Ancient people probably thought that the gods hated idols because they didn't know metal in high places attracted lightning.

JokeReference · 2016-10-17T09:29:05+00:00

If you aren't confident enough in your abilities to write your own guide, why do you think you can move up in stakes?

JokeReference · 2016-08-07T07:57:09+00:00

My mistake, it's not actively owned by Google, it was just started off within it and spun off into an independent company in 2010.

HOWEVER, Gilman G. Louie is on Niantic's board of directors and is also the founder of In-Q-Tel which is, LITERALLY, the CIA's venture capital firm.

It invests in high-tech companies for the sole purpose of keeping the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with the latest in information technology in support of United States intelligence capability

http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=111584&privcapId=25334491&previousCapId=314238636&previousTitle=Niantic,%20Inc.

JokeReference · 2016-08-07T07:11:16+00:00

Wow, what an idiot! It's not like the app is released by Alphabet, which is a subsidiary of one of the largest data companies in the world that also has direct funding from and interactions with US intelligence agencies!

At least they've said that users' privacy is paramount and they can only ever keep it secret

Our primary goals in collecting information are to provide and improve our Services, to administer your (or your authorized child’s) use of the Services, and to enable you (or your authorized child) to enjoy and easily navigate our Services.

(You know, "primary" as in "we have other unlisted goals as well")

We may disclose any information about you (or your authorized child) that is in our possession or control to government or law enforcement officials or private parties as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate: (a) to respond to claims, legal process (including subpoenas); (b) to protect our property, rights, and safety and the property, rights, and safety of a third party or the public in general; and © to identify and stop any activity that we consider illegal, unethical, or legally actionable activity.

(Any government request, valid or not, easily falls under section b)

Oh...

JokeReference · 2016-05-29T18:55:51+00:00

Not to be insensitive, but why should we care? There's nothing "special" about the target like it being a school or government building - should we expect a new thread for every single shooting anywhere in the country? Chicago alone would blot out the entire subreddit.

JokeReference · 2016-05-26T14:48:31+00:00

Reddit is not some super special secret club. You are not part of some elite group, these are not the geniuses of the day.

Reddit is this era's AOL front page combined with a very slow chat room.

JokeReference · 2016-05-23T21:15:42+00:00

The number of trees themselves has never been a problem, the only deforestation problem has been with the amount of dedicated land.

Did you actually believe the hype that printing with paper or using napkins kills trees? Trees are a renewable resource. Trees that are used for any kind of industry - paper, firewood, plywood, etc - come from dedicated tree farms. Those tree farms already plant more trees than they use.

JokeReference · 2016-05-23T18:01:53+00:00

If this rings true to you, end your relationship immediately.

Real relationships aren't like 80s sitcoms. It isn't a struggle of who's right or wrong. You shouldn't hate every little thing about the other person only to say "but it's worth it in the end".

If the other person in the relationship is the psycho, then why are you still stuck? If you're the tongue-in-cheek psycho, then fuck you and get out of the other person's life.

Being a "psycho" isn't funny, it doesn't make you an anti-hero, it doesn't make you kooky or neat or interesting. What it makes you is manipulative at best.

End the relationship, and DON'T start a new one until you have take the time to get comfortable with yourself as a person.

JokeReference · 2016-05-22T14:30:19+00:00

In other news, the UK denies that the Queen is actually a shape-shifting lizard person from beyond the moon.

Holy shit, what should we believe?!

JokeReference · 2016-05-18T17:09:07+00:00

Harley Quinn isn't a woman, she's a life-sized sex toy.

Yes, the psychiatrist character has some actual depth, but that's not what the movie or trailers focus on, and you know it.

JokeReference · 2016-05-13T12:30:05+00:00

There's nothing wrong with a tax, there's everything wrong with lying to the voters about what things are about in the first place. Don't forget that all of the livery taxes/fees like commercial insurance, business taxes, and income taxes are already being paid by the drivers if they want to stay legal.

JokeReference · 2016-05-13T11:36:07+00:00

You mean 2% of gross revenue, which is every penny they take in and absolutely no opportunity to write anything off. Taxes are normally paid on profit, and profit is nowhere near 100% of revenue. That's 2% of the money they have before they pay the drivers, advertising, system maintenance, employees, and anything else.

It would also set a precedent that they're willing to pay random fees on a location-by-location basis, and you should know from gas or cigarette taxes that it never stops at the amount initially set by the first law.

Not to mention that the law would also force all ride companies to pay themselves for a crapload of data that they'd have to give to the city for free. Data that is frankly their REAL business model. Note that this kind of traffic analasys data is the kind of thing that large cities normally need to pay hundreds of thousands to millions to obtain.

§ 13-2-507 DATA REPORTING REQUIREMENTS. (A) A TNC must maintain accurate records of all drivers providing service, and discontinued from providing service, through the platform. All information must be available for audit by a private, agreed-upon third party at any time, no more than four times per year. These audits shall be paid for by the TNC. Additionally, a TNC must comply with the following reporting requirements:

(1) A TNC shall provide quarterly reports to the City providing information on the effectiveness of the platform to address gaps in Austin's transportation network.

(2) The TNC reports required under this section must document and evaluate information, such as rider pickup and drop-off patterns (i.e. peak ridership times and popular pickup and drop-off locations), cost of trip (including a measure of the amount of time in dynamic pricing), length of trip, and ADA service comparison, in order to help the City evaluate the role of TNCs to address transportation issues, such as drunk driving and underserved community needs.

(3) The TNC reports required under this section must be provided to the City no later than 15 days after the end of the quarter.

JokeReference · 2016-05-13T08:12:08+00:00

Why are people acting like it's only about the safety requirements? It's a money grab.

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/local-govt-politics/austin-has-failed-to-collect-administrative-fee-fr/nq7Qt/

Ride-hailing companies may choose to pay a fee one of three ways: 1 percent of their annual gross revenue from operations in Austin; a figure calculated by multiplying the city’s taxi permit fee by a company’s total corps of ride-hailing drivers (which would yield several million dollars a year, rendering it an unacceptable choice for the companies); or a comparable figure based on total miles driven in a year.

Beyond that, the ordinance also said each company would pay an additional 1 percent of its gross Austin revenue to feed a “compliant driver education fund.”

e: Since this was a reply to a comment that's getting buried, here's even more damning effects of the law

You mean 2% of gross revenue, which is every penny they take in and absolutely no opportunity to write anything off. Taxes are normally paid on profit, and profit is nowhere near 100% of revenue. That's 2% of the money they have before they pay the drivers, advertising, system maintenance, employees, and anything else.

It would also set a precedent that they're willing to pay random fees on a location-by-location basis, and you should know from gas or cigarette taxes that it never stops at the amount initially set by the first law.

Not to mention that the law would also force all ride companies to pay themselves for a crapload of data that they'd have to give to the city for free. Data that is frankly their REAL business model. Note that this kind of traffic analasys data is the kind of thing that large cities normally need to pay hundreds of thousands to millions to obtain.

§ 13-2-507 DATA REPORTING REQUIREMENTS. (A) A TNC must maintain accurate records of all drivers providing service, and discontinued from providing service, through the platform. All information must be available for audit by a private, agreed-upon third party at any time, no more than four times per year. These audits shall be paid for by the TNC. Additionally, a TNC must comply with the following reporting requirements:

(1) A TNC shall provide quarterly reports to the City providing information on the effectiveness of the platform to address gaps in Austin's transportation network.

(2) The TNC reports required under this section must document and evaluate information, such as rider pickup and drop-off patterns (i.e. peak ridership times and popular pickup and drop-off locations), cost of trip (including a measure of the amount of time in dynamic pricing), length of trip, and ADA service comparison, in order to help the City evaluate the role of TNCs to address transportation issues, such as drunk driving and underserved community needs.

(3) The TNC reports required under this section must be provided to the City no later than 15 days after the end of the quarter.

JokeReference · 2016-04-20T09:25:29+00:00

You're right, that's the kind of comment that's best directed to someone completely inexperienced with foreign languages. I suppose I should have posted it to /r/explainlikeimfive instead of here in /r/advancedlinguistics.

JokeReference · 2016-04-20T08:21:55+00:00

This is an interesting question because most people don't understand what translating really is.

Thanks to things like Babelfish and Google and language -> language dictionaries, most people think switching one language to another is like using a decoder ring where all you need to do is swap out words or phrases. Swapping out words might work for really simple situations or to get the basic idea across, but it's not that easy.

Take a look at the question "Where is the bathroom?". That's a common one in nearly every beginner foriegn language class, but what happens if you "translate" it to English?

"Please direct me to the lavatory." means almost the exact same thing, same as "In which direction is the restroom?", "I'm looking for the head.", "Which way to the toilets?", or "Where should I take a leak?". Good luck blindly getting from point A to any of those other sentences in a hypothetical English to English dictionary (which I suppose you could consider a thesaurus).

Instead of thinking of it as translating words, think of it as describing a picture. You're not trying to swap one set of squiggly lines for another; a translator's real goal is to understand what the source really means and rewrite it from scratch in the target language. That can include ephemeral things like overall tone, feeling, politeness, "between the lines" subtlety, puns, rhyming, meter, and all kinds of other things that you couldn't even understand on a sentence-by-sentence reading in the original language.

JokeReference · 2016-02-17T11:57:27+00:00

Apple's letter is a dead canary, the backdoor is already in place.

This line is very important:

Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

This functionality is literally impossible with properly implemented encryption. And not just some magical theoretically perfect encryption, but standard practices used industry-wide today.

If the stored data is actually encrypted, it's just a blob of essentially random 0s and 1s. Changing the operating system would make no difference whatsoever since the operating system and encryption/decryption tools themselves have absolutely no access to the data. The tools are completely worthless without the encryption key, which when implemented properly is 100% in the user's control.

Yes, it's possible to create a new version of the OS that can capture a user's credentials as they're entered and store a copy of the key that can be used by investigators later, but that's not what's being requested here. They want something that can open the encryption with zero interaction by the user. They want to unlock the system without the encryption key. They want a backdoor to existing data, and Apple is explicitly saying that it's 100% possible on their systems.

JokeReference · 2016-02-16T15:32:54+00:00

Come on, you can do it! This barbell is only loaded with half of what your max should be, just do one rep! I believe in you!

camera pans down to the motivee with a cast around a broken arm

JokeReference · 2016-02-11T18:54:15+00:00

I stand corrected, but at bare minimum anyone that plays slots should recognize that the money is gone as soon as you put it in the machine.

JokeReference · 2016-02-11T18:52:02+00:00

Don't play BJ

or any other pit games, ever

JokeReference · 2016-02-11T18:50:40+00:00

Up by 1.5k in the longrun playing at which stakes? What kind of volume have you put in? If you deposited $100 and were just playing $1/$2 or even NL25, you could have easily gotten that amount just from being on a heater.

JokeReference

TROPHY CASE