* Posts by Turtle

1888 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jan 2010

Red alert! Google assembles crack team to AVOID privacy gaffes

Turtle

"Don't Be Evil" is just the beginning. Here's the rest!

You seem to be unacquainted with the full text of Google's motto, of which "Don't Be Evil" comprise merely the first three words.

The FULL motto runs as follows "Don't be evil, and what we consider 'evil' is anything that negatively impacts our revenue, and you should not allow any laws or legal instruments to compel you to be evil, and insofar as any laws or legal instruments which negatively impinge on our revenue are, by definition, 'evil', it stands to reason that they not only need not be obeyed, they must be actively and enthusiastically contravened - preferably in ways which give us plausible deniability, but then again by means of our highly elaborated network of astroturf organizations, directly and indirectly suborned politicians, and bought-and-paid-for academicians and their tendentious and fraudulent publications and pronouncements - and much, much more because that's not nearly an exhaustive list, trust us!! - we hope to abolish all such laws and legal instruments and thereby bring into existence a world completely free of evil in the truest and fullest sense of the word - by which we mean a world wherein there will be nothing preventing us from maximizing our revenue and profits, at the expense of, well, just anyone at all. Always remember that we are not like Steve Jobs, whose narrowmindedness considers 'evil' to consist of competing with Apple and the iPhone because *we* here at Google have a universal outlook - what is good for Google is good for humanity and for all forms of intelligent life wherever in the universe they might happen to exist or will at some point in the future exist, and what is bad for Google, is bad for us all. Wanna buy some oxycontin? How about a bride from China or Russia?"

I hope that this clears things up for you, at least a bit.

Lawyers: We'll pillory porn pirates who don't pay up

Turtle

Can Porn Be Copyrighted: A Possible Issue To Be Decided.

The article from this link is about a legal theory that claims pornography can not be copyrighted. Although not having a direct relation to the specific subject of the clearly extortionate and criminal enterprise of Urmann and Colleagues, and although I note that that criminal enterprise is being played out in Germany, it is interesting all the same.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/02/can-porn-be-copyrighted-one-file-sharing-defendant-says-no/

WikiLeaks' secrets weren't, says former MI5 chief

Turtle

Re: Logic and Actions of the US

"And if our informants are rounded up because of an expose of naughty business our government is up to then I can only hope they enjoy their 30 pieces of silver in the afterlife."

You see, although YOU might not care if those informants are killed, the US government does - and rightfully so. And if you don't care about those informants - in fact you seem to take pleasure in the idea that they will be killed - why do you care about anyone else - unless you are one of those people for whom any crushing authoritarian regime is acceptable as long as it is anti-American? Really, you could not be more of a hypocrite if you tried.

Ubisoft: 'Vast majority of PC gamers are PIRATES'

Turtle

Not going there.

I own several hundred games, mostly in physical form but some on Steam and GamersGate, and quite a few indie bundles. I have, realistically, enough games to last me the rest of my life. The whole gaming industry could move, en masse, to this free model with the in-game purchasing option but my gaming life will continue as before.

Now here's the thing: assuming for the sake of argument that their figures are correct, roughly the same percentage of people who pay for games now will buy in-game content for free games. But one would think that the average selling price of a game now is far, far higher than the average selling price of in-game items. So while the number of purchasers will increase several fold, the average income per purchaser will decrease several fold; one would have to wonder if this will work out to an overall increase in revenue.

Of course there is also the question of whether free-to-play games will wind up decreasing the cost of making and "distributing" games. About this I know nothing.

I suppose that these "free-to-play" games could eventually be released in a stand-alone non-browser format for anyone who wants to purchase it whole; will they be released in such a form, I wonder?

Then there's the problem of what these in-game items are going to be. Either the items are unnecessary to playing and enjoying the game, which will not encourage purchases, or they *are* necessary to playing and enjoying the game, in which case how many people are going to enjoy the basic "free" game enough to purchase the items - or be so resentful that they will stop playing the game rather than purchase the item? (And then there's the obvious case of purchasing weapons that completely unbalance the game which would be especially problematical in multi-player games.)

There are plenty of unanswered questions and I expect that Ubisoft, Crytek et al will base their answers on their observations of how the "free-games"-market develops.

Creepy skull find proves Man penetrated Asia 60,000 years ago

Turtle

How did they know where to dig?

"Radiocarbon dating and luminescence techniques dated the soil above, below and around the skull, which was found nearly 2.5m below the surface of the cave."

How did they know where to dig? One would think that the odds against finding such a relic are astronomical, or that the ground is heavily freighted with them - which it obviously isn't..

Judge gives Google until Friday to dish on paid media

Turtle

Re: "Shock, Horror"

"Or maybe, shock horror.. Google doesn't pay anyone off to write dirt on their competitors? Unlike Oracle.

Look at it from their perspective, do they really want to be seen paying off someone to talk dirty about others?"

Here's what. Mueller gets money from Oracle. If you want to assume that this means that he is paid specifically to "talk dirty" about Google, then we are going to assume that *any* blogger, journalist, writer, commentator, analyst, who accepts money from Google corporation is *also* paid to "talk dirty" about Google's competitors (or maybe even getting paid simply to refrain from criticizing Google) - and that includes, for example, everything emanating, like a suffocating stench, from the Berkman Center at Harvard and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. And if you agree to that, then that's fine.

In fact, the matter is even worse for Google because this is not just one guy who takes their money. There are whole organizational ecosystems parasitic on Google money - so anyone who is part of any one of these organizations not only has to resist the Google money in the first place - which is obviously impossible if they are part of one of those parasitic organizations, but risk the anger of his colleagues who do accept Google money by doing anything not in conformity with Google's agenda and putting that money at risk. (But I am certainly not saying such principled people exist these parasitic organization in the first place.)

Turtle

"Cluelessness in re: Impossible"

"Google funds the open sorce community heavily. The moving landscape in open source means that almost everyone could have benefitted directly or indirectly from Google's mony."

Yup.

"So where do you draw the line? The judge is being clueless here."

The "cluelessness" - as usual, I must add - is strictly yours. The judge said "Oracle managed to do it. Google can do it too by listing all commenters known by Google to have received payments as consultants, contractors, vendors, or employees." You can complicate it as much as you like but the judge's statement is pretty straightforward. If Google's methods of buying influence means that they have developed highly ramified and convoluted means of dispersing money, well then that's just too bad for Google.

Turtle

Li'l Mistake.

"Judge Alsup was apparently more satisfied with Oracle's statement, which acknowledged that Oracle had a paid consulting relationship with blogger Florian Mueller. Mueller himself had disclosed his relationship with the database maker in an August 18 blog post."

Mueller disclosed this relationship on 18 APRIL, not 18 August, as written in the paragraph cited here, but contradicted by the link in that paragraph.

Turtle

"Impossible"

"'Please simply do your best but the impossible is not required,' the judge wrote."

Oh well, in that case Google need not reveal any names at all, because it seems to be *impossible* for Google to do anything that will be to its disadvantage in any way whatsoever, including complying with any laws, statutes, court orders, or accepted norms of any kind, anywhere in the world.

McIntyre: Climate policy crippled by pointless feel-good gestures

Turtle

Very very ominous for AGW believers.

Here is a link to an article from yesterday's (20/VIII/2012) New York Times. It will be very interesting to see what kind of plans and policies AGW supporters will propose to deal with the matter (and if it will be possible for them to come up with any kind of even semi-realistic plan at all.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/sunday-review/air-conditioning-is-an-environmental-quandary.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Turtle

Re: So the gist of that first page is......

"2. No one has the military capability to force China to stop doing what we have been doing for the past 70 years."

Fixed it for you.

: )

Turtle

Cleaning Out The Augean Stables.

"...policy makers should accept the base IPCC scenarios. Why believe a word [the IPCC] says, asked several questioners? 'Until it mends its ways, policy makers are stuck with it,' said McIntyre."

This is not persuasive reasoning. If the IPCC is so bad - and it is - then you'd have to assume that policy built on the IPCC studies would be wrong - in the sense of being ineffective if not actually harmful - too. The idea that thoroughly corrupted research will lead to effective policy is not encouraging.

One can only think that McIntyre is hoping that there will be some effort to clean out the Augean stables of the IPCC. Personally, I can not see that happening. And you know, even if this were to happen, I would have no confidence in the replacement organization unless it reached conclusions opposite of those the IPCC now fabricates. And I doubt that I am alone in this: I would expect that if the replacement organization were to completely refute the IPCC fabrications, then those people who currently support the IPCC will consider the *new* conclusions to be fraudulent - thereby giving each side in the debate an authority to support and a conflicting authority to call "mercenary, venal, dishonest, driven by ideology and self-interest, etc etc".

I do not see how the solution to the problem of basing public policy on research conditioned by the political motivation of the participants in the IPCC is going to be found in the formation of another panel just as easily accused of having a political agenda.

Exposing China's vast underground economy

Turtle

Re: PeXdant Alert!

"sigh. That's what a UC Berkeley education gets you... although in my defense the major was Computer Science, not English. Go Bears!"

Well I myself simply assumed that it was a conscious attempt at humor. As such, it was completely successful here.

"Go Bears?" Wasn't the band on the field?

Oracle: Google impurifying media's precious bodily fluids

Turtle

Payments Direct And Indirect.

Yes, because it's not like Google funds the Berkman Center at Harvard and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.to the tune of millions dollars. And it's not like if they did fund these academic lobbyists, that it would effect the views emanating from said academic/lobbying institutions, right?

Oh, wait...

Breaking news, literally: Reuters hacked third time this MONTH

Turtle

Note to Reuters.

Note to Reuters:

Report the news, don't be the news.

eBay invites mystic wrath over ban on spells, potions and lotions

Turtle

Finally!

"The ire of the world's witches, warlocks, and other practicers of the psychic arts will be focused on eBay shortly,...'

Well okay! We will FINALLY have that empirical test of the efficacy of magic and magical potions on real-world events! Let's make it as follows: If three of eBay's top executives turn into newts in the next month, then we can all accept that as proof of the real-world efficacy of magic, sorcery, and witchcraft.

If not, not.

British boffin builds cool maser after argument with wife

Turtle

100 Million

"The results exceeded expectations, with maser emissions around 100 million times stronger than anything achieved before."

To me this fairly -screams- "measurement error". (Not that it is, but that's what comes to mind.)

Hypersonic Waverider scramjet in epic wipeout

Turtle

Nice!

"With only one test craft remaining, the Air Force Research Laboratory is promising a “rigorous evaluation” of what caused the latest failure, and whether or not to risk burning more expensive money."

Hey! Just like the Russian Proton-M rocket carriers with the Briz-M boosters!

Nice!

Apple, Microsoft reveal their Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Turtle

"Naivety and posturing"? Please.

"Microsoft has also targeted Android licensees, taking advantage of Google's naivety and posturing over intellectual property."

The only "naivety" here is Google's delusion that they have somehow been liberated from any legal obligation to respect the intellectual property of others. Seeing that they have, and are continuing, to act as though they believe this, there is no reason to assume that their belief is "posturing" - it's a pretty safe bet to think that they really do believe it.

YouTube escapes Google's piracy site smackdown

Turtle

Not to be taken too seriously.

Reducing the traffic it pushes to pirate sites in order to push that traffic to YouTube does not, to me, signal any great change in Google policy: it is still intent on profiting from piracy and copyright infringement on an industrial scale; it is merely cutting out the intermediaries, which might reduce its gross revenue but at the same time boost its net. Evidently it is desirous, if not to turn on profit on its YouTube acquisition, then at least to stanch the loss that it is taking.

Kidney-for-iPad fanboi sues after illness strikes

Turtle

What to say.

"The men are now on trial for illegal organ trading and causing intentional injury and could face up to 10 years in prison, according to the China Daily."

One hardly knows what to say about a story like this.

I have two conflicting urges here. One is to ridicule this extremely stupid kid. Because he deserves to be ridiculed, really. The other is to point out that 10 years a piece is not enough for the people responsible for this - leaving aside for the moment that the kid himself is not blameless. But then, this kid is going to suffer all his life and end up in an early grave thanks to some people who needed to pay off gambling debts.

Still the kid was 17 years old and legally not an adult capable of giving informed consent (assuming the law in China is like our own in this matter, which might well be an erroneous assumption.)

Then again, a 17 year old who would sell a kidney for an iPad and an iPhone is a very stupid 17 year old - and so we are back again at approximately the same place from which we started, even if stupidity is no fit excuse to take advantage of a stupid 17 year old kid in that way.

Still, if selling one's organs were legal here in the west, we would have people selling their kidneys too, and for reasons just as trivial. And they would go on television to tell the world about it, I am quite sure. But the sums involved in the initial transaction, and/or possible television appearances or sales of movie rights etc, and especially lawsuits, would generate far more income that what that kid's going to get in China, I would guess... and it would be very surprising if he manages to get £227,785 out of the perpetrators, unless the actual recipient of the kidney is both very wealthy and not politically connected.

Well, like I said, one hardly knows what to say about a story like this.

'It is not something you are good at, so please think twice'

Turtle

Beautiful....

"Journalist Mat Honan had his entire iLife scrubbed when hackers got hold of his Apple ID. The scribe was such a fanboi that all his tech gear was fruity... so once the baddies had his Apple ID, it was sayonara to pictures, documents, emails and access to any of his online accounts – including, [...]fortunately, the Twitter feed for gadget blog Gizmodo." (Note barely noticeable gratuitous edit.)

What a beautiful and touching story that was!

: )

Russian rocket fails to orbit 2 satellites after booster bungle

Turtle

Fuel.

Evidently those Russian boosters don't just burn rocket fuel; they burn money too.

Google silences podcast app Listen, disbands Team tool

Turtle

"Get rid of the tool"? I don't think so.

"...so the firm will convert folks to personal Google accounts and get rid of the tool."

That does not seem right to me; I am pretty sure that the folks who get converted to "personal Google accounts' are the "tools" here.

Will Samsung's patent court doc leak backfire spectacularly?

Turtle

Part of a larger problem.

"Vicki Salmon, solicitor and patent attorney of IP Asset and the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys (CIPA), told The Register suggested these demands and acts of mischief are a spectacle to win over a jury that probably doesn't understand patent law very well. This is a case about highly complex patent and design issues, the details of which the parties may believe to be beyond the comprehension of the jury," she said."

This touches on a very serious and larger problem: cases concerning issues, whether legal, financial, or scientific, that should NOT be decided by a "typical" jury for the simple fact that the complexities are far too great.

There needs to be some mechanism to permit judgement to be rendered, not by a more or less random selection of people who happen to be in the jury pool, but by a jury composed of people actually competent to understand the issues involved.

Unfortunately, I am not capable of devising a mechanism to accomplish this.

Analyst says Surface could hurt Ultrabook, Windows 8 tablets

Turtle

Great fun expected!

"Taiwanese analyst outfit Trendforce thinks Microsoft’s forthcoming Surface devices will cannibalise the market for ultrabooks, put price pressure on Android tablets and confuse consumers."

I have no idea about how good these devices are going to be, but boy they sound like great fun already... even if I am only going to be a spectator! Maybe *because* I am only going to be a spectator!

Microsoft RTMs final Windows 8 and Server 2012 code

Turtle

Well here is an important milestone...

"Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 8 and Server 2012 have gone RTM..."

Well here is an important milestone that means nothing to me, because I don't like "clouds" and I don't use "tablets".

What can you tell me about Windows 9, though?

Tracking Android phones is easy, says researcher

Turtle

"Tracking Android phones is easy, says researcher"

"Tracking Android phones is easy, says researcher".

You'd expect nothing less from Google!

Google+ mission creep continues with Hangouts slotted into Gmail

Turtle

@Michelle Knight: Re: Slowly coming away from google

You seem to have experienced a sort of epiphany recently with regard to how "surveillable" you are to the tech oligarchy, and how surveillable you want to be. Even though you could have reasonably had this epiphany quite a while ago, I can only admire the effort you have made to "take control of [your] data".

Nice! (And, of course, the very best of luck and success to you!)

Google taking orders for Kansas City gigabit fiber network

Turtle

A Bargain!

So I will presume that the people who are most enthusiastic about Google-as-ISP are people who have no problems with Google monitoring and keeping records of their internet use, and then sharing that information with whatever third-parties Google decides will be appropriate (understanding that an "appropriate party" will almost always mean "any party willing to pay the extremely low fee that Google will demand".)

Well good for them - because for some people there is nothing in life that's better than a bargain! Absolutely nothing at all...

Time for Victoria to adapt, says Climate Commission

Turtle

When O When...

With indescribable expectation and longing I yearn for the day when these 'tipping points" actually arrive and, you know, *tip* - so that the whole matter is a done deal and we don't have to put up with these panic-mongers anymore.

But sadly, it seems that these tipping points are not unlike the horizon: they recede into the future as quickly as you can approach.

Amazon.com hacking suspect 'cuffed in Cyprus

Turtle

One has to wonder.

"After a series of similar attacks against Priceline.com, his alleged accomplice then offered his services to the firm as a security consultant, says Washington."

One has to wonder if he was really stupid enough to expect a legitimate job offer, or if he was just more or less saying, "Put me on your payroll and I won't DDoS you anymore".

I tend to think that he was, in fact, stupid enough.

Spotify coining it at home in Sweden: But are artists getting any?

Turtle

@Ledswinger Re: Breach Of Fiduciary Duty@ Turtle

Let me explain the problem.

Whatever radio and Spotify have in common, they have one very important factor differentiating them.

Any specific listener has no real ability to have the radio play tracks according to what that specific listener wants to hear at any specific time. If you want to hear whatever track you want, when you want to hear it, then you have to find another way to do so; the radio will not accommodate you.

Spotify however allows you to hear whatever you want, whenever you want. In fact, it is very much like owning the track you want to hear. In general, the only reason owning a track has any utility is that ownership allows you to to listen to it whenever you want. But since Spotify fulfills that same purpose for its subscribers, at a faction of the cost of actually purchasing the track, there is no reason for most people to buy music anymore. For most people it is far cheaper to rent the tracks from Spotify.

Nearly all musicians understand the difference. That's why I read and hear numerous complaints about Spotify from musicians, but have never heard any musician complaining about getting radio play, or the royalty rates that radio pays.

Radio gives useful exposure and helps create a market for an artist's work. Spotify cannibalizes other markets while decreasing the value of the tracks.

I am entirely unfamiliar with the argument that Spotify helps increase sales. I have read complaints from musicians and indie labels noting an inverse correlation between plays on Spotify and income from other sources. If you can point me to such studies about Spotify increasing sales, I would be interesting in reading them.

Turtle

How come? Here's How Come...

http://thecynicalmusician.com/2012/06/the-great-gig-in-the-cloud/ (Faza Wiszniewski, The Cynical Musician. See other posts at his blog to get a fuller understanding of the current situation.)

Above is a link to a blog that analyzes and quite clearly explains the problem with any service like Spotifly, and why they pay so little.

Basically the income needs to be shared, and that depends on

A) the total income per user - *not* total income via expansion of the user base.. (An aggregate increase in subscription fees via expansion of the user base means an increase in the number of plays among which the income needs to be divided; this will not lead to increased revenue per stream for the artist. An increase in each user's subscription fee might increase the pay-per-play, but will restrict expansion of the user-base. Moreover, it is possible that new users joining will be high-volume music consumers. It is possible that higher subscription fees will drive away low-volume music consumers for whom the service is no long a "bargain". This in turn could *lower* the payout per stream. )

B) and the manner in which it is shared. There are two basic models for sharing revenue:

1) Per-user revenue distribution: Each listener's subscription fee is divided among the streams to which that person has listened and no others. Problem:: The more tracks a listener streams, the less each stream earns.

"the involved music fan that lives and breathes music is the worst kind of listener you can have.

How could that possibly be? Let’s stick to our prior assumptions and say that each subscriber pays $10, of which $2 go towards the running of the service. Thus, once again there are $8 to be divided – this time only amongst the songs (and thus artists) that the subscriber listened to.

Starting with the most extreme example, let’s say that our fan listened to but a single song over the whole month. That single play was worth $8 to the artist. Woot!

Obviously, that subscriber doesn’t really care for music very much. What about someone who is deeply passionate about music and has the service running all the time, listening to a large number of songs from a large number of artists? Let’s assume that our passionate music fan has managed to clock up 100 artists whose songs they have listened to over the month and, to make our life simpler, let’s also assume that each artist received roughly equal time on that fan’s playlist. At the end of the month, each of those artists is entitled to the princely sum of 8 cents from our passionate music fan. "

2) Aggregate revenue distribution: All subscription fees are pooled and disbursed according to the percentage of streams each artist enjoyed. Problem: Well this is not as easy to simplify as the first scenario, but roughly, we have to deal with Pareto's Law. I am going to copy-n-paste a few more paragraphs from the url at the head of this comment:

"Under this model, [...] if plays of an artist’s songs have accounted for 1% of all songs played during a given period, that artist is entitled to 1% of the total amount raised.

[...}assume a monthly fee of $10 and to keep things realistic, we’ll set aside 20% of that ($2) to cover the costs of running this operation. Thus, all the artists in the system get to divvy up $8 from that fan, based on how much they are listened to by all the users.

Thus, if Lady Gaga manages to account for 10% of all plays, she gets 80 cents from your $10 subscription. If your, somewhat obscure, favourite artist only accounts for 0.01% of all plays they’ll get 0.08 cents. Do you begin to see the problem? Depends on how you feel about Lady Gaga, I suppose.

In an aggregate distribution scenario, your money will be going primarily towards paying the most popular artists, regardless of your opinion of their music."

In short, this and other posts show that it is extremely improbably that Spotify or any service like it can ever pay enough for an artist to make a living wage.

Notice please that I have not even mentioned the problem that Spotify and other streaming services not only pay a pittance, but that pittance is obtained by cannibalizing other sources of revenue, be they iTunes downloads, CD sales, etc.

(There are various stupid people who think that the cause for artists' dissatisfaction with the net is that they will not earn millions of dollars. Ignore them The *actual* cause is that it becomes impossible to simply earn a living worthy of the name.)

Read http://thecynicalmusician.com/2012/05/cargo-cult-business/ for more information of what Spotify is, and why it will never be anything else.

(Apologies to Faza if I have used too much of his original post here.)

(J.L.)

Turtle

Breach Of Fiduciary Duty

I do not understand how a major label can invest in and have in interest in a streaming service, and give that service the right to stream the work of any given artist that the label represents, and not be sued for and found guilty of breach of fiduciary duty, by that artist.

Texas Higgs hunters mourn the particle that got away

Turtle

@keithpeter:Re: "This is a discovery that could have been and should have been made in America."

As noted above, it is not impossible that we might *never* have the technology to get to energy levels needed to go beyond current physics - because those physics might be at the Planck scale. A "higher reach" won't do it UNLESS IT IS HIGH ENOUGH - and it might *never* be high enough. The SCC would NOT have done it.

While the Superconducting Supercollider would have made the same discoveries as the LHC, it would not have discovered more than the LHC - and it would have cost several times the price.

Turtle

@Filippo: Re: Hang on…

Thank you for the help, but insofar as Ratfox's reading comprehension was not sufficient to enable to understand my post, it is not all that likely that his reading comprehension has sufficiently improved as to enable him to understand your post.

But thank you for attempting to help him, all the same!

Turtle

Re: "This is a discovery that could have been and should have been made in America."

"Re: 'This is a discovery that could have been and should have been made in America.' Should have been, because we had the means and ability to do it, we had a good start on doing it, and we used to be the world leader in science and engineering."

If this discovery leads to the "nightmare scenario" of discovery of the Higgs as confirmation of the Standard Model and no new physics beyond it, then it is not at all clear that this discovery is worth what it would have cost to build the Superconducting Supercollider. It is not impossible that we might *never* get beyond where we are now.

(And if anyone wants to say that negative results are still results, please, just... don't.)

Turtle

"Nightmare Scenario": Re: Good lord...

"The important fact is that a theory fundamental to our understanding of the universe we live in has been confirmed."

This is not necessarily the case. The problem is exactly as you state: "a theory fundamental to our understand of the universe has been confirmed". But that is the problem: this discovery might turn into what I have seen called a "nightmare scenario": a new particle is discovered but because it is exactly what the Standard Model predicted, it leads to no new physics. As far as I can tell, no one seems to have any idea what to do now...

From Peter Woit's blog "Not Even Wrong ( http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4837 )

"While this announcement is a great triumph for physics, unfortunately it significantly increases the probability of what has become known as the “Nighmare Scenario”: a SM Higgs discovery and nothing else at LHC energies. Before the LHC results started to come in, this scenario and its consequences was easy to ignore, but we may be getting closer to the point where it needs to be taken very seriously."

"The problem with the 'nightmare scenario' is that it suggests that if you do build a higher energy machine, you’ll see nothing new, i.e. no new phenomena will appear unless you go to some astronomically high energy scale like the Planck scale, and that is way beyond any conceivable technology."

(The first quote is from the blog posting proper, the second is from the comments section.)

Turtle

Re: American Babel

"I think it is obvious that SSC would have accomplished more than ISS ever will,..."

Could you explain *why* it is so "obvious" because it certainly isn't obvious to me.

Turtle

@Charles Norrie

"Well that points to the decline of the US more than anything. And the country that got to the Moon and ain't getting back there fast."

Just in case you don't know: there were civil rights activists protesting the amount of money spent on the space program while it was under way (and you can find pictures of protesters at mission launches if you want). And that was half a century ago: since that time, the financial claims on the government have increased enormously.

Atos IT workers threaten strike during Olympics over 'living wage'

Turtle

@DJ Smiley: Re: £7.20?

"Seriously people need to take a look at themselves sometimes."

"Themselves" is the only thing that most people ever look at....

California clears way for Steve Jobs' 'private Apple spaceship'

Turtle

What's interesting to me...

What's interesting to me, is that the projected building, in the shape of a giant zero, neatly and accurately sums up Jobs' value as a person, and precisely reflects the sum total of his generosity, both philanthropic and personal, not to mention, additionally, spiritually.

Possibly it is not too late to have the shape altered, just a wee bit, so that it resembles, not a halo, but a toilet seat?

Let's hope so!

Stratfor settles class-action over Anon megahack with freebies

Turtle

Charity.

"Various Anons boasted of plans to use the stolen credit card data to make donations to charities, including the Red Cross. Any such transaction would have more than likely been identified and reversed, however."

According to an earlier article on this site, published immediately after the incident occurred, the reversal of charges would have cost the "recipient charities" $35 per fraudulent donation. It would be interesting to know if any such fraudulent "donations" were made, and if so, how much the charities lost as a result.

Dimming the lights on smart(arse) TV

Turtle

Couldn't help myself...

"The internet's not working." reminded of something which I would not refrain from posting; I am sure that there are at least a few people who haven't seen it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPa7fHxdb7o&feature=related

same with subtitles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAuLqaLGvZU

The Open Rights Group gets rights wrong again

Turtle

Two Small Points.

1) In politics, a lie is as good as the truth, so long as it is believed.

2) Still waiting for the "Open Rights Group" to change its name to the something rather more transparent and accurate, such as "The George Sorros Is Not Wealthy Enough Group".

Brit global warming skeptics now outnumber believers

Turtle

Suitable kinds of ignorance

"Also, creationism is on the rise, due to evangelical churches preying on the poorly-educated."

Well how's the "sociology of science", the "sociology of knowledge", post-modernism, and belief in "The Singularity" doing?

There's a suitable kind of ignorance for every social, ethnic, and economic class, educational level, political persuasion, and personality structure, but between creationism vs the belief systems I've mentioned above, which is, in your opinion, more pernicious and has more deleterious social consequences?

69,000 sign petition to save TV-linker O'Dwyer from US extradition

Turtle

Invitation: Re: Stop!

Let' see: the kid's first website was closed by the order of a UK court, and having been shown that the enterprise was against the law, he went and re-opened it using a new domain. So really, he was inviting further legal trouble.

To me, he seems like *exactly* the kind of person that belongs in prison.

Turtle

Re: US has gone feral.

"US has gone feral.

Tragedy really, if only Americans could see themselves as others do the world would be a much better place."

Do you *really* know what the rest of the world thinks, outside of those people that inhabit echo chambers on the internet?