Posts by Idgarad

Patent troll Intellectual Ventures is more like a HYDRA

Simple Solution

There is a way to stop the hydra, in the event one of these subsidiaries goes under force the patent to go on a public auction rather then allowing the bankrupt sub-entity to sell it back to it's parent.

Zynga managers fingered in insider trading lawsuit

Zynga

As my tweet went: As long as Dan Porter has a job with #Zynga after the Shay Pierce statement, you get nothing from me Zynga.

Does this come as a surprise to anyone? They were dirt bags then, and dirt-bags now.

German court: Rapidshare must HUNT for dodgy pirate links

GM called

I am waiting for those government backed businesses to have to start hunting people using their products and services for illegal (subjective) activities. I mean in all honesty what has Ford and GM done to prevent their vehicles being used in crimes?

Lindsay Lohan ditches her surname

L.I.N.D.S.A.Y

Lindsy Is Not Doing Sexy Athletic Yoga

Astronauts bring space-grown bugs home

Traveller Analysis

A more concerning issue that this may help is, if there is bacteria throughout the universe what prevents\assists alien bacteria and viruses moving from solar system to solar system.

Consider this: humans on Earth have had millions of years to evolve resistences to Earth based viruses, bacteria, and so forth. What is preventing say a metorite from carrying a completely alien strain to Earth in which we have no evolutionary defense against? (Barring any intelligent design that has accomodated that consideration already ;) )

Scenario: Humans visit Mars on a manned mission. Astronauts to replenish water supplies and oxygen levels use martian ice and water deposits. Bacteria, if any exists have to be addressed. But here is the trick, anything returning to Earth is a potential carrier. Assuming any bacteria on the craft survives re-entry; the odds of completely isolating the craft is slim. Even NASA has rats, beetles, lady bugs, moths, etc.

The study of how crap functions in low-g is a very important step in knowing what to expect and how to handle it. At the very least this type of research can give us good data to work with for threat assessment.

Yangtze river dolphin is an ex-cetacean

Failure to Adapt

...Unfortunately today evolution chose not to favor this particular species and due to it's inability to adapt to an ever changing environment has been written from history. In other news a thriving colony of cockroaches have moved into the newly freed river area where there once natural predator once lived....

Nature doesn't care if they go extinct or not. Life is, so far, an abnormality in the universe and we are not garunteed that our ecosystem was stable to begin with. If it is the nature of humans to coat everything in plastic and pave the earth, so be it. Deer don't ponder if stripping the bark off a tree will kill it and I highly doubt ebola has senate subcommitees on whether to infect someone or not. Too often we forget we are just as much a part of nature as any other animal and what we do, good or bad, is part of nature. We somehow think that we have some measure of insight and self awareness that entitles us to define what normal should be (usually based on our tiny sliver of history here on Earth). Be it warming, cooling, or things going Dodo on us the fact remains that Venus has a seriously bad case of global warming (last I checked it's hot enough that many metals melt in the atmosphere).

There have been billions of animals that have gone extinct before man was around and a billion more I am sure are waiting to perish as well. I find it arrogant to assume there was some kind of stable ecosystem prior to man coming into the picture and the idea that we are accelrating it through pollution is based on the idea that normal was what it was prior to the pollution. If we compare our planet to any other we look like a two headed freak with translucent dentures.

R.I.P some dolphin I wasn't going to eat in the first place...

Perhaps we are a natural catalyst for evolution. Periodically man evolves, screws with the environment does a ton of genetic engineering and wipes himself out in the process. Meanwhile the rest of nature doesn't care and moves on, and thanks to the periodic human infestation have been mutated and weaned.

Perhaps humans are meant to "stir the pot" perodically. There is no garuntee that we're supposed to survive it.

All this discussion boils down to me is, "What is normal, who are we to decide, and by what rules do we determine what is normal extinction, abnormal extinction, and how are we not part of nature?" If we are to take a secular, scientific approach to our lives then we have to ask, in comparing our planet's ecosystem, what is the control group and is it value. Are we on track to become Venus or Mars? Is that a normal progression? Where are we measuring our standards of normal. Lets not forget the Sahara was at some point a tropical forest, we can't blame Ford for that one.

Just some philisophical thoughts to throw out there. Enjoy, loath, what ever works for ya.

P.S. Apologies for my spelling, public education at it's finest...

Intel revolted by its own 'insensitive and insulting' ad

Utter Stupidity

How the ad was born:

The runners are computers (hence 1 in each cube)

Their computers (the cases) are black

Thus cast black males as the computer

Throw in random white nerd as the manager

Q: Would there had been an issue if the manager was an asian?

A: No, why? because only whites are racist? Hmm...

You can never "win" an argument over perception. Ever. Perception has nothing to do with reality, fact, or truth ... it's about an individual bias.

The reacation shows more about hating white people more then anything. Again, if the manager had been black, asian, hispanic, or just about anything except white this would not be an issue. But perhaps that just my perception...

Perhaps it speaks more about businesses seeing humans as merely resources rather then humans... another perception...

Was he snearing at the apparently bowing blacks or was he snearing at AMD because their all Intel?

Perceptions will vary and statistically your going to offend someone, somewhere, no matter what you do.

Even the decription of the ad could be criticised. Here in the US we refer to blacks as African-Americans. My buddy Charles always corrected me saying: I've never been there, and have no interest going there. I'm from Minnesota and I'm black last I checked. So no matter what, you're going to upset someone and all you can do, as a business at least, is try to offend the least amount of people. In Europe I woul dbe interested in seeing if the have African-Englishmen, Belguian-Englishmen, or have they eliminated racism and just have Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, etc.

Once again the true fact of human nature emerges, we are governed by perception rather then truth.