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Computers have as much consciousness as cars or concrete. This will not change. They’re machines. They can be programmed to follow directions and calculate certain kinds of solutions within those directed parameters. That’s it. That’s the beginning and end of the story. Why do some technocrats believe computers will gain actual consciousness? They think a) the brain is a machine that expresses consciousness via information processing, and b) information processing is all the consciousness there is. To sum up, technocrats are high-IQ idiots. You can assemble all the information in the world and cross-reference it 100 billion different ways; you...

For many people who didn’t grow up in or around New York City, there are a few things that come to mind when they hear the name “Brooklyn.” Many automatically think of hipsters and indie rock concerts. Some think of artsy lofts and farmers markets. Others think of “brownstone Brooklyn,” where one can potentially afford a cute home and raise a middle-class family without the distance and suburban-like qualities of Queens. What people typically don’t think about are the underprivileged communities that exist here, many of which have become home to people priced out of their old homes in brownstone...

It sounds like something from a science fiction plot: so-called three-dimensional printers are being used to fashion prosthetic arms and hands, jaw bones, spinal-cord implants -- and one day perhaps even living human body parts. While the parts printed for humans so far have been fashioned from plastic, metal and other inorganic materials, researchers in California and elsewhere also have begun printing living tissue, with the goal of eventually employing these "bioprinters" to create customized kidneys, livers and other organs for people needing transplants. What's particularly attractive about the technology, according to its proponents, is that 3D printers can produce...

Apple just made $18 billion in 90 days, more than 435 firms in the S&P 500 each made – in total – since 2009 Submitted by WorkerAnt#11, on January 27th, 2015 Share0 Tweet0 0 Share0 Apple shares rose 45% over the past 12 months and grew 15% since $AAPL introduced the iPhone 6 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Apple Inc. is set to report first-quarter earnings after the market closes on Tuesday. The Cupertino-based company has continued to impress Wall Street with stronger-than-expected sales of its higher-margin iPhone 6 Plus. Quarterly earnings per share and revenue estimates have risen an average...

Last Tuesday evening during the State of the Union address, President Obamapledged “to protect a free and open Internet, extend its reach to every classroom, and every community, and help folks build the fastest networks.” Obama is calling on the Federal Communications Commission to challenge a wave of state laws blocking the construction of municipal broadband networks, which are high-speed Internet services run by local communities. Here’s what you need to know about the president’s proposal and what it might mean for consumers. Why Can’t Cities Just Build Their Own Broadband Networks? Although there are about 300 municipal broadband networks...

Rob Lowe can't believe that Obama won't meet with Netanyahu, but will meet with YouTube star. How is it that a woman famous for eating cereal in a bathtub can get an audience with US President Barack Obama, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to do so? asked Rob Lowe on Twitter. Among the Hollywood actorÂ’s famous roles, is that of Deputy White House Communications Director in the television show The West Wing. On Friday Lowe entered a real-life diplomatic drama, when he weighed in on one of the most serious crises in the often infamous series of political battles...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Scoring a presidential interview is a distinction coveted by White House journalists, anchors and network bookers alike, but today the honor is being given to three diverse, wacky YouTube creators -- Bethany Mota, GloZell Green and Hank Green. Their expertise ranges from putting together “comfy and cute outfits” to completing zany challenges like inhaling massive amounts of cinnamon spice and eating cereal out of a bathtub (while still in it). It’s the kind of stuff you honestly can’t make up. And today, they will get to direct questions from their followers to the president of the United States....

A Chinese company has successfully 3D printed a five-storey apartment building and a 1,100 square metre villa from a special print material.While architectural firms compete with their designs for 3D-printed dwellings, one company in China has quietly been setting about getting the job done. In March of last year, company WinSun claimed to have printed 10 houses in 24 hours, using a proprietary 3D printer that uses a mixture of ground construction and industrial waste, such as glass and tailings, around a base of quick-drying cement mixed with a special hardening agent. Now, WinSun has further demonstrated the efficacy of...

Not all snipers, he’s quick to add. The ones shooting at our guys are pretty cool. I’m too lazy to sift through his archives on Iraq to see if he ever claimed “I support the troops but not their mission,” but if he did, it sounds like he’s past it now. Michael Moore ✔ @MMFlint My uncle killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren't heroes. And invaders r worse 2:40 PM - 18 Jan 2015 Michael Moore ✔ @MMFlint But if you're on the roof of your home...

The other day at work I was working on Windows 7 and opening an XML document by right-clicking on the mouse and going to the menu to choose “Windows XML reader” and then, once it was open, to save it to Excel. At some point during the process, I noticed a menu item appear that read “Use SnagIt.” I thought this was interesting since the last time I had used SnagIt, was when it was a proprietary stand-alone application. And I thought to my self, first, “Hey, that’s great! I’m glad it’s available”...and then, coming to, “Hey! Wait a minute!...

Uber chief Travis Kalanick said he wants to expand operations in Europe and, in the process, create 50,000 jobs and take 400,000 personal vehicles off the road. Kalanick said the ride-sharing service isn’t opposed to regulation, but wants “progressive regulation” that promotes safe and affordable rides and generates tax revenue without limiting competition. Cities around the globe have been going after Uber and other services, using a mix of existing regulations and new laws. “We want to make 2015 the year where we establish a new partnership with (European Union) cities,” Kalanick said, speaking Sunday at the DLD Conference in...

Lambasting what he termed “a confusing cacophony of competing private providers,” President Obama called for government “to step in and simplify everything by consolidating all broad band service under one umbrella.” “Right now, consumers face the continuous burden of choosing which plan to purchase,” the President pointed out. “There’s always a fear of choosing unwisely. If we eliminate this necessity to choose, consumers will be freed from this task. Instead of being faced with a difficult dilemma of what to do if their current provider is unsatisfactory, all consumers will be enrolled in a standard, uniform service. No one would...

Perhaps you read the title of this article, and automatically assumed that we made a typo. After all, it sounds awfully similar to a story we did in the past about 3D Systems. If you have been following the 3D printing space for the past several months, then you know that 3D Systems has been working on creating a new 3D printing system that they say is based on a “racetrack architecture”. It is an assembly line of sorts, and is said to be able to fabricate objects up to 50 times faster than other printers currently available today. Now...

Barack Obama is going to be interviewed by GloZell Green. GloZell made it big on YouTube with this video… The Cinnamon Challenge … by GloZell and her Big Behind Earrings (VIDEO-AT-LINK)Here’s another video of GloZell in action. GloZell Diet Coke and Mentos Challenge–(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Maybe he’ll do the cinnamon challenge? The Daily Mail reported: After his State Of The Union address on Tuesday, the POTUS has confirmed, he will sit down for interviews with three YouTube stars – including GloZell. The Los Angeles-based vlogger, who characteristically wears green lipstick, starts each video with ‘Hello this is GloZell! Is you ok? Is you?...

Radical imam Anjem Choudary characterized investigators' disclosure that Cherif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly—murderers of the Hebdo cartoonists—were frequent visitors to websites featuring child pornography as "a smear of their reputations." French detectives found five child porn photos on Coulibaly's laptop and 37 on Kouachi's PC. Kouachi's "favorites" folder included lurid pictures of young boys and girls involved in sexual acts with adults. "Just because Western culture declares relationships between adult men and pre-teens to be illicit doesn't make it so," Choudary complained. "The Prophet's (may peace be upon him) favorite wife married him when she was only six years old...

Facebook, Twitter, Google and the age of Islamic Terrorism Fresh back from what Daily Mail scribe Richard Littlejohn described as an event that looked as if the ‘world leaders’ in attendance “were about to break in to the ‘hokey-cokey’”, at Sunday’s “Je suis Charlie!” rally, British Prime Minister David Cameron is due in Washington, DC today where—incredibly—he is looking for security tips from the “hokey cokey” AWOL Barack Obama. Cameron is looking for security is all the wrong places. “David Cameron will seek Barack Obama’s support this week for a push to improve co-operation between intelligence agencies and technology companies...

The Internet is utterly scandalized.With a burgeoning primary comes Freedom of Information Act requests, and three reporters at Buzzfeed (three reporters), were apparently tasked with using FOIA to reveal the horrors of Ted Cruz's adolescent years. Pursuant to that mission, they came into possession of Cruz's 2003 application to be Solicitor General of Texas. In a shocking revelation from the documents that surprises absolutely no one who spent any fraction of their late teens in the company of other people in their late teens, it turns out Ted Cruz was once ticketed for possessing alcohol as a minor, after a...

The troubling implications of the Central Command social media hacking In a coincidence many Americans may see as emblematic of the administration’s approach to global terror, President Obama was addressing the nation regarding cyber security Monday while hackers claiming to represent ISIS assumed control over the media accounts of the U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM). “ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base. With Allah’s permission we are in CENTCOM now,” said one tweet sent from CENTCOM’s account. The hacking of the Command’s Twitter and YouTube accounts began Monday afternoon and lasted approximately 30 minutes...

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS CONTENT THAT MAY TRIGGER ANYONE WHO IS OFFENDED BY RACIAL SLURS AND ENJOYS MUSIC.If you don’t know who Azealia Banks is, there are only two explanations: 1.You’re a racist.2.Just kidding, that was it. She’s a rapper/singer/whatever who’s less known for her music than for her feuds, or “beefs,” with more popular and/or talented artists. She picks fights with people like Iggy Azalea, Eminem, Lady Gaga, and then a bunch of other people you’ve never heard of because of #1 above. Banks has been forced to do this for publicity purposes, because her music sounds like...

You don’t usually here denunciations of “deranged neocons” on the red carpet at the Golden Globes, but HBO star Lena Dunham uncorked this attack on her Twitter enemies to Ryan Seacrest on the E! Network. Seacrest noted that her show “Girls” began its fourth season on Sunday night, and he asked if she would be checking for online reaction:(VIDEO-AT-LINK)LENA DUNHAM: I deleted Twitter because I tried to create a safer space for me emotionally. RYAN SEACREST: Explain. DUNHAM: People threaten my life and tell me what I cow I am, so I decided....I check it occasionally but it’s not the...

We have seen how great the government runs internet-based systems; just look at healthcare.gov. Those who count the vote decide nothing. Those who count the voters decide everything.—Attributed to Joseph Stalin. He’s doing it agaaaiin! It has been observed that it is more important to be able to count the votes than to win them; creative counting can overcome a sizable shortfall. That is why holding the position of Secretary of State in the individual states is so important; the Sec. controls the counting process. Elections have been stolen on numerous occasions by creative counting - just ask Richard Nixon.

The Korean government will focus their efforts to promote 270 degree movies, thermoplastics, and fuel cells, according to an announcement from the third public-private meetings of the ‘Creative Economy.’ The meeting was held to draft a plan for a second flagship project. The flagship project concept was initiated by the government to accelerate private businesses that have large growth potential. The first flagship project, which dealt with carbon fiber and energy storage systems, was initiated in May 2014. According to plans for the second flagship project, the government will support the development of a new cinema system that shows movies...

I use __________@att.net for one of my eMail accounts. It is powered by Yahoo. I need to talk to Customer Service to resolve Password issues. I have not been able to find support contact information for this Yahoo driven att.com eMail product. Any suggestions? Thank you for your support

As if Silicon Valley hasn't given us enough already, it may have to start giving us all money. The first indication I got of this came one evening last summer, when I sat in on a meet-up of virtual-currency enthusiasts at a hackerspace a few miles from the Googleplex, in Mountain View, California. After one speaker enumerated the security problems of a promising successor to Bitcoin, the economics blogger Steve Randy Waldman got up to speak about "engineering economic security." Somewhere in his prefatory remarks he noted that he is an advocate of universal basic income—the idea that everyone should...

San Francisco to Los Angeles in 35 minutes flat—that was the dream of the Hyperloop. Back in 2013, Elon Musk introduced the world to this dream a 60 page white paper. The paper caused a stir. The idea—a levitating, solar-power supersonic train—was both pure geek porn and a transportation revolution in the making. It definitely captured people’s imagination. But would it ever get made—now that was the question. Musk himself said he was too busy to take on the project, but if other people wanted in on the cause, well, that was just fine with him. As it turns out,...

Can't see how you would repeat an already posted article on Free Republic.

Impossible Objects is, even for the 3D printing world, apparently doing the impossible. The focus of the company is to create the world’s first composite 3D printed objects, using an impressive variety of materials, to revolutionize the already-revolutionary 3D printing space. Larry Kaplan heads up the Impossible Objects team as the CEO. The former CEO of Navteq, Kaplan is leading the five-employee firm’s chaimpossible objects logorge in developing novel 3D manufacturing machines to enhance upon the presently available capabilities. “Current technologies are 20 or so years old,” said Kaplan. “They are great for prototyping but too slow compared to volume...

I grew up watching Star Trek and believing that by the time I became an adult we would all be using communicators, replicators, tricorders, and transporters. I was optimistic that the world would be a much better place: that we would have solved humanity’s problems and be exploring new worlds. That’s why my first career choice was one of astronaut. I thought it would best prepare me for Starfleet Academy. Needless to say, I was disappointed. I grew up into a world filled with hunger, poverty, and disease—in which we fight wars over dwindling natural resources. It is a world...

As a New Year’s resolution, I thought I would look at making 2015 the Year of Neutrality.  The idea of Net Neutrality is so absurd that it I thought we might apply it to everything.  Here’s just a few I came up with. Airline Seat Neutrality.  Oh, you bought a business class seat?  Great!  You paid the airline to fund that seat and we’re very proud of you, but there’s a rule saying that the airline has to give the seat to whomever the government tells them.  You get to sit in coach while some schmo is sitting in the...

2014 was the year of 3-D printers. According to the 2014 edition of the Wohlers Associates annual report (via The Motley Fool), which is considered the industry’s bible on 3-D printing, there are approximately 400 to 600 3-D printer brands available in the $200 to $5,000 price range. That number is not surprising: With its focus on customized products and innovative materials and technology, 3-D printing is poised to transform our world. Yet not much is known about 3-D printers. This is due to two reasons. First, 3-D printing still has a long way to go to become consumer-friendly. The...

A Favicon. for the "non initiated " that tiny little icon that displays in the address bar whenever a web site provides a the proper file for same. One of my browsers doesnt display a favicon for the drudge report...one has chosen to "adopt" a YAHOO Icon for that site. While I dont necessarily view this ias problematic...it is somewhat of a mystery. anyone have any ideas?

The closest my mother and stepfather ever got to the Internet was a WebTV set top box we bought for their kitchen TV.  Like most non-technical people, if I talked to them about technology and policy, I lost their attention immediately.  This is the reaction people get when I mention “Net Neutrality”.  It’s a technology and policy issue, and it’s not well understood, so we have to fight the MEGO (my eyes glaze over) factor. Net Neutrality is about a lie.  Three lies, in fact. Three lies that lead to one bad policy conclusion:  you didn’t build this; you don’t...

If 3D printers don’t already fall somewhere on your list of the top ten coolest things ever, then you really need to take some time to rethink your priorities. The following list of eight unbelievably awesome things that 3D printing is already being used for should help to convince you (if you need convincing) that 3D printers are science fiction come true. 1) Prosthetic Legs for Dogs With a prosthetic leg created by designers at 3D printing company 3D systems, Derby the disabled rescue dog (warning: if you’re pregnant, menstruating, or a passionate animal lover the aforementioned link will probably...

If your system crashes and your entire iTunes library vanishes, you may think that your music, videos, and photos are gone for good. But before you excavate your CDs and photos from storage to re-rip and re-scan, check out these top five apps for restoring your files with just one click

As we’ve mentioned so many times in past articles, the convergence of additive manufacturing and the ‘miracle material’ graphene could have major ramifications for dozens of industries over the next several years. Because of this, researchers and companies are spending a great deal of time and money figuring out the best methods to 3D print graphene. A group of researchers, led by Seol Seung-kwon at the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute’s Nano Hybrid Technology Research Center (KERI) are at the forefront of this research. As we mentioned last month, KERI, a unit under the Ministry of Finance in South Korea, recently...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Lea Gabrielle reported on "Fox and Friends" this morning that a New York gang has allegedly threatened to "shoot it out" at two police precincts near where NYPD Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were murdered. Gabrielle reported that security has been beefed up at both locations. SBA @SBANYPD Important info re credible attack from a CI: Black Guerilla Family to storm the 079/081 Pct Station Houses & shoot it out with MOS. 9:23 PM - 23 Dec 2014 26 Retweets 3 favorites PIX11 News reported: Police are on high alert after receiving “credible” threats targeting two of their Brooklyn...

Obama's confidential adviser on all matters Islamic, Mohamed Allah-dork, is disgusted with Obama's recent attack on North Korea's internet because the methods He used were contrary to true Islamic doctrine. Concerned that his silence might be viewed as agreement with Obama's methods, Allah-dork decided to divulge what really happened and how. Mohamed Allah-dork Great technological sophistication was needed to take down North Korea's internet. Therefore, experts who had created the ObamaScare website, together with experts from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), managed the project. Together, they provided an elegant solution which, unlike the ObamaScare website, worked perfectly (if only briefly) on the second attempt. First, all of the glitches thus far identified in the ObamaScare...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)NYPD Cop killer Ismaaiyl Brinsley was using a traffic app called Waze to track law enforcement’s movements, NYC Alerts tweeted on Monday. According to an available screenshot, Brinsley was tracking two officers who were almost 4 miles away from him in Staten Island at 10:44 PM EST since the beginning of December. He thanks a friend of his on Instagram for pointing out the app is not “updated in real time” so it’s not that “reliable.”Instagram/Ismaaiyl BrinsleySmartphone applications monitoring police activity have grown in popularity over the past few years due to decreased cost, portability, and accessibility to average citizens....

The North Korean Internet has gone dark.  Meanwhile the United States has demanded that Korea pay compensation to Sony for the damage they have caused.First of all, Congratulations to the Obama administration.  After bumbling on this issue for more than a week, it seems they may have got up enough gumption to slam the North Koreans.Even more importantly, the sordid threats to destroy the White House, Pentagon and other American institutions, perhaps with suicide attacks –all of this coming from North Korea and its inexperienced leader– are dangerous threats. Hitting back sends a message that statements of this kind are...

December 21, 2014 'Beyond Redemption': Social Media Explodes In Joy At Cop Killings By Rick Moran Brace yourselves if you have a weak stomach. The following tweets gleaned from responses to the execution of two police officers in New York City yesterday are about as raw and sickening as it gets. They were compiled - many of them - by LilMissRightie from #BlueLivesMatter - a hashtag hijacked by protestors earlier. I will simply let the tweets speak for themselves. Via Twitchy: They were compiled - many of them - by LilMissRightie from #BlueLivesMatter - a hashtag hijacked by protestors earlier....

West Coast hip hop rapper The Game sends a tweet to the NYPD officers shot dead in their vehicle. Handsome Ass Nigga ✔ @thegame I guess y'all "can't breathe" either. #RIPEricGarner #AllLivesMatter @ Brighton & Hove, UK http://instagram.com/p/w2H2PJGot1/ 4:41 PM - 20 Dec 2014 329 Retweets 198 favorites Not surprisingly, many are condemning the tweet, and a lot of those tweets are from fans, some of which are now proclaiming to be ex-fans in light of the cold-hearted message directed at the slain police officers. @thegame wow I use to be a huge fan of your music. I will NEVER...

In an effort to undo some of the damage from the release of embarrassing internal emails by hackers angry over the movie "The Interview," Sony executive Amy Pascal agreed to let race expert Al Sharpton have the final say on any future movies the firm makes. Although not a party to the hacking, per se, Sharpton castigated Sony for "it's extreme racial bias in the way this controversial film was made. Blacks were excluded from all the major roles. I don't buy the idea that a movie about a Korean dictator isn't a good fit for Black actors. If Jamie...

Okay, not wearing a conspiracy hat here. But I’m simply not buying that the North Koreans were behind the hack of the decade. And no, I’m not blaming the U.S. Government, either (accept maybe for their own incompetence). Everything I’m seeing points to this hack as an ‘inside job’.

Amazon's new one-hour delivery service, Prime Now, works so well it might just inspire entirely new levels of laziness in all of us. After all, why bother going to the store when you just need to shell out $7.99 to get anything brought to your door in an hour? But as anyone who's made Seamless or GrubHub food deliveries an essential part of their diet can tell you, this sort of instant gratification can be dangerously addictive. And eventually, you might end up having no reason to leave your house at all. As the Amazon courier handed me a bag...

Now they're canceling 'The Interview' because North Korea threw a hissy fit? Man, this is such an embarrassment. I have no idea if this movie is any good or not. It sounds pretty stupid and it has Seth Rogen in it, so I doubt we're dealing with Citizen Kane here. Still, that fat little psycho in North Korea deserves to be ruthlessly insulted. Mocking genocidal maniacs is as American as apple pie. I'm all for it. As long as we remember that, as enjoyable as it is to make fun of this puffy dimwit, there really isn't anything funny about...

Yesterday, moments before the North Korea "hacking" tragicomedy escalated into full retard mode with Sony pulling The Interview, or a movie that absent the attention would certainly be a flop, Wired released an article titled: "North Korea Almost Certainly Did Not Hack Sony" (title subsequently changed to the one below as can be seen in the URL alias "http://www.wired.com/2014/12/north-korea-did-not-hack-sony-probs"), which however, and for the better, retains its content as it is quite critical in debunking the latest government "certainty."

A rogue nation targeted a multinational corporation and won.  North Korea has almost certainly ordered the massive cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, stealing and publicly dumping enough data to make a dent in the company’s stock price. North Korea cannot challenge the United States militarily, despite what movies have portrayed.  Regardless of their saber-rattling, and America’s reduced presence on the Korean peninsula, a real attack of any substance against our ally South Korea (or Japan for that matter) would bring a suicidal level of retribution on the North, and they know it.  But they’ve found a vein where they can draw...

Jeb Bush may be top dog in the latest 2016 polls, but he’s woefully behind the rest of the GOP field when it comes to friends, likes and retweets. The former Florida governor took to social media Tuesday to announce that he will “actively explore the possibility of running” for president in 2016, tweeting a link to a statement on his Facebook page. Journalists and political junkies leapt at the news, but Facebook fans … not so much. As of early Tuesday afternoon, hours after Bush’s 10 a.m. announcement, his tweet had amassed 5,700 retweets and 2,200 favorites. On Facebook,...

New technologies such as 3D bioprinting promise to offer a laundry list of new treatments, drug discovery, and cures within the medical industry. With that said, we have been hearing promises for years that 3D printing will change the face of medicine. Despite these promises, bioprinting has yet to make any major impact within the market. Today things may have just changed! San Diego-based 3D bioprinting company Organovo (NYSE MKT: ONVO) has today announced the full commercial availability of their exVive3D Human Liver Tissue for preclinical drug discovery testing. The tissue, which is created via an in-house 3D printer, could...

I am asking all FReepers for their help. Due to health issues I have foolishly allowed myself to fall behind on current events (as some of my recent posts may have indicated). I am not really all that tech- or internet-savvy. I have seen many web-sites listed as sources for the many threads here. Are there any other sites where information about all things politics and current affairs is available? Any help will be greatly appreciated.