Not according to Kim Kardashian.

The only two options are "within 1000 years" and "never" if you want to maximize your chance of being correct, because "within 1000 years" includes all the other timed options.

That's a good point, I think. I would not be at all surprised if a lot of the grievances mentioned in the article were not race-related at all, or not intended to insult someone because of their race, but they were interpreted as such. I think it's very easy to read a racist motivation or between-the-lines meaning into relatively innocuous statements or events, especially when you are conditioned into believing everyone around you is racist. For example, "Still another said managers spoke down to her and her Black [sic] colleagues, adding that they were passed over for promotions in favor of less experienced white employees." That could have been something like a manager saying, "We need to talk. You are not performing as well in tasks and on reviews as some of your coworkers [who happen to be white], and I am worried because they are getting promoted ahead of you despite your experience. I want you to succeed and show others you have what it takes--because I know you do." If you are looking to be offended you can probably find it in any slight or negative comment.

Personally I have never met anyone in tech who I would describe as racist or bigoted. Maybe I'm sheltered?

Yeah for sure. But do you really take the anecdotes in the article at face value? I don't.

Well, close. I wouldn't technically call it a dictatorship because the power is spread out around various people and groups, including the Standing Committee, former members of the Standing Committee and the military. But you're on the right track. 1) China is communist only in name. 2) Even if they were fully communist, that's an economic system, not a political one per se. The word that you and the grandparent poster is looking for is 'authoritarian.' BTW I lived in China for three and a half years and IMO they are getting the government they deserve. Freedom, truth, and Classical Liberal ideals are not high on their list of values.

The fact that IBM is selling Watson as Watson just goes to show that Watson didn't in fact lead to anything interesting, in terms of general purpose AI. I always considered Watson to be Eliza on steroids, even in the midst of the marketing hype, and so far my prediction seems to be true. There was a lot of noise initially about how Watson was being sent to medical school, was going to be plugged into medical databases, etc etc. So far, from what I can tell, Watson is an expert system, just like Deep Blue -- good at the narrow problem it tries to solve, but not a good model for human cognition or language processing per se.

We do, my friend. They're called tablets and e-readers. But while I certainly am no luddite, I have to admit that reading words on a glowing screen is no substitute for the experience of reading from printed book. There's something about reading a book on a tablet I find unsatisfying.

"Works that are designed for use doing practical jobs must be free; " ... uhmm... and that would be because...??

Open protocols don't help when everyone stops making webpages and moves to Facebook, which isn't publicly crawlable. Remember when everyone wanted their OWN website, and websites linked meaningfully to other websites, and there was a whole ecosystem of small, independent webpages with information on a crazy number of niche topics, and everyone's webpage had links to other webpages that they thought were cool? That doesn't really exist anymore. THAT web is dead. If Wikipedia and Craigslist, and a dozen other silo-type sites are all that's left to crawl (if they decide to let Google do it), how important is Google, really? The web has changed, and Google had to change or die with it. Google+ is just Google's attempt at taking what's left of the public, open web and internalize it (and make it all 'social' content mostly not publicly crawlable, ironically). So yeah, the (open) web really is dead, or will be soon.

I love how the pitch boils down to "Google goggles: they'll help you get laid". (Ukulele not included)

It's defaulted to off though, and probably a majority of Android users don't know it exists or are locked out of changing it by their carrier (without rooting it) in the US.

Pre WP7 there wasn't any code signing necessary, so deploying to WM6.5 and below was as simple as it is on a Windows PC.

In Texas they use three tests to confirm suspicion and give you a ride in one of their fancy jail taxis. Breathalyzers tend to be one of those three tests.

Nothing holds up in court, however, unless you either submit to a blood test or refuse one (which in Texas is an admission of guilt).

So the countermeasure/defense against this device is one that records what you're saying and then sends it out after a 5 second (or longer) delay, essentially pre-recording what you want to say by a short time. They already use this device at airport gates when they want to make an announcement.

I use InDesign CS5 on my Acer Aspire 1 (Win XP) netbook with 1 gig of RAM. Just sayin'.

Over 168 children have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan. You're right about one thing - the US is not at the level of Iran, nowhere close.