I'd say DHS head Jeh Johnson has his hands full whipping this disgrace back into some semblance of a respectable government body, but let's face it, it has never been credible during its decade-plus existence.
Let's start with the name. I can't have been the only one who was a bit shocked when this was set up by a Republican president. It just sounds waaaaay too close to the English translation of Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti for comfort...
Neither one is a keyboard, and that's why I don't get Samsung Galaxy phones. A keyboard is a keyboard. A bit of software that displays "keys" on your screen that obscure half of what you're trying to type and provide zero tactile feedback is not a keyboard.
If they're going to adapt Apple's good ideas to make better phones, more power to them. But blindly copying Apple's mistakes along with them is just stupid. More phones with real keyboards, please!
Planck said that, about science advancing because earlier scientists die off. Well, I say Planck's full of crap.
James Clerk Maxwell is remembered today as the scientist who discovered the physical laws behind light and electromagnetism. He's known today as one of the most brilliant physicists in history. Unfortunately, he died an untimely death in 1879, of stomach cancer. He was less than 50 years old.
It was decades before anyone else as brilliant as him came along. People looking back at his work say he was on a direct course to Relativity... but then his light was snuffed out. If he hadn't died, we might not even know Einstein's name today. (Or we might remember him for discovering something even cooler, because he would have had all that extra progress to build on, had Maxwell's death not set physics back by decades!)
CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox ... every last one of them could switch to cable broadcasting and just abandon the public spectrums
You say this like it's a bad thing. More competition in the cable space would be nice, and if the public spectra was abandoned, there are plenty of better uses the public could put it to... ;)
If they stopped producing content, other "services" would not exist, so they feel they have value and they are correct
Wrong. If they stopped producing content, someone else would. That's the beauty of the Internet: it is not a content service; it's a connectivity service. If you build it, they will come.
Sheriff Judd took it upon himself to have these two arrested, setting a somewhat dangerous precedent in his county that people could be held criminally responsible for someone else's voluntary action.
Apparently that's a ludicrous idea around here... unless the person taking the voluntary action is Aaron Swartz.
But it's noting that as a risk factor -- because, as Sirius has pointed out in its own response to the similar lawsuit, decades have gone by and the labels have never been asking for licenses for performances of pre-1972 works. And those works have been used for years, license free, by TV and radio broadcasters, bars, restaurants and a variety of other places.
Pandora is paying nothing for playing these songs... and neither is anyone else, because that's how the law works in this specific case.
The authorities trying to make the drug no longer be an approved medicine? Where do you get that from?
What it says in the complaint is that competitors attacked the patent on grounds that it is "not useful" so that they could turn around and sell it themselves, which (if true, and I'm not accepting this whole thing uncritically) is about the most disingenuous thing ever.
I'm all for doing away with bad patents, but have a look at the actual letter, specifically the 4th paragraph. If the claim made here is true, (which is not necessarily the case, of course, but if it is...) then this issue is not nearly as black-and-white as it is being presented here.
A Canadian study suggests that kids who start dating early (at an average age of 11.6 years old) are prone to more school and behavioral problems than their late-booming peers.
Isn't this pretty solidly established? I first heard about this almost 20 years ago and it was considered pretty non-controversial (except among hormonal (pre-)teens, of course) even back then.
Well she's full of crap. It's beyond Congress's authority under Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 of the Constitution, which says that congress cannot pass retroactive laws, period.
Not just boring; the ending to ME3 was outright insulting, as no matter which of the three choices you choose, they're 90% identical and all three end up literally nullifying everything you've worked to accomplish over the course of the entire trilogy.
Even if you've taken the time and put in the hard work to peacefully resolve both of the central conflicts of the game, (Krogan vs. Salarian and Geth vs. Quarian,) which would have proven that the point being made at the end is invalid, Shepard never has the opportunity to present this line of reasoning. (You know, the sort of thing Paragon Shepard has been doing FOR THREE ENTIRE GAMES NOW?!?)
And then when enough fans complained, they released an updated version where Shepard gets to reject this line of reasoning... for an even stupider and more pointless ending that basically says "screw you, fans, you'll accept what we're doing and like it!"
Mass Effect 3, more than anything else they do or have done, is the reason why I'll never buy anything else from EA.
EPIC's FOIA lawsuit over similar information revealed last year that the FBI's facial recognition software (as of 2010) had an acceptable margin of error of 20%. With a 1-in-5 chance of "recognizing" the wrong person, the accuracy of the database had nowhere to go but up.
That's actually really good. Do you ever randomly see somebody (who you don't interact with on a daily basis) and think "that looks just like so-and-so that I used to know." And how often does it turn out to actually be that person, after your brain "identified" them?
What's somewhat incredible is that the David Nimmer that Posner relies on above to highlight that a performance itself is not copyrightable is one of the few "copyright experts" to claim that Kozinski's bizarre interpretation makes sense.
For some reason, I found this sentence difficult to parse and I had to read it several times before I got it. I would have phrased it like so:
What's somewhat incredible is that David Nimmer, who Posner relies on above to highlight that a performance itself is not copyrightable, is one of...
On the post: Former DHS Watchdog, A Tyrant, Failure And Alleged Felon, 'Punished' With Transfer To Another Government Agency
Let's start with the name. I can't have been the only one who was a bit shocked when this was set up by a Republican president. It just sounds waaaaay too close to the English translation of Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti for comfort...
On the post: The Stupidity Of Installing Bloatware That No One Uses... And Everyone Hates
Re: Re:
If they're going to adapt Apple's good ideas to make better phones, more power to them. But blindly copying Apple's mistakes along with them is just stupid. More phones with real keyboards, please!
On the post: Google Appeals Moronic Court Order Demanding It Hunt Down Third Party Sites And 'Take' Offending Content 'Back'
Re: One Funeral at a time...
James Clerk Maxwell is remembered today as the scientist who discovered the physical laws behind light and electromagnetism. He's known today as one of the most brilliant physicists in history. Unfortunately, he died an untimely death in 1879, of stomach cancer. He was less than 50 years old.
It was decades before anyone else as brilliant as him came along. People looking back at his work say he was on a direct course to Relativity... but then his light was snuffed out. If he hadn't died, we might not even know Einstein's name today. (Or we might remember him for discovering something even cooler, because he would have had all that extra progress to build on, had Maxwell's death not set physics back by decades!)
On the post: Supreme Court Discussion In Aereo: At Least The Justices Recognize The Harm They Might Do
Re:
You say this like it's a bad thing. More competition in the cable space would be nice, and if the public spectra was abandoned, there are plenty of better uses the public could put it to... ;)
On the post: Copyright Maximalists' Incredible Sense Of Entitlement: If It Challenges The Biz Model We Chose, It Must Be Illegal
Re:
Wrong. If they stopped producing content, someone else would. That's the beauty of the Internet: it is not a content service; it's a connectivity service. If you build it, they will come.
On the post: Police File On Student 'Bullied Into Committing Suicide' Strangely Lacking In Evidence Of Bullying
Re: Re:
On the post: Police File On Student 'Bullied Into Committing Suicide' Strangely Lacking In Evidence Of Bullying
Apparently that's a ludicrous idea around here... unless the person taking the voluntary action is Aaron Swartz.
On the post: And, Of Course, Labels Sue Pandora Over Pre-1972 Recordings
Re: Pandora
Pandora is paying nothing for playing these songs... and neither is anyone else, because that's how the law works in this specific case.
On the post: Eli Lilly Enlists Congress In Fight Against Canada For Refusing Patent On Useless Drug
Re: Re:
What it says in the complaint is that competitors attacked the patent on grounds that it is "not useful" so that they could turn around and sell it themselves, which (if true, and I'm not accepting this whole thing uncritically) is about the most disingenuous thing ever.
On the post: Eli Lilly Enlists Congress In Fight Against Canada For Refusing Patent On Useless Drug
On the post: Square Enix: DRM Is Here To Stay
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Square Enix makes RPGs that haven't been fun since FF9.
On the post: LA Sheriff's Dept. On New Surveillance Program: We Knew The Public Wouldn't Like It, So We Kept It A Secret
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On the post: Tom Lehrer, Culture And Copyright After Death
Re:
Just off the top of my head, he's good but he's no Gilbert & Sullivan...
On the post: LA Sheriff's Dept. On New Surveillance Program: We Knew The Public Wouldn't Like It, So We Kept It A Secret
Re: Re: The public...
On the post: DailyDirt: Modern Dating
Isn't this pretty solidly established? I first heard about this almost 20 years ago and it was considered pretty non-controversial (except among hormonal (pre-)teens, of course) even back then.
On the post: Court Declares That, Yes, Bloggers Are Media
Re: Whatever happened to "Malice Aforethought"????
On the post: Recording Industry Wants To Have It Both Ways When It Comes To Pre-1972 Recordings
Re: Re:
On the post: Video Games Do Cause Aggression... If They Suck Out Loud
Re:
Even if you've taken the time and put in the hard work to peacefully resolve both of the central conflicts of the game, (Krogan vs. Salarian and Geth vs. Quarian,) which would have proven that the point being made at the end is invalid, Shepard never has the opportunity to present this line of reasoning. (You know, the sort of thing Paragon Shepard has been doing FOR THREE ENTIRE GAMES NOW?!?)
And then when enough fans complained, they released an updated version where Shepard gets to reject this line of reasoning... for an even stupider and more pointless ending that basically says "screw you, fans, you'll accept what we're doing and like it!"
Mass Effect 3, more than anything else they do or have done, is the reason why I'll never buy anything else from EA.
On the post: The FBI's Facial Recognition Database Combines Lo-Res Photos With Zero Civil Liberties Considerations
That's actually really good. Do you ever randomly see somebody (who you don't interact with on a daily basis) and think "that looks just like so-and-so that I used to know." And how often does it turn out to actually be that person, after your brain "identified" them?
80% is a very, very good "hit" rate.
On the post: Judge Richard Posner's Ruling In Wacky 'Banana Lady' Case Highlights Just How Wrong Judge Kozinski Was About Copyright
For some reason, I found this sentence difficult to parse and I had to read it several times before I got it. I would have phrased it like so:
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