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The impossibility of meritocracy | 312 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Samsung Galaxy S III rom updates
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 26 2012 @ 07:28 PM EDT
Are these frequent? timely?

Samsung TouchWiz Devices Vulnerable to Mischief f-secure

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Apple-Google Maps Talks Crashed Over Voice-Guided Directions
Authored by: Tim on Wednesday, September 26 2012 @ 08:32 PM EDT
An interesting take on the Google/Apple maps application. I wonder whether, because of our wish to see a free Android ecosystem, we are overlooking a similar potential danger of Google's business model of targeted personal data collection. The more Android phones there are out there the easier it is for Google to collect more information.

I may be paranoid, but I am now deliberately making sure that I do not use Google+, and I only log into my Google accounts when I have to. I also avoid targeted adverts by using a mail client to retrieve Gmail mail instead of their web-site, and I only use Gmail for 'trivial' non-personal correspondence. Link - allthingsd.com

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

I guess I thought wrong.
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, September 26 2012 @ 08:36 PM EDT

SCO software still selling?

Can, will anyone explain? I mean I got it wrong or something.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Ecuador beware, the US is after you
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, September 27 2012 @ 12:05 AM EDT
Ecuador beware, the US is after you, so to speak.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/27/0020227/us-military-designates-julian-ass
ange-an-enemy-of-state

"US Military Designates Julian Assange an 'Enemy of State'"

That must be one of the lowest military titles to receive.


[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

A Conversation With Randall Munroe, the Creator of XKCD
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, September 27 2012 @ 02:31 AM EDT
How do you actually come up with new ideas? Especially over such a long stretch of time?
I think, if anything, it's noticing the things that make me laugh and grabbing onto them and figuring out how to write them down.

There are definitely times -- and I think this is pretty common among cartoonists -- where you spend an entire day trying to think of an idea, and you're like, "I give up." And then you go and take a shower or run an errand, and halfway there you get an idea.

Megan Garber, The Atlantic

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Got an email from Microsoft...
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, September 27 2012 @ 09:31 AM EDT
http://i.imgur.com/2ulzC.png

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

RIM still hanging in there...
Authored by: Gringo_ on Thursday, September 27 2012 @ 11:52 AM EDT

...and certainly doing better than Nokia. Their shares are up recently to $7, while Nokia is well below $3. It's a shame their new platform is taking so long, but it should be a really great OS, as it is based on QNX, a venerable and very mature RTOS.

Now they have put out a music video, "Devs, BlackBerry Is Going To Keep On Loving You" in which some top RIM RIMM execs lip-synched to an altered version of the hit REO Speedwagon song from the '80s called "Keep on loving you."

In all the excitement over Apple, Samsung and Nokia, we've already forgotten about RIM, but they remain committed to a comeback. I hope their new phones put them solidly back in the running, and trounce Microsoft's dream of being the third choice.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Canada - Top court backs cyber-bullying protection over media rights
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, September 27 2012 @ 12:21 PM EDT
The case raised the question of whether the vulnerability of minors warrants special protection in what would otherwise be an open civil court proceeding.

In essence, the Supreme Court had to decide whose interests come first - the right of cyber-bullied children to unmask their tormentors or the right of the press to report freely on court proceedings.

“The critical importance of the open court principle and a free press has been tenaciously embedded in the jurisprudence,” Madam Justice Rosalie Abella wrote for a 7-0 majority. “In this case, however, there are interests that are sufficiently compelling to justify restricting such access: privacy and the protection of children from cyber bullying.”

Kirk Makin, The Globe and Mail

---

Judgement

Citation: A.B. v. Bragg Communications Inc., 2012 SCC 46
Date: September 27, 2012
Docket: 34240

looks like a well rounded interveners list

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

The impossibility of meritocracy
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, September 27 2012 @ 02:49 PM EDT
Meritocracy, at least as normally understood, does not exist and probably cannot exist in a free market with rational people.You cannot therefore justify inequalities by claiming that they reflect differences in ability.
Chris Dillow, Stumbling and Mumbling

---

from the linked paper

Abstract

We report evidence from an experiment where a principal chooses an agent out of two to perform a task for a fixed compensation. The principal's payoff depends on the agent's ex-ante ability and on a non-contractible effort that the agent has to exert once employed. We find that a significant share of principals select the mediocre agent (i.e. the one with the lower ex-ante ability). When the principal is allowed to send a message, mediocre agents exert more effort than agents with the higher ability, and principals who chooses mediocre agents on average have a larger payoff than principals who select agents with higher ability. This difference in effort overcompensates the difference in ability. Mediocre agents reciprocate more than agents who have ex-ante higher ability when the principals are able to make them feeling indebted.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

A river ran through it
Authored by: Gringo_ on Thursday, September 27 2012 @ 03:15 PM EDT

NASA's Curiosity rover mission has found evidence a stream once ran vigorously across the area on Mars where the rover is driving.

"From the size of gravels it carried, we can interpret the water was moving about 3 feet per second, with a depth somewhere between ankle and hip deep," said Curiosity science co-investigator William Dietrich of the University of California, Berkeley. [] This is the first time we're actually seeing water-transported gravel on Mars. This is a transition from speculation about the size of streambed material to direct observation of it."

The rounded shape of some stones in the conglomerate indicates long-distance transport from above the rim, where a channel named Peace Vallis feeds into the alluvial fan. The abundance of channels in the fan between the rim and conglomerate suggests flows continued or repeated over a long time, not just once or for a few years.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

A Conversation With Randall Munroe,
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, September 27 2012 @ 05:32 PM EDT
who may well have created the inimitable xkcd,
but where do I file the claim for my lost morning ?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Former Copyright Boss: New Technology Should Be Presumed Illegal Until Congress Says Otherwise
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, September 27 2012 @ 09:44 PM EDT
The former Register of Copyrights, Ralph Oman, under copyright law, any new technology should have to apply to Congress for approval and a review to make sure they don't upset the apple cart of copyright, before they're allowed to exist. I'm not joking.

Mr. Oman, who was the Register of Copyright from 1985 to 1993 and was heavily involved in a variety of copyright issues, has filed an amicus brief in the Aereo case (pdf).

Mike Masnick, Techdirt

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Selling used software in the EU
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, September 28 2012 @ 08:32 AM EDT
Maybe old news, sorry for reposting if someone did so before.
But stumbled onto this:

03 july 2012 ruling on reselling used software in the EU

takes you to curia.europa.eu

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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