


Forgot your password?

Comment I 3 Targeted Ads (Score 1) 187

Oh a neckbeardy guy who doesn't buy anything and rants about advertising fat cats doesn't like advertising, I'm so surprised.

Trolling aside, what is the big fucking deal with targeted ads.

Sure, it's stumbling into the future, but let's look at this idyllically. If all the data that Google is already mining from my activities could actually show me products I actually want without shopping around, why would I be upset? What if Google's algorithms see that it's been three years since I bought a new tent -- for example -- and provides ads for renewed waterproofing or a fancy new tent. That sounds pretty awesome to me. Saves me time, energy and lets me outsource my anxiety about tent leaks and think about my next camping trip.

This guy is a fucking moron spewing a pile of non-sequiturs. This is as bad as Republicans wanting to go back to the days when Andy Griffith was the most dangerous man on TV. They can't turn back time, and neither can this guy.

If you want to live a private, ad free life, then go off the grid and raise some goats. I'll buy your delicious cheese via a well-targeted ad and we can all be happy.

Submission BlueJay: Police Track Behavior With Twitter Real-Time Monitoring Tools-> 1

Jeremiah Cornelius writes: BIG BOTHER IS WATCHING DEPT:

At the low price of 150 dollars for a month, per user, BlueJay is a tool for law enforcement that should only increase those expectations. Big Brother's Ministry of Love has SaaS: The BlueJay Law Enforcement Twitter "Crime Scanner" matches the Twitter "firehose" to Internet mapping data, with big-data techniques for keyword analytics and semantic-relevance. BlueJay "has no IT requirements," explains the sales literature. "All you need is Internet and a browser." "Monitor large public events, social unrest, gang communications and criminally predicated individuals, Identify potential witnesses and indicators for evidence."

Instead of that one guy getting busted for a lame joke misinterpreted as a real threat, we may face a future where algorithms bust people en masse for referencing illegal "Game of Thrones" downloads, and insurance companies seek non-smokers confessing to lapsing back into the habit.

Link to Original Source

Comment Re:Shocking... (Score 3, Informative) 160

Far too much credit.
I'm a pretty good shot and I can hit a milk jug consistently at 300 yards. But that's a Winchester rifle and a lifetime of practice. I've made shots at 500 yards with a .270 rifle and scope, but I wouldn't count on it if I had to make the shot.
Anyone hitting even a large, gamer-size target at 200 yards with a shotgun is pretty amazing. The best grouping ever recorded is just under an inch at 100 yards (.798 inches). And those groupings are from professional shooters with $4,000 guns, scopes and military training. Typical slugs can go that far, but the drop from bullet weight is going to be quite significant: about 2 feet. There are slugs that don't drop out to 200 yards, but at $5-10 a shot, no farmer is going to be using them.
So, unless these gamers got dropped on a mercenary training ground with some kind of ex sniper sitting on the porch, they're going to be fine beyond 150 yards.
Pick up a gun and shoot, it's not as easy as it looks on YouTube.

Comment Re:Yet we still don't know what really happened (Score 2) 308

He also had a 100-round drum clip for the AR-15 and two Glock pistols.

Wounding 70 people with that and the shotgun is quite doable by one person when you account for spread, firing speed (even though the drum clip jammed), secondary wounds from bullet penetration and ricochets.

People that don't understand guns always say there must have been a second gunman in scenarios like this. But the fact is that with a bit of practice, even a bolt gun can shoot several rounds a minute.

Also, if Holmes had any of those magic bullets they used to kill JFK, he'd have a +5 THACO.

Comment Re:Everyone's thinking it. (Score 2) 413

I heard a radio program about this, and most shopkeepers/bigger businesses do have backup generators and pay plenty for them. But without, they run the risk of losing their entire inventory. Ten years ago, when this area was accustomed to 3-4 hour outages each day, it was idiotic to make that gamble. One shopkeeper I heard interviewed hit the nail on the head when he said (paraphrasing), "They say we are a developed country, but is that really true?" Sure, you can take calls and McDonald's orders from around the world, but keeping the lights on is pretty basic for "developed" countries.

Comment And no funding... (Score 1) 376

And FTA, he's got no funding. I don't see why venture capitalists or those 99%-ers give to stuff like this. Vaccines are nice and all, but getting people enough food to live and not killing the world would be much more beneficial. I've been dreaming of these quivering walls of meat for years -- I even wrote about it in a science-fiction class -- but I don't see it happening before I die, and I'm not even 30. This kind of thing is just like genetically modified crops, it's just to strange for some people to get their heads around. I wish they would wake up and see that what they are eating is a horrific Mengelesque monstrosity borne from greed, and worse than any lab-grown chow could ever be.
