Contents

1. Google’s Reach Hits Your Tivo
2. KDE Rebrands, Introduces KDE Plasma Desktop
3. Astronomers Invent “Galaxy Game”
4. Man Pleads Guilty To Selling Fake Chips To US Navy
5. Magento Beginner’s Guide
6. Australian Govt. Proposes Internet “Panic Button” For Kids
7. Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight
8. Contributors Leaving Wikipedia In Record Numbers
9. STEREO Satellites Spot Solar Flare Tsunami
10. Moving Decimal Bug Loses Money
11. Wikileaks Publishes 500,000 9/11 Pager Messages
12. Where Are Your Contact Lens Displays?
13. Senators Ask EC To Let Oracle-Sun Deal Go Through
14. Ubuntu Reaching Out To 16,000 Anime Lovers
15. US Air Force Buying Another 2,200 PS3s
16. Inkscape 0.47 Released
17. Computer Games and Traditional CS Courses
18. Shedding Your Identity In the Digital Age
19. Two Senators Call For ACTA Transparency
20. Brain Scans Used In Murder Sentencing

TiVo for 6 years now - by kheldan (Score: 2) Thread
If I was suddenly forced to watch commercials (i.e. no 30 second skip and/or no fast forward) I’d probably dump cable and just watch what I can get on Netflix instead. It would be sad though because there are down-times during the latter parts of my evenings when it’s too early to go to bed but I’m too tired to do anything else and I want something passive and relatively low-bandwidth brainpower-wise to do in the meantime, and the few shows TiVo records for me are perfect for that.

Block data collection - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 2, Insightful) Thread

These days, is there anyone left who does NOT block all these data collection and tracking things?

The trouble is that they invent them fast enough that it’s hard to keep up. Web bugs, cross site scripts, I block everything I know about, but it takes a little bit of diligence to keep up with it. And some, like TIVO, you can see coming a mile off, so are easy to never start using in the first place.

If we don’t stick up for a shit-free internet, soon it will all be commercialized into uselessness. TV 2.0!

Thankfully, unlike TV, it’s in OUR hands, and it can only go to crap if we let it. So just block attempts at tracking everyone’s every move, and problem solved.

Yes, it takes a little bit of sacrifice. But so does anything that’s worth while.

If you want fewer commercials - by pwnies (Score: 3, Informative) Thread
Why not just set up mythtv and have it auto-extract?

Weather they stop the ads? - by Wrexs0ul (Score: 3, Insightful) Thread

They have ads there too? Sunny and a 50% chance of Cialis?

I wonder when this arms race for our eyeballs will peak. I’m not angry with targeted ads, overall it makes for a smarter consumer when after a generation or two we learn to identify market-speak at the cost of the last company to the block’s poorly-spent campaign. In the mean time there’s a greater likelihood I’ll chance across something that is actually valuable to me, or a funny Geico ad :)

-Matt

Re:Who the fuck still watches TV? - by sakdoctor (Score: 3, Funny) Thread

Parent poster doesn’t even OWN a TV

Re:So if they’ve changed the name… - by H0p313ss (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
Kno!

Clarity? - by cgenman (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Great! Now Linux will still have two major competing desktops. But now one of them could be one of several separate versions, or some applications on a different desktop, or a version of Windows running Koffice. Thanks, clarity committee!

Re:Clarity? - by R.Mo_Robert (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Wow - by Midnight Thunder (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

That won’t be konfusing. 
I say that as a KDE user.

There corrected that for you ;)

Re:Wow - by CannonballHead (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

There korrected that for you ;)

*ahem* Fixed that for you.

Re-classify as volunteer work - by syousef (Score: 2) Thread

I’m torn. On the one hand there are very very few opportunities for someone with basic education to help scientists, and especially astronomers do real work. On the other hand as a “game” this is about as boring as you can get. I think there are enough amateur astronomers who are willing to help , especially in bite sized chunks (just look at the amateur effort tracking variable stars!) so why not call it what it is - volunteer work - and drop the lame game interface?

Credibility shot… - by scooter.higher (Score: 2) Thread

Sorry, but British scientists already screwed up with their climate “research” so I’ll wait for the next go ‘round…

Got a walkthrough anyone? - by whatajoke (Score: 2, Funny) Thread
The very first mission is a boss fight :(

Idle? - by Thinboy00 (Score: 2) Thread

Why is this in science? Shouldn’t it be in idle?

Boring - by inhuman_4 (Score: 3, Funny) Thread

I thought games were supposed to be fun. This just sounds like grunt work. Don’t these researchers have grad students to do this kind of thing?

since the summary was a little vague - by Z1NG (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
apparently the fake chips are made with less than 50% potato, have a weird taste and are sold in a can.

Wait! - by Shrike82 (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
Fuck the Navy, you mean my vacuum cleaner might have sub-standard chips in it?! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!

Re:Wait! - by AioKits (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Are you a vacuum cleaner overclocker as well? Oh man, I thought I was the only one! I’m going to go home right this moment and make sure my Nortech N552BC-NED Dual Venturi 55G doesn’t have these chips on it! And after all the time I spent adding that extra fine filtration with carbon and pin striping to it… Damnit all…

HOW??? - by frozentier (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
HOW does a man and his family sell ANYTHING to the Navy? Is the Navy getting their parts from eBay or Craig’s List?

Re:HOW??? - by Chris Mattern (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

Here’s how. All government procurement has special programs for buying from small business, and in fact are required to spend a certain percentage at small businesses. Congress mandates it, ‘cause it makes good press with the voters.

Don’t know too much about Magento, but do know - by al0ha (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
that based on experience, retailers that propose setting up an ecommerce site should forgo all “canned” shopping carts and fork over the minimal money it will cost to have one custom written to fit your business.  
 
If you are attempting to launch a business without the initial funds to spend around $1000 on a custom shopping cart, with the expectation of spending more money down the road adding custom features tailored to your business if proved successful, then you are not ready to start your business.

Why the fuck is this binspam on /.? - by uuddlrlrab (Score: 3, Insightful) Thread
This isn’t news. This is fucking marketing. As good as this software may or may not be, this is not newsworthy, and is nothing more than shameless promotion of a product.

Not the book the Communtity needs… - by Maudib (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

The problem with Magento is not that it is too complex for a non-technical user. The problem with Magento is that is not properly documented or commented for technical users. Non-technical users that stay within the Magento default store box will have no problems, developers that try to move outside this box will be frustrated, constantly.

Take a look at the code. There are precisely zero comments. Take a look at the documentation, there is almost no official documentation. This makes developing with Magento extremely hard as they employ some convoluted structures for very simple tasks. Eventually one finds that the code is generally of a high standard and that most things can be done without too much effort, but the learning curve is excessive.

I believe that the lack of comments and documentation is part of an intentional strategy by Varien to drive potential users to their closed-source Enterprise solution. The power of the community edition is enticing, but finding knowledgeable developers is nearly impossible and training inhouse staff takes far too long due to the conspicuous absence of documentation and comments.

Finally, I think it is pretty clear that PHP was a very poor choice for such a large framework. The lengths they need to go to implement something that appears to be convention bases and sort of but not quite dependency injected are extreme. PHP’s inability to execute code asynchronously is a huge headache and the EAV model is cumbersome to say the least. Performance is seriously wanting.

So yeah, Magento is enticing as hell to non-technical beginners. However ultimately the combination of Varien’s refusal to document/comment and their poor technology choices make this a platform that just won’t scale. Whats needed to at least partially change that is Magento for Developers*

*There is a Magento for architects, but its already out of date and very short on real details.

Good luck with that! - by DogDude (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
As an e-commerce business owner, and a former web developer, I just tried Magento based on a suggestion from my designer. It’s not for regular people. There’s no formal documentation (literally… none), and like with many OSS projects, “community” support is non-existent. Magento might be a neat project for a large team of professional developers working on e-commerce for a company with very deep pockets, but I don’t think that a beginner of any kind should touch it. I’d rather have less functionality, but more function.

Re:Magneto - by Lulfas (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
You know, I’d pay for that. That’s what they need to stop e-book piracy. Books that give us mutant powers.

Looking forward to 4chan - by MathiasRav (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
(User has been arrested for this post)

Relevant article from Vanity Fair - by dave562 (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/12/sexual-predators-200912

The short version is that the police and the media are contributing the hysteria of online child predators and blowing things WAY out of proportion. In the huge majority of the cases where minors are involved in sexual conversations online, they are engaged in them with other minors.

WTF is wrong with Australia? - by visualight (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Can we go a few months without an article on slashdot describing yet another moronic idea from someone in Australia?

Seriously, there’s something wrong in that place and I’m very curious to know what. Or maybe, these stories are coming from the Australian equivalent of WeeklyWorldNews?

The OTHER online bully - by CarlosHawes (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
So could I use this to report Internet “bullying” the next time Windows Genuine Advantage pops up to see if I have handed over my lunch money to Redmond as required?

Oh honestly now… - by greatica (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

How can Dolphins save you from the net when they get caught in them all time?

balls!!! - by visionsofmcskill (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

I think he could probably fly a whole lot farther if it weren’t for the drag created by his monstrously huge friggin balls.

that is one brave dude

Ooooh… Intercontinental - by aardwolf64 (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Calling 23 miles “intercontinental” seems disingenuous. I mean, I could drive down to Mexico and make an “intercontinental” jump of 1 foot… But labeling it as such is just stupid.

Re:Ooooh… Intercontinental - by Geoffrey.landis (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

Not until Mexico conquers Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama, you can’t.

Re:Ooooh… Intercontinental - by megamerican (Score: 4, Informative) Thread

I know as American’s we’re supposed to hate Mexico, but they are still on the same continent as the US.

There are a few good examples of short intercontinental flight that would make it even more trivial which you could have used. The Suez Canal and Bosporous would be suitable candidates.

Re:Engineering Effort? - by zippthorne (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

He’s evolving down from “skydiving” to a workable personal jetsuit, rather than up from “rocket skating.” An early iteration had no engines at all, just a delta-wing personal glider (and it could probably be considered as an incremental improvement over the “wing suit” which came after the “balloon suit”…)

It’s just safer this way. If he fails, he’s ditches the wing and activates “plain old skydiving” mode with a parachute. If he’d started from the ground on the first try, there are dozens of places where a failure means death without any fall-back options at all.

In previous interviews he has stated than an eventual goal is to do a complete flight including takeoff.

How about anti-science? - by FridayBob (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
One of the things I hated most when I was writing for Wikipedia was the anti-science attitude of many editors there. I wrote mostly articles on biological organisms and was a strong proponent of using scientific names for article titles. Common names are simply not unique, a fact that has resulted in many heated and pointless debates (i.e. Tiger vs. Puma). I figure WP should try to move beyond that and embrace the advantages of scientific nomenclature that biologists have known about for 250 years.  
 
Most of the folks who were actually busy writing the articles agreed, but every time an attempt was made to change the policies, our efforts would be met with great resistance from people who simply did not know what they were talking about, let alone make any contributions of the kind. You could see from their edit histories that these people were bureaucrats: they produced very little content and an amazing amount of hot air. Yet, they have enormous influence at WP due simply to their dogged persistence.  
 
In my view, the fact that more productive editors are now leaving as opposed to arriving is only partly explained by the low-hanging-fruit phenomenon. I, along with many others, was willing to take WP — or at least my small corner of it — to the next level, but the problem is that those bureaucrats simply don’t share the same vision. When it comes to certain subjects that enter into their own realm of consciousness, it seems like they’d rather keep things looking like an expanded version of the old encyclopedia that their parents once bought when they were kids. It’s completely at odds with Jimbo’s original vision, but try telling them that.  
 
As a result, the easy work has already been done, but anyone with the knowledge to do the hard stuff is quickly discouraged. I suspect most professional biologists don’t even bother; a few of the ones I spoke to outside of WP had a low opinion of the site precisely because scientific names were not being used for article titles.  
 
Finally, there’s the problem of vandalism. Since I’ve left, no one has stepped in to keep an eye on the articles I wrote, let alone expand them in any meaningful way. The vandalism, however, is constant. Most of the obvious stuff gets reverted, but it’s the subtle vandalism that is the most problematic. Unless you’re a specialist, you just can’t tell the difference. Either WP should start paying specialists to keep watch, or they should start try treating their own volunteer specialists with more respect. I’ve heard for years that WP v2 was supposed to solve a lot of vandalism problems, but so far it hasn’t appeared.

It just isn’t worth the fight anymore. - by Distan (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

I was an old-timer on Wikipedia who began contributing in 2002.

I’ve witnessed layers and layers of bureaucracy be added to Wikipedia all under the benevolent dictatorship of Jimbo. I’ve witnessed what used to be a culture where all editors were considered equal become one where there are definite castes and hierarchies (and cabals).

It just isn’t worth the effort to edit anymore.

Case in point: from 2002 to 2006 I was one of the primary editors of a set of articles that had to do with a subject that definitely has politics surrounding it. All the editors involved and I did our best to present both sides of the topic and to try to keep the articles fair and balanced. The number of editors was sparse and it was relatively easy to keep the articles on track.

A couple of years ago a new user started editing these articles. He was extremely contentious but a skilled at wikilawyering. Every edit he didn’t agree with would be dragged by him down a rathole of WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:POV, WP:PSTS, and so and and so on ad infinitum. It doesn’t matter how well *your* edits are sourced from quality peer-reviewed sources. If he didn’t agree with your edits he would find something to complain about; the journal you are citing isn’t respected enough, the author you are quoting has an obvious bias, your summary of the published literature doesn’t agree with how he would summarize the published literature, etc, etc, etc. Similarly, any objection you had to his edits (or to the overall effect his edits in aggregate were having on the article) would also be dragged down a similar path of his gaming the system.

Editing the articles involved simply became too painful to continue. If you wanted to make any change that this user would disagree with then you had to prepare yourself of days of arguing with him before he would leave you alone. Similarly, one became hesitant to “correct” any of his articles because of the time-sink that you knew arguing with him was going to become.

The existing editors tried many times to work within the system to make this user stop. There were multiple attempts at mediation and arbitration. But over time all of the “old” editors simply gave up. It just wasn’t worth the effort anymore.

When I visit these articles today I am ashamed at what they have become. What was once a fair attempt to present all sides of an issue has become extremely one-sided and quite misleading to a reader not familiar with the subject. The “problem user” has become in effect the only editor of these articles, tolerating only a handful of other editors who primarily make grammatical and punctuation changes.

The only hope for the articles in question is that this user eventually gets tired and quits. He has won in his attempt to take over these articles, everyone with an established interest has been driven away, and I don’t think any new user is going to be able to mount a challenge as he will simply tie them down in wikilawyering forever. 
 

A sign of possible improvement - by snarfies (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

I stopped participating on Wikipedia years ago due to deletionists slashing and burning any and alls article in the name of HURR HURR NOT NOTABLE. I mean, why bother? That said, I recently saw something interesting - about two months ago someone wrote an article about her negative Wikipedia experience - Bullypedia, A Wikipedian Who’s Tired of Getting Beat Up. As a result of this article, some folks got together to start WP:NEWT, where they wrote articles while posing as n00bs to see how they were treated. In some cases, they were in fact treated poorly indeed. Gems include “The reason I deleted the article was that the wikilinks did not have the proper markup. In addition, “See also” should be used instead of “See articles” and “External links” should be substituted for “Sites”. Willking1979 (talk) 02:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)” and User:Multixfer throwing a total shitfit when (fully appropriately) outed as being a total asshole.

Sisyphus - by swm (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

EITHER

you monitory your pages every day

• reverting vandalism
• patiently explaining to every newbie who wanders by why their edit is wrong, or inappropriate
• enduring zombie edit wars (they won’t stay dead…)

all the while remembering that they aren’t “your” pages, and that all you can do is make your best evidence-based case and hope that other agree with it…

OR

you don’t, and you watch as bitrot and entropy slowly but relentlessly degrade the pages to something you can’t bear to look at any more.

I maintained some pages for about a year, and then after one particularly nasty edit war I gave up. Not in a petulant “they won’t have me to kick around any more” way. I just stopped caring so much. Wikipedia dropped off my mental list of sites that I check every day.

I still use Wikipedia—it’s near the top of every SERP. But I haven’t tried to edit anything there in years.

Uncontrolled administrators - by whoever57 (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Wikipedia also has a problem with site admins who do things like block people first and ask questions later. I myself was blocked for merely reporting (in the proper venue) that another user was editing in violation of his community ban.

There are admins who it appears can violate every community rule yet won’t receive any sanctions. Of course people are leaving - the admins have driven them away.

Then there are the cases where people have been hounded off Wikipedia and later it has been shown that they were correct and their antagonist was the one who should have been banned.

Re:Recent? Try February. - by oneiros27 (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

Actually, I confirmed it with one of the scientists (Joe Gurman) cited in the article — there was an article from March that was inaccurate, and this was a correction to that previous article.

But, instead of marking it as a correction, it was posted as a new article. (I can’t find the older article, so I don’t know if it was removed)

They also linked straight to the movie, rather than to the explanation of what is being seen in the movie, or cite the original posting of the article, which had different images:

http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/SolarTsunami.shtml 
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/solar_tsunami.html

Joe also said that this was in fact “tsunami-like” in that it was the result of an initially downward wave that reflected back up, as opposed to other CMEs.

(and I probably should’ve added a disclaimer earlier — I work for the STEREO Science Center)

Too much gaming… - by Taibhsear (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Anyone else see the gifs and think “BOOM! HEADSHOT!”

Re:They really thought it might be a shadow? - by necro81 (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
It could be that a chunk of the CME was cold and not very luminous, but another chunk farther out was (the corona is very bright and hot, after all). Stereo images in multiple spectra, and it is well known that portions of the corona are much hotter than the surface of the sun, so it could be that in particular wavelengths the corona can cast shadows onto the sun’s surface. 
 
In any event, this was a comment made by a project scientist - a solar physicist - someone who probably knows more about the subject than you or I.

Re:It is probably 62 miles - by Remus Shepherd (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

Did you see the animation? That wave looks to be easily 1/14th of the solar diameter, especially near the origin.

What I learned from this article is that sunspots explode. Never knew that; I thought they faded away…

Re:It is probably 62 miles - by Monkeedude1212 (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Yeah sorry, SOMEONE put a comma instead of a decimal. Growing trend.

testing is the issue - by maxwells daemon (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

This is not a representation issue. It is a project management and testing issue.

Re:Happened to me recently - by eallanjr (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Don’t you mean ,Net?

Periods and commas. - by MaWeiTao (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

I never understood why the hell Europeans swap periods and commas. Grammatically it doesn’t even make sense.

A period ends a sentence or statement, which to me should imply a whole number. A comma is simply a separator, used within sentences. So why would it be used to separate decimals?

It would be like writing a sentence this way: 
I went to the supermarket to buy some cola. cabbages. and condoms,

Maybe there’s a very good reason for it, but I don’t see it.

Regarding the story on hand, that really sucks. I wonder if they will pull the same garbage as American banks where customers only have 60 days to report a problem otherwise nothing will be done. Whereas, if the bank screws up in your favor, they could go into your account 20 years from now and withdraw whatever extra money they gave you.

Re:Periods and commas. - by mccalli (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
I never understood why the hell Europeans swap periods and commas. Grammatically it doesn’t even make sense…A period ends a sentence or statement, which to me should imply a whole number. A comma is simply a separator, used within sentences. So why would it be used to separate decimals?  
 
See, that argument doesn’t make ‘sense’ either. If a comma is a separator, why not use it to separate decimals? Answer: no reason, it is completely and utterly arbitrary. You’re arguing that the point of view you’re used to is somehow intrinsicly ‘right’ - it isn’t, it’s just usage and custom.  
 
It would be like writing a sentence this way:  
 
Somehow, I suspect mainland Europe knows what it’s like to write a sentence including thousands sperators and decimal separators…  
 
I’m British - I use ”,” to separate thousands and ”.” to separate decimals, but that doesn’t make me ‘right’ - it really is just usage and custom, there isn’t anything to really recommend one way over the other.  
 
Cheers, 
Ian

Good to be a programmer - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread

Good thing the programmers will be shielded from any consequences from this little ‘bug’.

It doesn’t matter that it caused potential harm to clients, corporations in the form of losses, lost time, expenses, etc.

The simple programmers just need to release a hot-fix or service pack.

Now if these were engineers, and I mean real engineers not “software engineers”, there would be consequences.

Their licenses could be revoked, they could be investigated for incompetence, and held professionally and personally liable for any bugs.

But please, keep on purchasing software with NO WARRANTY, or NO FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, and that contains KNOWN DEFECTS.

Gotta keep the programming industry alive, and don’t wanna stress theses “engineers” too much.

I Can’t Wait… - by Black-Man (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

For that text pager message: “Finished arming the detonating device, Herr Cheney”.

Pagers were working? - by wandazulu (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

I thought pagers used the cell networks a la text messages; indeed, I thought a pager was essentially a dedicated text message device.

I was in NYC on Sept 11 and the only thing that *was* working that day was the Internet…phones, both land line and cell were unavailable. We were trying to contact my brother-in-law who lived in Manhattan (we were in Brooklyn) and every phone we tried, including the pay phone down the street (still had ‘em back then…) gave us the “fast busy signal”, indicating “We didn’t even try to make your call…”

So we spent the rest of the day IM’ing people as that was the only way to verify who was where. Bad times…bad times.

It’s not just 9/11 related pager messages - by rbb (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
In this file I noticed a message that, in hindsight, is especially morbid:

Good morning. I haven’t heard from you in a while. I’ll try one more time and I suppose I will take the hint if you don’t page me back. Have a good day. Todd

Self aware computer systems? - by feedayeen (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
“computer systems sending automated messages as buildings collapse” 8:46 a.m. - “Ow, something hit me!” 8:47 a.m. - “Anyone else smell smoke?” 8:47 a.m. - “Admin has logged off” 10:28 a.m. - “System failure”

Who needs to make backups anymore? - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
Who needs to make backups anymore? The NSA has all your data and communications stored for you. Maybe they should sell backup services to fix the budget deficit.

How do you look at specific things with them? - by foodnugget (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread
I don’t have contacts, but from what i understand, they center on your cornea and move with your eye, right? 
 
How would someone “look around” on a screen with contacts? Wouldn’t the center of the screen always be what you’re looking at, drastically minimizing what you can read and properly make out?

This it great - by AP31R0N (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

These will definitely help me find Sarah Connor.

The Blue - by JustOK (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

The Blue Cataract of Death.

Where Are Your Contact Lens Displays? - by Saija (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
maybe here:  
Augmented Reality In a Contact Lens  
Bionic Contact Lens May Lead to Overlay Displays  
Contact Lenses for Computer Professionals?  
Bionic Contact Lens May Lead to Overlay Displays  
Smart Contact Lenses  
Permormance-Enhancing Contact Lenses  
 
And for the recursive obssesed folks, there’s: 
Where Are Your Contact Lens Displays?

Focus? - by Sockatume (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

It strikes me that the real trick isn’t putting a display on the lens of the eye, but getting a focussed image. I mean, you could write a crisp, clear letter on someone’s eyeball right now, but they wouldn’t be able to see it. It’d just be a smudge on their vision. That still leaves you open to using a flash of colour in different directions to attract the wearer’s attention to hazards, or other blurry ways of presenting information, mind you. I think the real key will be putting MEMS-directed lasers in there which can draw on the retina, bypassing focussing entirely.

Oposite result - by Aceticon (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Lets see if I got this right: 
- The legislators of the 2nd largest western economy, pushed by lobbyists and in order to further the economic gains of companies based in their economic zone try to interfere in the internal affairs of the top largest western economy.

Sure, that’s bound to work.

It’s just as likely succeed as it would be if members of the European Parliament where trying to influence the US competition authorities with regards to European companies that have activities in US soil.

It’s very simple, if Oracle wants to sell in the European markets they have to obey the European fair-competition rules. If they don’t like them they can leave the market. In the same way, if any European company wants to sell in the US market they have to obey the US fair-competition rules or leave the market.

Honestly, Oracle having the legislators of a sovereign nation trying to influence the due process in an totally different economic and political block might very well be construed as an insult and have the opposite effect of what they intend.

What’s next, will we have the People’s Assembly of China send a letter to the European Commission saying “You guys over-reacted on the whole toxic paint on child’s toys thing” ???

Re:No legitimate concerns - by Matje (Score: 4, Interesting) Thread

If you’re going to be pedantic I’ll join :)

You are, in fact, an American. The US is a federation, meaning power is granted by the federal government to the lower states. So the government of the US determines whether a state can set a legal drinking age, or whether that is up to the US government itself. The European union is a union of sovereign states. It is the sovereign states that determine (together) which powers are granted to the union government. That’s quite a big difference.

Another way to determine your nationality is to check your passport. Mine certainly doesn’t say European Union like yours says United States ;)

Your lobbyists at work - by smurfsurf (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

“managed to do something that US Presidents often find difficult: to make 59 US Senators from both sides of the aisle agree on something.”

The lobbists agree => the senators agree.

Hold on - by CaptainZapp (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
According to what was made public Oracle was made aware of the reservations of the EU commission, on which Oracle answered: “That they are essentially dumb farks that understand neither business nor open source”.

For starters: This is not a clever approach to deal with the European commision. Oracle could sell MySQL and there would be no problem at all. But no, ol’ Larry decided to get confrontational.

Further, the EU Commissions role is to ensure a competitive, fair and transparent market and to protect the consumer from abuse not to ensure Suns or Oracles profit, as the letter appears to imply.

Thanks for trying, but no cigar for you senator dudes.

Re:Hold on - by JamesVI (Score: 4, Insightful) Thread
This whole situation says much more about Ellison and Oracle than it does about the EU. Everyone already knew that the EU Commission marched to a different drum beat than the DOJ. It really doesn’t matter whether the commission is right or wrong according to some external measure (i.e. everyone’s personal opinion), they have the last word on this merger. 
The mergers and acquisition group at Oracle should have known what they needed to give the commission before the deal was even publicly announced and then handed the commission everything they would need to make a rapid decision. That might have included Ellison deciding up front to jettison MySQL immediately after the acquisition. Right now the decision is being held up because Oracle has asked for more time to prepare a response.

Oblig XKCD - by Lemming Mark (Score: 5, Funny) Thread

Guys, I’m disappointed you haven’t got here already. http://xkcd.com/178/

Anime on Ubuntu? Seriously?? - by ThePhilips (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

That is getting stupider over time - considering that out of box Ubuntu can’t play 99% of anime found on say mininova.

And even after installing all possible drivers, applications and codecs, Linux video playback - especially as anime concerned - is still eons behind of CCCP on Windows.

And what about the “remix culture” reference? Manga and anime fandom is interesting because there are more people who do new/original stuff - and few who rehash the old stuff. And even if they “remix” (what a stupid word lessig came up with) they still do it their own way, not some dumb copy paste like what many CC-lovers do.

That is manga, not anime.

This is great! - by DoofusOfDeath (Score: 4, Funny) Thread

This will give Ubuntu the mainstream credibility we’ve been seeking!

Problems for anime fans with Linux - by abigsmurf (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
There are some big problems anime fans will have with using Linux: Windows boxes are more capable media players. I generally prefer Zoomplayer and MPC-HC to stuff like VLC (although this is naturally personal preference) but a big issue is the lack of Blu Ray playing capability under Linux.  
 
There’s also gaming, with the exception of Onscript based games, very few visual novels play well with Linux and most Tohou/doujin shooters are Windows only.

The English translation of Ubunchu is still flawed - by Shin-LaC (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
I sent the maintainer some corrections back in April, but he thought my criticisms were too harsh and chose to ignore them. 
 
Sometimes the translators simply failed to grasp the meaning of the original text. In panel 3, the girl says “Yokenna, kono!” (“Why you, don’t dodge!”) and the boy replies “Maji iteendazo!” (“Those really hurt, you know!”; they are both referring to the CDs she’s throwing), but in the English translation it turns into “Stop messing around! It can’t be any good!”. The third girl’s line, “Hamori nagara kenka shinaidee!”, is not so easy to render in English, but it definitely doesn’t mean “Stop talking at the same time!”: it means “You were speaking in unison a minute ago [panel 2], so don’t fight now!” 
 
Other times, the translation is clumsy. In panel 1, “Saikin ninki no desktop na Linux desu!” (“It’s the most popular desktop Linux these days!” - or, more literally, “It’s a desktop Linux that is popular these days”) becomes “It is very popular with the users, and it is the hottest desktop Linux distribution available.” 
And that’s just the first page. 
 
I reported these and more flaws months ago, but since the maintainer took offense to my harsh but polite comment (“the translation should be redone”, I said), he simply rejected the “patch”. It’s hard not to crack wise that this is just like a real open source project. :-) 
(Actually, I know most maintainers aren’t like that, so hold those Flamebait mods. :P)

Black Friday Deals! - by upto0013 (Score: 5, Funny) Thread
They should wait for Black Friday, nobody is going to fight the Air Force for a doorbuster…

Re:Cell processor - by umghhh (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
I suppose if they ordered a system designed specifically for their purpose it would cost a dozen millions more on top of this half that you mentioned and then they still had to do in house software stated in the summary. So indeed they saved some - even if you consider all the military expense a nonsense anyway it was still half a mil wasted instead of a dozen.

Re:Cell processor - by emilper (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

They would buy Cell processors, but then then it would take an year and a half for the papers to be processed, six month for IBM and Dep.Def. to spec the systems, and about two years while competitors contest the order … everything costing about 10 times as much for one half of the computing power, and would not be able to run much else besides floating point calculations.

BTW, has anybody tried DwarfFortress on a PS3 ?

Loss for Sony? - by SlothDead (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Since Sony’s strategy (like Microsoft’s) is to sell the consoles below production costs and make money on the games I guess that they are now pretty angry about organizations buying PS3s solely for computing…

Re:Loss for Sony? - by RogueyWon (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

This is only true for the start of a console cycle. By this point, Sony and MS should at worst be breaking even on console sales and probably having a bit of profit. Component prices fall dramatically over the course of the typical 5-year console cycle.

Re:0.47 - by Dice (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

Their roadmap states that the 1.0 milestone is “full SVG 1.1 support”.

Does it actually make standard SVGs yet? - by BitZtream (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Everytime I’ve looked at Inkscape in the past its idea of ‘standard’ SVGs is about like Word’s idea of ‘standard’ HTML, even when you switch to the standard svg format rather than its extended version.

I’m grabbing it now, but I see nothing in the release notes about this particular issue. I see things about adding more extensions which is great and all, but I use SVG because its a documented standard that I can work with in my own software, I’d love to suggest Inkscape to others, but until its capable of producing version 1.2 SVGs with text flows that work with Apache Batik is useless. The font improvements look promising, as long as it isn’t retarded and storing all text as curves.

Heres to hoping …

Re:Does it actually make standard SVGs yet? - by BitZtream (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Please compare

http://home.hccnet.nl/th.v.d.gronde/inkscape/ResultViewer.html

to

http://xmlgraphics.apache.org/batik/status.html

My standards actually are based on some standard.

I was excited when I saw ‘svg test suite compliance’ in the release notes, then I looked at the test results. The omit a large portion of them and fail a massive chunk of them.

A new feature in the release notes is ‘Initial SVG font support’ … Inkscape is roughly the same as using Frontpage 2000 to make web pages. Sorry I got your fanboy panties in a bunch, but reality sucks sometimes.

Brilliant piece of software - by zhilla2 (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

As a person who uses vector drawing programs from time to time, this program was a great find. Having pirated Corel Draw installed, mostly for rubbish reasons, was also bad - for bloat reasons, law reasons - and sanity reasons. I remember that Corel then (>5 years ago) had so much bugs, slow and unresponsible, bad support for local fonts, unstable. For all my purposes Inkscape is by far better program - compact, standards compliant, fully functional, and frankly I enjoy using it much better than Corel Draw. Couple bugs yes, but brilliantly reliable compared to horrible nightmare that is (was?) Corel Draw.

Re:Brilliant piece of software - by zhilla2 (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Your argument is invalid. Yes, it might not be 100% draft compatible, but at least its SVG files are perfectly readable in all the software I ever tried… from Firefox, Opera, to Photoshop and whatnot. As far as I know, Word HTML is actually readable mostly in IE. It does so on purpose - 1. Get monopoly 2. Break standards 3. Get people to use your proprietary formats / equipment 4. Profit!

Games as examples in CS != Game Design degree - by the_raptor (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Isn’t the editorial a non sequitur? Using gaming based examples instead of Hello World or business based problems in a traditional CS course is not anything like a game design course. I have a problem with doing this though as while it may be good for the university it is bad for the students who get suckered into a career thinking they will be making games (or that working in the games industry is like making a game for an assignment). This is actually a problem infesting nearly all of modern teaching where “student involvement” is increased by making it fun at the expense of helping kids develop a work ethic*. Being able to work even while bored and disinterested with the task is a much higher predictor of future success than getting good grades because the topic was interesting.

The problem with this is that real world work is often rarely fun unless you are lucky enough to be able to achieve a dream job. Most of us have jobs that while they may be fulfilling have substantial portions that are not fun, and indeed are often gruelling*. This kind of tactic seems like a bait and switch to me. If you don’t enjoy the maths and problem solving involved in CS it is not the career for you, no matter what kind of shiny veneer they put on it.

* There is a balance to be had. But I find that too often in early schooling the teachers are using this method instead of instilling in kids a desire to learn and to work hard for future reward. 
** I enjoy playing games and analysing movies, but doing that as a job would not be the same as doing it for fun.

Game development is a hard life - by syousef (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

I develop business software. Insurance and banking (mostly banking now), I’d love to develop games. What I don’t want is 80-100 hour weeks as standard (pay for 30 hour weeks), competition with every upstart that thinks playing Quake for 20 hours straight makes them leet, companies that go bust and never pay you, a large percentage of projects cancelled, and fighting a perception that you’re not doing anything serious with your life because all you do is play games. It just isn’t for me.

By all means add more gaming components to the CS courses. Game programming is difficult and challenging and is an excellent excercise. Game physics is unforgiving and requires a good grasp of science. The creative side requires people to develop some very subtle skills. However don’t expect your students to all like it or to become game programmers. That’ll certainly be one path, but its not for everyone. I’d rather see this as an elective that can be taken early rather than having it forced as some incorporated part of a CS1/2 course. Access to the tools and mentoring on the methods would be useful to those interested in the field.

An example or two.. - by Beowulf_Boy (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

I have a bachelors degree in Game design, and using games was a big part of how programming was taught at my school.

A lot of people are going to say “but how are they going to learn, games are complex, etc etc”

They don’t have to be. A few examples from how I learned…

In my networking fundamentals, we covered opening sockets, threading to take care of the sockets, passing information back and forth, etc. At the point in a normal course, you’d probably do something like…make a lame chat client, or an FTP program or something. Instead the professor said, ok, I want you to make a game that uses these concepts to pass information between computers. I wrote a pong game that used a client / server type setup. One computer ran the server and both ran the clients. The server computed all the stuff and returned data to the clients on where to place the ball, paddles, and the score. I also had a lot of fun doing it.

Another good one. For my programming fundamentals class (eg, first class the freshman took to learn programming) they used python. After we covered the basics, such as arrays, if statements, loops, and so on, we got into user input. Then the instructor turned us loose on a simple header he’d made that let you move ASCII characters around the screen and asked us to make a simple game, such as a maze the user had to move through via the directional keys. It was amazing, because the next class students came in with some really awesome games using pretty complex stuff they’d looked up and taught themselves. By the end of the year long series of classes, freshman were making sprite based games on par with Super Mario Brothers 3 and other scrolling type games using PyGame.

I also learned Direct3D and OpenGL and wrote a few simple games with them to learn how to work with a rather complex API. Then we picked up Ogre and a physics engine (I can’t remember the name off the top of my head). My final project was a bowling game that head realistic physics, and you controlled the spin and movement of the ball via the mouse. I showed it to my current employeer (I started out as a co-op) during my interview, and it really set me apart. Granted my job requires very little programming, but it still really made me stand out when I was able to show them something flashy, rather than a program that did a lot in the background but not much in the userland end of things. Not that theres anything wrong with that, but people tend to like flashy cool looking things.

Not This Again… - by Comatose51 (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

“Schools are working to put real-world relevance into computer science education by integrating video game development into traditional CS courses.”

Nowhere in the article do I find a statement that supports the claim that traditional CS courses are lacking real-world relevance. Can we please stop taking shots at the four years CS degree? If you don’t like it, then don’t get it. It’s only been five years since I graduated my with my Bachelor’s in CS and I can tell you that the course I took are highly relevant. I use it every day when I’m coding and thinking about my algorithms. I need to know what the run-time complexity of my methods and how I can use various data structures to make my code more efficient and what the trade offs are. In fact I do it so much that it’s almost second nature. These are things they teach you in the core CS classes, at least where I studied that’s what happened. My school was very prestigious but not well known for its CS department so I imagine that my education isn’t that extraordinary.

Our CS program offered a set of courses that would have allowed students to create games. In fact, that’s what the computer graphics course did. I worked with a couple of students who took that class. They reused those same skills again later during our AI project when we created a simulation where the AI played against itself. We weren’t exactly creating the next WarCraft III or Civilization IV but some of the fundamentals are there. Likewise, those same skills could be put to use in other projects. The school doesn’t have to have a course called “Game Programming for the Real World” for people to see that its course are relevant to the various sub fields in software engineering.

Also, software engineering is a more expansive field than just making games. Programming an O/S or network programming are both very relevant skills even today.

Re:Not This Again… - by quantaman (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

I think the point isn’t that the courses are teaching useless stuff, but rather they’re teaching the things using examples that the students don’t find relevant. A lot of CS assignments consist of fairly contrived tasks that test the immediate task and nothing else. They do the job but the student doesn’t have a sense of accomplishment since their program hasn’t really done anything useful, just completed a contrived task. Games on the other hand have the objective of fun, so the moment the user has written a game they’ve written a useful application. This gives them a much greater sense of accomplishment.

Say you’re teaching them how to use mathematical approximation algorithms to quickly compute line intersections.

You could use a simple graphing package and have them use their algorithm to draw the two vectors and see how close they get.

Or you could turn the vectors into arrows and have them try to shoot down another arrow in mid-flight.

Which would you have more fun writing?

You must remember - by Whiteox (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

The point is that Ratliff still used the net incognito, which was important in this comp. I suggested to Wired that this be a yearly event, much like Cannonball. This first one attracted a lot of interest and made use of social websites as a tool. Fascinating sociology. 
He could’ve after all, hid in his mum’s basement.

Re:You must remember - by Shadow of Eternity (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

i think that bears repeating, really the only reason he was found is because he pretty much did the digital equivalent of walking around with a neon sign on his head.

The average person can dissapear quite effectively from pretty much anyone except the govt or groups with similar power.

Re:You must remember - by plover (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Yep. According to TFA, he overheard some searchers looking for him at the soccer game. And he was ultimately undone by his uncommon need for gluten free foods. Both of those were ties to his “old life”. (Not that he could give up having celiac disease.)

The other trick is: don’t look back. He gave up instantly on people who could and would have helped (girlfriend, family) but not on the dedicated searchers. He seemed to have a need to keep track of the people tracking him, and he certainly got sloppy with tor. That might have been necessary for the “interesting story” aspect of this, but he could have gotten all the emails and facebook stuff after the fact from his editor. As it was, it was this aspect of his paranoia that led to his failure.

I did like that he was somewhat clever enough to use a “hard-to-google” alias (but not impossible: googling for “gatz -gatsby -fitzgerald” would remove much of the noise.) I’m envious of a friend (last name Smith) having a name that is completely invisible on line. If you want to search for him, you have to know more about him than just his name.

Re:You must remember - by plover (Score: 5, Interesting) Thread

Great point. And he did dive headlong into paranoia, and not without justification; the whole country WAS paid to get him! I certainly can’t fault him for watching.

But if you knew in advance that your police scanner actively reported your location every time you turned it on, you think you’d be more careful. And he was, at first. The laptop TOR setup was a brilliant idea (if poorly executed, as the hunters still used anti-tor tricks to learn his real IP.) But he stopped using tor because it was clumsy and slow (no argument here) not because it was ineffective. His real IP being traced to the New Orleans pizza shop directly contributed to his getting caught.

If nothing else, there were several good lessons for people who want to hide from the general public while living online. 
1. Tor is somewhat effective, but you should run it from behind a NATting firewall to avoid giving away your real IP. 
2. Embrace noscript, and be sure to kill third party javascripts that report your activity, such as google analytics. It won’t stop a collaborating host site from providing your IP, but it will stop the easy third party trackers that are so common. They’re like drift-nets that catch everything as it flows by thousands of sites. 
3. Allow cookies to persist only as long as your session, and don’t cache stuff. Private browsing would be a fast way to do the right thing (but be sure to end your session at least every single day.) 
4. Don’t run flash; if you must, be sure to set it to store 0KB of data locally. 
5. Run zone alarm and keep an eye out for any unexpected outbound traffic. 
6. Stay away from facebook toys, or any of the goofy social networking crap. (It’d probably be best to avoid social networking sites altogether, as they tend to have a pretty incomplete picture of security.) 
7. Use an email cutout service. They’re common enough as spam fighters, but can keep the curious from getting too close, too. 
8. Avoid sites that require registration for no real reason. 
9. Use tools such as BugMeNot to get an anonymized login for sites that require registration, or create a login that you use for only a session, no more. 
10. If you use a disposable ID or email address, DISPOSE of it after use. Register a new one with your next session.

Re:You must remember - by jamesh (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Depends on how badly they want you vs how badly you want to stay hidden… “JWSmythe (446288), in this bag we have one of your girlfriends fingers. In 9 days she will run out of fingers. Please get in touch with us.”. s/girlfriend/someone_else_you_care_about as required.

I hope I never have to stay hidden from someone who wants me at any cost.

Re:Against ACTA or not? - by Opportunist (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Personally, it reads like they want to know what ACTA is about before they are for or against it. Which is basically what I’d expect from a level headed politician. What they want is that the legislative (ya know, the body that SHOULD actually make the laws. If you think that’s the prez’s job, you’re essentially wrong) can do its job. What I’d guess they want is to take back the power that has somehow appearanty creeped towards the prez (who represents another power, actually) while nobody was looking.

One of the cornerstones of a democratic, non-authoritarian government is that separation of powers. The creed is that no person should have more power than he absolutely needs. The US founding fathers saw that in certain situations it might be necessary to act swiftly so they created that office of the president and gave him the extraordinary position of wielding the executive power in his single hand, because executing laws can be a matter that cannot wait until you have assembled hundreds of people and got them to find a consensus.

Creating new laws, on the other hand, is something that should, must take time. It should be pondered and considered, by many brains with many different views, so every aspect these laws could affect can be taken into consideration. Good laws rarely come from one single person. No person has all the facts, no person takes every possible consequence into consideration, so many people can crate better laws that benefit most.

Ok, ok, so far the theory, because we know how much rubberstamping is going on, with few senators even knowing what they vote on. But at least they should have the power to do so, if they take their job seriously and don’t just want to have good salary with little to no work or responsibility.

I’d guess they want their duty back. Whether they’re eventually for or against it, only time will tell. But they want to know what they vote on, and given that most Senators don’t, I’d consider that a good sign.

My original link + PDF of the letter - by angry tapir (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
Here’s the link to the longer article that was originally in my story submission before the editor removed it. It includes a link to a PDF of the letter.

cheers, 
A. Tapir

Re:The senators can sign a law that takes a way th - by Firehed (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Our current plethora of unconstitutional laws and policies would suggest that’s not the case.

Most insightful department ever - by selven (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

“We got more senators than that”

Indeed. It’s a shame that only 2% of the senate is willing to stand up against this gross violation of transparency and democratic principles. Good luck to Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown and anyone else who might join them.

Re:Most insightful department ever - by afidel (Score: 5, Informative) Thread
Brown’s been on the good side of technology legislation for a LONG time, when he was over in the House he served on the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet and was almost always on the side of the citizenry. Every time I’ve written him about issues concerning me I have received a detailed and thought-out response, some signed by him personally. I’ve also had the pleasure to meet him in person on numerous occasions and even had the chance to follow-up on some of those letters. He remembered details of my correspondence so I’m fairly certain they were not simply responded too by staffers. He might not be as approachable today as a senator has significantly more constituents but I doubt he cares less about them.

Personally… - by jd (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

I regard the death penalty as somewhat childish and immature. “If X can’t be alive, then… then… Neither Can Yoooooo! So nyah!” The idea that it gives closure to anything seemed to get a kick in the nuts with the Beltway Sniper’s execution. If you don’t get closure when the other person doesn’t cry, then I’m not sure it’s “closure” you’re looking for. Try looking up “schoolyard bully”.

I’m also not keen on the way a lot of these trials are handled, especially the insanity stuff. A person being insane doesn’t alter whether or not they did something, it merely alters their culpability. That should be obvious.

Ergo, it follows that insanity should not be a plea in the trial phase but confined strictly to that phase which deals with culpability, the sentencing.

However, I also disagree with this idea that there are two options - total all-out criminal insanity and total all-out sanity. For a start, it doesn’t leave you with anywhere to put lawyers or politicians.

I would far prefer to see a system in which sanity is regarded as a sliding scale and where sentencing allows the judge to split the time between punishment, treatment and rehabilitation (as and where appropriate) according to what produces the best outcome overall, rather than according to what gives the weenies in the press box a vicarious thrill.

Obviously, if a person is going to be incarcerated forever, then rehabilitation to the point where the person would be safe outside is not terribly useful. On the other hand, it seems reasonable to assume that having them stew, rebel and resent is both less cost-effective and less mature than encouraging them to make effective use of their abilities.

Just because someone is sealed off from society doesn’t mean society can’t benefit from their mind - there’s probably plenty of intellectuals and artists behind bars.

Ian Brady is probably one of the craziest crazies to be in Broadmoor, but his book on the way serial killers think, feel and act should certainly be at least browsed by psychiatrists and detectives for insights no rational mind could ever have produced. No matter how little value it really is, the chances are really good that it’ll do more good than the British Police’s DNA database and CCTV camera system.

I’d rather let a hundred cold-blooded killers live in jail and receive at least some respect as a person if it meant that just one of those hundred produced a masterpiece of art or a book that had significance than have all hundred die purely for the viewing pleasure of Weekend Warriors.

In a hundred years time, which makes the difference? Something that might only rarely advance humanity - but when it does, advance it a lot - or something that provides a momentary mental orgasm for a bunch of f’ed-up “witnesses” and some losers outside and that’s it?

I don’t see why I should pay taxes for someone getting off on watching another die, when I could be paying taxes to give those in prison a chance to do something positive and worthwhile.

Re:Personally… - by dissy (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Well at least you fully understand the American justice system.

It is one thing and one thing only: Revenge

If the powers that be, and those that put them in power, even cared in the slightest about justice, stopping crime, and helping people, then our legal system would be turned on its head and look totally different.

Unfortunately this is what most people in America want however. Not justice, just revenge. Not lack of crime, just to create more crime to dish out more suffering. It satisfies both the animal rage instincts as well as gives a false sense of superior morality.

Before we go insane thinking he’ll be set free… - by Theaetetus (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread
… bear in mind that when you get to sentencing for a capital crime, the options are not “death penalty” or “10-20 years with probation and time off for good behavior”. Rather, it’s “death penalty” or “life without parole”.

You may now return to your previously-scheduled flame war.

Re:Nature versus Nurture - by CannonballHead (Score: 5, Insightful) Thread

Let’s assume, for a moment, that we have a murderer or rapist that does it because he’s genetically wired to do it.

What then? Put him in a “special” place and do genetic “testing” on him? That doesn’t sound so nice.

Let him go, because “he couldn’t help it” and thus he is not culpable? Hm. That, from a protect-society standpoint, sounds incredibly stupid.

Re:Capital Punishment - by Artifakt (Score: 5, Informative) Thread

The deterrent effect just doesn’t happen. Looking at actual death penalty convictions, there’s so few cases where the prisoner has shown any ability to imagine what their life might be like a mere six months down the road, they just aren’t capable of thinking, “Ten years from now, if I do X, I could end up getting a lethal injection like that guy.”. 
          I don’t see any way we could get the total time from arrest to execution down to six months in our legal system, and do anything remotely like justice. That’s bad enough. But when so many of these cases can’t even project six months ahead, any reasonable system of trial and punishment has zero deterrence. 
        We have a case just finishing up in my area. Multiple defendants tried separately, for two murders with lots of additional nastiness like rape and torture. Going by what the two defendants convicted so far have said in the televised trial footage. if a program had come on the TV showing someone convicted of the exact crime they were planning, and how it took less than a week to get from the trial, to the graphically televised three day execution by slow torture, they would have still done it. You could have a 99.9% conviction rate and rotting heads on spikes on every street corner these idiots walked past, and they still wouldn’t believe it was going to eventually happen to them. 
        I’m not arguing for or against capital punishment, mind you, not taking a stand either way. I’m just saying a hope of deterrence shouldn’t be why anyone decides to favor capital punishment, because the people who get it are just plain too stupid to deter.

Signal to Noise ratio over time