just playing devil's advocate he's doing a wonderful job on me. I am and I'm not. I get where you're coming from, but apparently the websites have been changed not long ago. When I was looking to switch from AT&T 3 months ago, I visited all the carriers' websites and it was clear to me what the terms were. I don't know, maybe I'm just used to reading the fine print by now. I see this happening all the time though. You see "Any pizza for $10" but then you have to pay extra for stuffed crust, or "Any sub for $5" but that only includes the regular sandwiches and not the premium ones. Shit, just today I was at Ralph's buying some soda, and this lady threw a fit because she wanted to buy a bottle of Pepsi for 99c and was told that she'd have to buy 6 bottles if she wanted to get that price, otherwise it would be regular $1.89. If you went to check the price, the label said "99c for club members" in big letters, and then "Must buy 6 in order to get this price" in smaller letters underneath.

Waterfox is funny. Their FAQ: Q:Do all my add-ons and plugins work? A:Your add-ons/extensions work on any version of Firefox, on any platform! That means they all work with Waterfox. On the other hand, only 64-Bit plugins work with Waterfox and as of now those are: Adobe Flash, Oracle Java and Microsoft Silverlight.

I don't know if I would say POSIX is more limited when it comes to sharing data between processes. For example, on most Unixes [fork(2)]( is implemented using copy on write. The Windows fork implementation greedily copies the entire processes address space which is obviously worse for sharing data between processes. I believe Windows' implementation of fork is still POSIX compliant since I don't think the POSIX standard requires that fork to be copy-on-write. Still this shows at least one way that OSs traditionally seen as POSIX (e.g. Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, etc...) are better at sharing data between processes than OSs not seen as POSIX (i.e. Windows). Of course on Windows you typically don't use fork because it's so expensive, and there are alternative ways to share data between processes that are better suited for Windows.

See, this is what I was warning everybody who went starry-eyed over Bitcoin would happen. At least with an investment like gold, it can't spontaneously disappear with no way to get it back. Gold won't suddenly go poof and be gone. Bitcoin? Hey, if the exchange goes down, that $1000 you invested because you wanted to get rich quick is now down the drain. The security Bitcoin offered was great, and the lack of transaction fees and bank overhead will hopefully set a precedent for businesses like PayPal to reconsider their fee structure, but it's entirely too volatile to place any significant amount of money in it long-term and expect to make money.

This is called the singularity. At a point where we create AI's that are smarter than us things would advance so quickly that we cannot even fathom how advanced things would become after the singularity. Not only would society rapidly change and computers find solutions to things like poverty, starvation, the correct way to run things etc etc, but the computers would also constantly be designing better versions of themselves which would develop better versions of themselves which would be able to answer even more questions and become even more advanced. A good example of this is Asimov's short story The Last Question . Spoiler Alert if you want to read it first. Basically The Last Question is about reversing entropy but it has the best example of the singularity also. The humans created a computer/AI that is hundreds of miles long but contains the entirety of human knowledge and answer to any question possible (except one, which is what the stories about). This AI creates a better version of itself, then merges its knowledge into the newer version, and it is constantly condensing its self and making itself better until everyone human can own a mini version. It gets to the point where no one has any idea where the AI is what what it looks like but they have mini cubes that can connect to it but they don't know how, its said to be in some galactic form that isn't even mechanical/technological, it is literally unfathomable to humans. And I won't go on from there as I don't want to completely spoil the reading, but I recommend everyone read it. It takes probably about 15 minutes to read it. (Another spoiler alert in case)

BGR is just awful. There's never anything of actual substance in any of the articles. It's all just vague regurgitation with the sole goal of reaching a certain number of words and keywords. They'll often make 3 different posts about the exact the thing. The best example of click-bait of any mainstream technology blog out there.

Because referencing pop culture from past periods creates an affinity between the speaker and the recipient due to assumed shared experiences and preferences. If you mentally group yourself with other individuals because you perceive them to be similar to you then you'll probably also like them and help them out. Since you're supposed to be similar, to do otherwise might mean that you don't like you and you aren't deserving of help. When other people respond to things you do by expressing "I like what you did" it becomes really easy to filter that into "I like you." Other people liking you feels good. It becomes really easy to do things that make other people like you, or to choose to highlight only the bits of your personality that your specific audience approves. Also, spoons are not designed for tearing flesh. That makes the whole affair rather messy, and perhaps for more traumatic for the thing being gouged.

The energy required to sustain flight is so massive there is really no conceivable way that this could be done cost effectively. Ambient energy is not sufficient even if we go 100% conversion (which we can't) to sustain flight for anything but an ultra light frame.... so cargo will never work unless the sun gets hotter. Batteries are becoming a saturated field with no technologies offering anywhere near the storage density required for sustained Flight. Fossil fuels technically have the energy density but are way too expensive unless we are talking 100$/ delivery fee (also that's just called a helicopter). Nuclear power could maybe maybe provide enough energy, but people seem to dislike it being all over the place.

So it doesn't address the problem of an Li metal anode - these are inherently unsafe due to dendritic (tree like) deposition of the metal when the battery is charged. This can cause short circuits (leading to fire/explosion) - Molly energy tried commercialising Li metal rechargeable batteries in the 80's (I think) leading to the mentioned issues and total recall of the product. Additionally, the voltage is not very high for the system so it doesn't take advantage of the full potential of Li metal. Co is also highly toxic, but then again, most battery materials are. We have better cathodes already - I'd pay attention to anodes. Si anodes are getting close to commercial levels of cyclability but there are still big problems with it. Li-air is an over-promised pipe dream that might not even be possible at all. PS I only read the article (not the scientific papers) so can't comment more directly on their work. PPS the capacity they report is not much better than lithium iron phosphate (already commercialised and working very well) PPPS I've been in this research field for nearly a decade so can (attempt) to clarify any question.

It is exact. In a game of chess which is complete knowledge, the computer will start with an optimal strategy and if you play suboptimally, it will adapt to the new "best" strategy (so possibly, indeed, changing from a draw to a win). Poker is a non-complete knowledge game, so the computer can't know when its opponent plays suboptimally during a hand. It's important to understand that the optimal strategy here is only turn-based and not for a whole tournament or something, so the computer can't adapt to anything over time. It does not "remember" your bad plays. That is why a professionnal who recognizes a suboptimal pattern can play "suboptimally" to exploit the opponent and have more profit. Keep in mind that these kind of adaptation is non-optimal if you are not 100% sure that the opponent will do the mistake.

Important bit fta > Of course any measure that makes its way to the President's desk will be vetoed -- and a Congressional Review Action still requires a presidential signature or enough votes to override a veto, both of which are extremely unlikely. The only real way to overturn the agency's new laws is either via lawsuit (which the FCC has gone to great length to avoid losing this time after the courts repeatedly told them they needed to classify ISPs as common carriers to be on solid footing) or through a party change (and therefore an FCC leadership shift) in 2016

How? How does this fucking happen? There are more than enough professionals they could come through to make these recommendations. Hell, ill do it. You want to be in charge of cyber security funding for a country? Well you need 2 or more established industry accredited infosec certifications (or more). The bar should be set pretty high on this one, especially since it's possible to spend near-as-makes-no-difference a billionty dollars on security measures if you don't act smart.

Well, it is kinda bold. Currently his planned ventures don't really count as "spaceflights", there are several companies working on commercializing space as well. Its not quite as clear cut as it seems, but I am making my assessment based on Branson's passion. Being first to show interest and funding is no guarantee of success. Given current technological limitations a rocket still seems to be the best way to get someone into space, in which case SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler might be more prepared to go that route than Virgin Galactic.

Translating telephones which translate in real time have been made. They are just really expensive and they work for only a few language pairs. Basically it is at the point where it is really expensive and does not work that well. We have machines which transcribe speech for deaf people in real time We have exoskeletons in use in the army, and in public use in Japan, and we have for a couple of years. I cant count the number of times I have talked to a machine in plain language on a phone to navigate through the menus. At the time of that writing we were still pushing 1, 2, 3, 4, etc instead of just speaking. I know someone who works on this technology. Basically the technology to drive and park the car is ready (and has been for several years), but people don't trust it so it can't be sold. They even did safety tests proving that the automated driving was much less likely to get into an accident than the average person by quite a bit, but every person thinks they have better than average driving ability and will not use the automated driving. Keep in mind these predictions were made in 1990. That doesn't excuse inaccuracies but neither does not looking to see if anyone has done this stuff.

Ok, so what is actually going on here? I'm stupid and don't understand the implications of this energy transferring business, although I can grasp that "spooky action" is not the same thing as "teleportation". Someone,

I read his comment differently; IMHO he is of the opinion that such transportation is impossible: "The energy is in no way removed from one location and given to another, spatially distant, location. What happens, is that a measurement device at one location gains energy from the quantum system and, based on the outcome of that measurement, the measurement device at the second location can be configured to lose energy into the quantum system at that location." - [Interoperable on /.]( And also, although I didn't find this the clearest, I'm pretty sure I get it: "The thing to take away is that no energy is lost or gained at either location. Instead, the measurement devices at each location gain or lose energy to compensate changes in the energy of the system. This proposal is in no way a method to teleport energy in the intuitive sense; the total energy of the quantum system and measurement device at each end is conserved. " In my reading the crux is "can be configured to lose energy" to the surrounding system. I see that wouldn't change the net energy 'locally' - for some value of local... This page ([mit - 18.002 - 12.2 Local Conservation Laws]( has the best explanation though it involves a bit of 'calculus' and a lot of ill-defined gibberish the physicists try to pass of as 'mathematical notation'. You can also just read the text around the 'equations' anyway. But essentially it just works through the details of what seems to be an additional assumption/law (?) besides conservation in general; i.e. one grounded in that we are not aware of any observed non-local displacement of energy. But after having though about the consequences a bit more you sorta fundamentally break reality with non-local energy displacement. AND here the scientists claim not to have violated locality, presumably they know. :) So you couldn't use this for moving energy without having it propagate through any surface dividing the source from the destination. Not useful for powering things. So it goes.

The only issue I see with this is that you would have to be pretty damn stupid to plug a device by some unknown person into a computer connected to the corporate network. Most places will simply throw these out because of a whole host of security policies in place.

I know this is just wang-measuring, but, the best way to completely invalidate any means in which you wanted to actually convince me of something is to tell me to "go back to Digg". I've been a redditor at least a year longer than you have. Now that my wang-measuring is out of the way. I'll just quote Syjefroi >more like

Out of curiosity, what's the average punishment for stealing, say, 200 Blurays from Best Buy? Maybe $4000-5000 worth of goods. I know "it's not stealing if you're copying" -- let's hold off on for the sake of comparison. A couple days in jail? Next, let's move on to selling and distributing copies of those Blurays. I see that happening all the time in NY subways. What's the punishment for that? A couple more days in jail? Small fines? Now let's multiply it by a hundred because those dudes are never alone. Police grab one at 42nd street and another pops up on 23rd. Let's say there's a whole ring selling maybe 10K-20K movies (let's say $200K-400K of merchandise total). What's the punishment then for the ring leader? More time in jail? Much bigger fines? Federal prosecution? I know the above analogies are flawed because "copying isn't the same thing as stealing", but take a step back for a moment. A lot of people don't see it that way. To them, copying a movie is the same as stealing a service. They know the opportunity costs don't increase significantly making 2 Blurays versus 1, but the loss of selling the service of the movie for that 1 is significant to them. It's like going into a carwash where the water is free for the owner, driving out and taking off without paying. To you, you didn't steal anything. To them, you're stealing time, money, and one more spot in the carwash that could've been used by a paying customer.

It seems like it would be a waste to build the latest gadgets to last more than a few years. I have a "really old" cell phone from 5 years ago that I used until recently (I bought a new one when I moved to the States). My friends would always laugh at me, asking "why do you still use that old piece of crap?" to which my reply would be, "Because it still works." But I find this is not an acceptable excuse to have an old gadget. Having old things is socially unacceptable, like wearing clothes of poor style or taste. I also had an old MP3 player from 7 or 8 years ago, which I loved but recently died. I wanted to get the same model again, but my friends egged me on to get something that's later and greater, so I picked up a newer model and, while it's shiny and slick, I'm quite unhappy using it, because it's not as usable as my old MP3 player.

Think of it this way though. People in the US government wanted Wikileaks to not post those Iraq documents but there was nothing they could do to stop them. What if in all the tons of content on Wikileaks is one bit of copyrighted material. Might be one unimportant thing that on one even cares about, since the War Logs are downloadable that is all someone needs to have Wikileaks.org completely blocked from all access in the US. That is why this bill is complete shit. Yes the reason for it even being started was probably because of Piratebay but there are too many ways for this to be abused. And did you know that with some freeware programs you can record the sound from a video playing on screen. All you need to do is go to youtube, play the Official video of a song you like and record the audio. In the time it takes to play the song you have your own mp3 version of it. Would this mean that youtube should be blocked, any site that plays any copyrighted material (netflix, divx, megavideo, hell even itunes since you can play music videos) or maybe the software that lets you record the audio even it was not designed for this purpose. I don't download copyrighted movies or songs so this bill will not effect me by banning my access to thepiratebay but I am outraged by what it means and what it will allow people to do. If I wasn't taking care of a sick relative I would move out of the US. Of all the shit that people try to do to get around the constitution this is just the latest one and I no longer can believe in this country. And just so you understand me. I hate guns, a guy with a gun killed my fiancé but I am not out there trying to change the 2nd amendment because I have always believed that I take in all the Constitution, not just the ones I like. This country is becoming just that, take which parts you like and toss out the rest. 4th amendment, well kind of except for airports, borders, and any area that is deemed a possible threat ;freedom of religion, sure [read this](

So you think that people should not have the right to make a profit off their own ingenuity, hard work, and dedication? People work hard for this, and you can choose not to pay them for what they are selling. You don't have a "right" to what other people create just because it exists in a medium that can be cloned. You say you can't own intellect, but we aren't talking about ideas here. We are talking about goods and products. >That doesn't mean i think that corporations have a right to hold part of our culture ransom to be sold at their whim and at any price they choose to set Part of our culture ransom? You always have a choice. Just because a lot of people like something, does not mean that you are entitled to it for free. And if they create something, they can sell it at whatever price they fucking want to. >When the bulk of the world can clone data for free then it is morally wrong to try to stop them. Cloning data is now a basic human right and there is absolutely no moral or rational reason to allow copy right laws. If a developer spends a year, thousands of work hours, and personal investments into making a product and if everyone pirated it then it would be stealing from the creator. Stealing their time, stealing their effort, and stealing whatever financial investments they have made. Piracy DOES hurt people, even if it isn't taking something "tangible" away from them. It stops their flow of income from a product and service that THEY provided. Now if only one or two people pirate a product, it really isn't going to hurt that much. But if 80% of people pirate something, then the creator is being unfairly fucked, as he obviously made the product and expected a return on his ingenuity and hard work. If people thought that they didn't deserve to make money off the things they create, then most things wouldn't be created. >Cloning data is now a basic human right and there is absolutely no moral or rational reason to allow copy right laws. There is a huge moral and rational reason to allow copyright laws, as i just explained. But you will probably never realize it because you have probably never done anything to contribute to society, never created anything of value, and will find any possible reason to continue being a self entitled cheap piece of shit, including making up delusional arguments about how there is "no moral or rational reason for copyright laws." And while i disagree wholeheartedly with the MPAA, the RIAA, DRM, the limiting of freedoms on products you do buy, some of the expensive prices, and the way that they are going about the problems of piracy, i do not believe that it means that i am entitled to their products as some "basic human right" and that they are immoral for wanting compensation for their work. I do believe that they need to change their practices and take more reasonable and progressive steps toward more realistic ideas, but claiming that piracy is a basic human right is just cheap, selfish, delusional, and pathetic. Grow up, dude.

There is so much wrong with that article I don't even know where to begin... Not only has the author completely misunderstood the lenticular approach (a set of 8 lenses? Really???) but he also fails to acknowledge that the approach is already in use (Nintendo 3DS, Toshiba screens...) and that it has severe drawbacks (resolution loss, severely limited viewing angles, etc).

Is there a way they could do what egypt did, and just pull the internet to the rest of the world where a huge cyper attack may be coming from (assuming this is the only thing that we would need protecting from, even though I can't see it happening lets say it does) and still allow a US intranet?

If you excuse the profanity in my outrage. Of course. I also will assume that you mean that you are sick of people like me in general. Only on Reddit doesn't make a whole lot of sense. >The Governments job is to serve the people. I agree. Whether the government does its job in the real world is another matter entirely and the basis of my issue. >claiming it somehow gives the government "more power" doesn't even make sense in this context. Actually, it does. In this case, the government has little moral authority to police the Internet except to enforce already existing laws (like child porn, fraud, theft, etc.). What Net Neutrality proposes is that the government also has a right to enforce speech standards (in a broad sense by ensuring equal rights) as well as having the right to inform a corporation how it will conduct its business. Neither of these are rights the government currently has and neither is a right I wish for the government to have. >You are saying they shouldn't break up a monopoly! What monopoly? There is not one national ISP in America. There are multiple and I don't believe the government has the right to tell them how to run their business. Strictly speaking, they do not have the constitutional right to do so. Again, in the real world they ignore the Constitution all the time. >Because, otherwise, we the people are completely and utterly without recourse. It's a free market. You have the same recourse you have anywhere else in the market. Take your money and your business elsewhere. The government could step in if the ISP is price-gouging or creating a local monopoly. Both of these are alreadt illegal and neither involves net neutrality. Some people say that they only have one ISP. I understand. Some people also only have one grocery store. Does that give the government the right to force that store to sell its own brand of products at the same price as the other brands in order to be neutral? This is a governmental rights issue, not a net neutrality issue. I believe that the government has no business in this business. I distrust the government with very good reason and its track record could be called abysmal if a 100% failure rate could be classified as such. Thank you, but no.

Dale G. Bridenbaugh, one of the three workers who stepped down about 35 years ago"..."Bridenbaugh said the design flaws that prompted his resignation eventually were remedied in refits at Mark 1 reactors at Fukushima Dai-Ichi and around the globe" Feels like they are grasping at straws here.....

Based on recent experience let me disagree, to an extent. For a short run (10 or 20 feet), you're probably fine with any length. But I recently bought a 50 foot HDMI->DVI cable, only to find out after I got it that the cable was only 28 AWG. Simply put, the thing did not work. It would not send a picture to my monitor. Got an active HDMI extender from Monoprice and it STILL didn't work...had an extremely noisy image that would momentarily black out every minute. Sent everything back, got a 35 or 40 ft (can't remember which) from Blue Jeans Cable, and it was 22 or 24 AWG...works fine. The cable was about $25, unfortunately I live on the opposite coast from BJC so the shipping added around $10.

Downvoted. I don't see why the Great Firewall matters when talking about any company, Cisco, Google, etc. China would've either done this, or started their own "internet". It was a giant customer. Cisco doesn't care what the company who buys their stuff does with it, whether blocking Youtube or stopping incoming traffic. Why should China have been treated differently? Edit: Wow, people don't know how the networks of the Internet work. Cisco makes routers, switches, and firewalls. What they're used for doesn't matter to Cisco; they just forward and route packets. They sold them to China and China turned it into the GFW. I don't see why that's Cisco's fault or problem. Any "training materials" and such are just run of the mill: how do you think China finds dissidents? The same way your IT department knows that you browse Reddit or a porn site. Same shit on a much bigger scale. It's up to the people using it to set filters. In this case, the Chinese government. Get pissed at THEM, not at Cisco for selling some stuff to someone who wanted it.

You're still doing this whole "I NEED TO DEFEND MY OS FOR MY HONOR BRO" thing, but I'll humor you a little bit. I personally don't have a favorite OS, though I must admit OSX is the one I have the least experience with. >And if virus-writing is about causing the most amount of chaos, or getting back at companies you don't like, or trying to make money off of things, then why don't any people write viruses for those "10%" (or whatever the real number is, as reliable sources for this are not easy to nail down and never have been)? The silly thing you're trying to do is imply that their are 0 malwares for these less popular operating systems. This is of course false. A simple 3 second google search will give you information on all the latest and previous OSX viruses, trojans, and exploits. There aren't that many, but this should be proof enough to even the most thick headed individual that even OSX can be exploited. Any software is going to have potential exploits. That's how the world works. The comparison OP was making had nothing to do with an OS being better than another. He was pointing out that Opera (which is a great browser) likely has exploits but is not the prime focus of most hackers. Like wise, OSX (which some people consider to be a great OS) likely has exploits but is not the prime focus of most hackers. This also has to do with who has the largest market share and what sort of people use the other OSes.

Can someone

Exactly. I've had a computer instead of a CD player since about 96. For many years I didn't own a television at all, instead I had a TV-card for the computer. I have never owned a DVD player* and never intend owning a blue-ray either. I have a computer (well, I have several) and it is capable of playing music and videos just fine as well as being able to do so much more. The problems have only just started arising in the form of loveFilm DVD's that my wife keeps getting in the post. It seems that DVD protection is getting more and more nasty - meaning that many won't play under my linux/mythtv combination. So, I rip them to the computer and stick 'em on the network. Now ripping them is becoming so difficult I have had to give up on some recent titles and just torrent them instead...I'm trying to be honest but 'they' aren't letting me. okay, slight lie - I did buy the first DIVX capable dvd player (that I knew of) a Yamada...it was pretty crap.\

If the only code they have on Flame is a few executables or other compiled files that they are reverse engineering, then yeah, it could take awhile. The reason you can't just open up Photoshop and look at its code is because it has been compiled into an efficient bytecode that is machine-readable. Reverse engineering this code back into regular human readable code can take quite awhile, especially if it has been encrypted or otherwise tampered with. Seeing as they probably didn't get their hands on Flame's source code, we can assume they're messing around with the assembler code, which is pretty challenging. Finally, because Flame is more or less a toolkit to record audio, video, screen capture, check on running processes, and other things that the OS can do itself, the code should not need to be very large. Flame only needs to call on functions already programmed into the OS, but the huge size of Flame leads me to think either it has multiple levels of security, or it has a large underlying framework for doing much more sinister things.

I don't care what people say, I'm very pleased with Microsoft's accessibility on both the music and video fronts. Zune pass is a subscription-based way to download unlimited music legally (and whose library be growing in the coming months, when it is renamed Xbox Music) and the Xbox and Windows 8 allow me to rent or download movies affordably.

I think of my sister in Tennessee. She has only dial-up internet. This is not because she can't afford faster service, it's likely because she just can't justify the cost for the benefit. Many rural areas don't have a cable option (no infrastructure) so the next available choice is a mini-dish - this might cost $100 a month or more to provide TV and internet service. A DSL choice can also be very expensive if the infrastructure is not in place. You will basically have a second phone line installed and be charged a fee for that on top of the fee for internet service subscription. And it won't even be as fast as DSL, it would be like a Dedicated Second Phone Line For Dial-Up Only. In her mind, it's not worth it just so surf the net faster. She and her kids don't spend much time on the internet, they are more the hiking/camping/boy scout type. Her internet is so slow that she can't even view a relatively high pixel count photograph easily. But she has 3 school-age kids who want to see age appropriate movie and TV fare (think Cars, Cars 2, etc). That's easily a couple Disney movies a month. Plus, I saw in her collection quite a few discs she bought for herself - standard action/dramas stuff (think National Treasure, National Treasure 2, etc.)

that's true. there's a lot more government control over things in many parts of canada than there is in the states. heck, where i am (and a few other provinces) the only liquor stores are government operated (results in higher prices, lower selection, a fraction of the product is refrigerated and limited hours of operation); there are a handful of specialty/wine stores, and off-sales exist, but other than than, nothing (as far as i know only vermont has something similar in the states?). but internet is an area where i'd hope the government would step in and do something to make it more equitable

I'm just playing devil's advocate, trying to help out the original comment's argument. I agree it is poor reasoning, but to a degree it holds up, the wording is just wrong. Let me try this again. Ok, let us say that we sign up for cable internet at a price of $20 a month for 6 months, then our rate goes up to $40 a month. Fair enough right? The first thing we will notice upon billing is that the cake is a lie. As soon as we get the the bill we are each going to have our $10 and be like hell yea, this is a great deal. Here is the kicker, we have to pay taxes, no big deal it's only a dollar. Next, we have Surcharges and fees. Apparently, we have to pay a franchise fee of $3.00 just because. Now, we pay for the modem which we will say for the sake of round numbers is $4.00 a month forever, and if we lose it or it gets stolen, $500 to replace no matter how long we have been paying $4 a month for it. Okay whatever, we are not going to lose our modem in our imaginary world. So now we each have to pony up an additional $4.00. Geez, that is an additional 40% to what we expected to pay, oh well at least we can play Call of Duty and watch Hulu. It is only setting us back 1 large 2 item pizza a month more than we expected. 6 months go by, the cable bill comes in the mail as usual and we open it only to be flabbergasted. We were all set to pay our $10 for the deal plus our $4 dollars in fees plus the extra $10 it was going to be because the deal was over. Wait! What is this? It's $60 a month not $40, and that doesn't even include the extra $2.00 we now have to pay in taxes. After about an hour on the phone with billing we discover that they decided to change the rate during our trial period and not inform us. When confronted, they tell us tough titties, if you don't want the internet make sure you bring us back the modem, and by they way since the trial period is over and you do not also get cable television or phone service off of us it is $10 extra. Just because we can. Okay so we start to feel that the big promotion we saw on television 300 times that made us get the internet in the first place was all a scam because they new they would get a bunch of new subscribers with this ad blitz, they had planned on jacking the price up all along. We don't have any proof though so fuck it, we can't get rid of the internet now, because you just hit platinum league on Starcraft 2 and I'm hoplessly addicted to Reddit. So we start selling weed to make ends meet. A week goes by, we decide to wake and bake, sit down and determine how much we have to pay for Internet. Okay it's $25.00 a piece for the internet plus $2.00 a pop for the modem, then we add on the $1.50 each for the franchise fee, plus the $1.50 each for Uncle Sam. Let's not forget the $5.00 each fuck you because we can fee. So we have a grand total of $35.00 a piece for the internet. It's alright it's only 75% more than we planned on paying. Life goes on. A few months down the road we decide to throw a party, so we call up some bitches and buy some cheap liquor. At about 1:00A.M. one of the bitches complains about being hungry, but we carry on with our intense game of Jenga, because we are broke as fuck. At 3:00 A.M. the girl that was complaining about being hungry has drank too much and throws a fucking chair out of the window because her EX boyfriend won't answer her booty call, and she knows he is with that slut, Susie. Long story short, the cops come. They find the scales, the weed, the pipes, the baggies, and it turns out the bitch that threw the chair through the window was only 17. We spend the next 6 months in jail hoping the landlord didn't throw away the modem, he was always pretty cool about shit like that wasn't he? If only we would have had $8.00 for a large 2 item pizza at 1:00A.M. that fateful morning. I don't agree with the Original comment's argument at all, but I do whole heartedly agree with the essence of it. EDIT - Fixed a bunch of mistakes, probably some left.

I live in a rural area my top download speed is like 90 kb/s god forbid I try to upload anything ever. I only have access to one ISP. That's it. And they refuse to bring fiber to my area specifically. They've installed fiber wire in a fucking square around where my house resides. No future plans exist to hit my home, either.

Unfortunately, it also seems to be correct. US is always near the top independent of how you slice it: Compare it to other large countries such as Russia, Australia, Brazil, and Canada. The US wins in every metric available. The reason that progress appears to be glacially slow is because we are the epicureans of the web; in great demand of the best of breed technology. However, in an infrastructure sense, adequate roll-out is done. You could laterally make identical arguments with almost any other industry, lamenting "why is it so hard to find a luxury italian shoe store?" or "why must I travel so much to get an exceptional bottle of wine?". It is trivial to find a place that sells footwear or something to alleviate thirst, that infrastructure is done. And although there is a small sliver of consumers that find the offerings inadequate, this is quite different from say, having to walk 2 hours to a fresh water source or the 1990s, when all local ISPs just spat back busy signals over dial-up and it was actually not easy to achieve anything on the internet, yet alone getting things at high speed.

That blazing high speed is there because they need to cover the whole area, it's no so densely populated, and the service is new so there are few people using it. How many Vietnamese farmers use 4G? I wouldn't be surprised if you were the only 4G user of that tower at the time. Try in a few years in a city, when you'll have 300.000 people sharing the same tower with same bandwidth. The telecom won't upgrade anytime soon unless things stop working altogether, since they must compete on price, and their Vietnamese customers are quite poor and used to tolerating crappy quality of everything.

This started back in the mid 90s with the telcos snatching up ISPs with the biggest backbones. They knew it's potential early. The company I worked for in 1996 had one of the largest coast to coast backbones in the nation at the time. Some German telco came in and snatched us up. There was a lot of infighting with the shareholders. Some of them knew what would happen if the ISPs started selling out to the old telcos. But in the end the bigger dollars won. They pushed the president and man that created the company out so they could achieve their goal. It was sad to see such a great company ruined buy a few greedy people.

Public services have an excuse for being shitty and cheap, they're publicly owned and don't have any competition. EA would actually have a motive to release a finished working product if people stopped throwing dollars at them for rushing garbage out the door. It's not that expensive to hire a couple temp engineers or contract it out. And server bandwidth sure as shit isn't like a road, you can rent more of it to deal with expected load, especially when you're fucking renting it from Amazon and it's opening week.

EA just recently launched the latest version of SimCity. This iteration contains a shitty DRM package that requires a continuous internet connection to their servers to play, even if you play solo without connecting to other players. They didn't have nearly enough servers online, so now people that bought the game are having trouble being able to actually play it. EA's response was to patch the game in such a way as to strip away some feature in order to improve performance. Now a lot of people are feeling kinda cheated, that the game isn't worth the price tag, due to all the problems and probably ongoing hassle involve with trying to play.

A decent example of how development based around anti-piracy can screw up the basic ability to play the game. If they made it a stand alone game with sync options and cumulative tables and graphs it would have worked much better. Then they could stagger each internet log-in. The load on the servers would be less stressful and the users could continue building/modifying their cities (without any disasters like what everyone is experiencing) on laptops or rigs using WiFi connection.

To all the people who think this is some kind of outrage: so the game was down for most (but not all) players for a whopping 1-2 days. Big fucking deal. They already added 4x more servers and everything is running pretty smoothly. It seems more than likely that they will improve capacity even more over the next week. To all the people that think this was some "avoiable problem": Blizzard had the same problem with Diablo 3. (unlike EA) Blizzard is a respected game company, and has REAL EXPERIENCE building large-scale server architectures (think WoW). They still had Error37-gate. To all the people that expected a smooth launch: you've never bought a PC game before. I've not seen a smooth launch for an online game from ANY game developer ever. There are always load problems at the start, and there are always bugs. This is not an EA thing. WoW's initial launch had 2hr queues for the original realms. If that happened today people would have bitched like no tomorrow. When Valve released TF2 they were plagued with launch bugs and corrupt pre-loads and didn't get the game launched until 12 hours after their midnight promise. These problems happen to everyone.

They can because the ad networks and agencies have a reputation to adhere to. Most popular networks like google, microsoftadexchange, yahoo and the like refuse to put ads on their customer's sites unless it meets a very strict set of standards. Often if an ad is being reported as malicious or it has unwanted content it will just get banned completely from the ad server. I see people here complaining so often about things like this and it frustrates me to no end. There are only a few ways you're going to get bad things on your computer from ads most of which have to do with going to sites that don't care what kind of ads are being displayed on their site and don't care if the people viewing their pages get unwanted spyware. Furthermore cookie data (the things you erase when you clear your browsing history) are only there to help the ad servers cater ads to you, without it you may as well be using ad block since nothing is ever going to be relevant to what you're interested in. Clicking isn't really that big of a deal in the online advertising business anyways, brand awareness and the balance of reach and frequency of the people seeing your ads is much more important. Source: I develop software for an online display advertising company.