Comments:

1. Kash on September 26th, 2011 at 23:10:

   I actually heard the people on the balcony went out in support…? (Do you think they’d like to be seen otherwise?)

Comments:

1. Spaceman Spiff on September 27th, 2011 at 5:12:

   Feynman was a friend of my father (also a physics professor) when they were at UC Berkeley in the 1940′s. From my father I inherited an original set of Feynman’s freshman physics lecture notes, complete with margin notes hand written by Feynman. Two of my favorite books (and audio versions) are Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces on classical (Newtonian) physics, and Six Not So Easy Pieces on relativity and quantum mechanics. It was truly amazing in how approachable he made the subject! Second only to Feynman was Frank Oppenheimer (brother of J.Robert Oppenheimer – father of the A-bomb). After having been blacklisted by the McCarthy Commission in the early 50′s, he taught high school physics in Rifle Colorado until the mid-60′s when he went back to teaching university physics at the University of Colorado. He was my freshman physics professor at the UofC in 1966, the first year he was back. Another truly inspiring teacher, for sure! His labs were amazing! From there, he went on to found the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum in San Francisco.

2. Sue W on September 27th, 2011 at 5:57:

   These guys are my heroes also…bloody brilliant! From the true Age of Science in America.

Comments:

1. Mudak on September 26th, 2011 at 18:47:

   However repugnant his words were, one of the most basic truths associated with freedom of speech, is that we don’t have the right not to be offended by something someone else says. I don’t really see any point in bringing him up on charges. In fact, publicizing the incident without arresting him would probably do more good for the causes of non-theism and gay rights.

2. Alan on September 26th, 2011 at 19:46:

   @Mudak Freedom of speech is not freedom to harass, if the man had gone up to them and expressed his opinion, while distateful it would not have been a problem, but no matter what I say, If i go up to you in the street and start screaming abuse at you, you have every right to call the police and have me arrested. One’s freedom stops where another’s starts

3. John Sinteur on September 26th, 2011 at 21:02:

   Which is another way of saying “your freedom to swing your arm stops at my nose”

4. Mudak on September 27th, 2011 at 2:34:

   @Alan, that’s not what the article says. It says the street preacher told them they’d burn in hell. I’ve been told I’m going to hell more times than I can remember; my stock answer is always the same: that eternity in hell is still preferable to spending five minutes with fundies like that.

5. Sue W on September 27th, 2011 at 5:54:

   I presume that Britain has some kind of law limiting free speech somewhat, so as to repress the propagation of hatred. A “Christian street preacher” in Britain must be a professional ranter and is probably grateful for the attention. Will probably be fined 25 quid and told to go forth and sin no more…

6. Steffen on September 27th, 2011 at 13:28:

   I’m really interested about the legal situation in the US. European countries usually have laws against personal insults. For example, never ever dare to give somebody “the finger” on the german Autobahn; he can sue you to hell and beyond. The situation in this case here is quite clear: This preacher insulted two people personally, he should not have the slightest chance before court.

   I just cannot imagine that personal insults are legal in the US. For example, when somebody has a personal feud with his neighbour, can he erect signs on his property with statements like: “My neighbour is a (insert very offensive insults here)!!!”, and defend himself with “free speech”? I know that the USA holds the right to free speech in extremely high esteem, so high that the dreaded Westboro Baptist Church won a lawsuit before the supreme court. But as far as I know, the WBC is very careful to always stay general in its hate speech; their weird signs only say things like “God hates America” or “Thank God for dead soldiers”, so nobody can claim that he was *personally* insulted.

Comments:

1. Andre on September 26th, 2011 at 10:48:

   I have yet to see the infamous ‘timeline’ redesign, but as i understand it it tracks your online activities without you needing to do anything. You can choose not to share but I bet this just means you choose not to display it. Now they also deny you the chance to actually actively delete your data. They are recording everything you do online. Accessible to them, their advertisers and the government. just… wow.

2. Desiato on September 26th, 2011 at 12:53:

   Citation needed. I cannot offhand find this in Facebook’s privacy policies.

3. Roland Hesz on September 26th, 2011 at 21:06:

   The citation was that they found deleted messages in the sample data they received from Facebook for testing purposes.

4. Desiato on September 27th, 2011 at 11:35:

   @Roland, looking again closely, I see the sample message in the “Messages” section has the bit “Deleted true”. But the commentary before it does not describe that this is what happened, it describes what the privacy policy says without linking to the policy. (Always unfortunate–or cause to wonder.)

   I think FB’s treatment of deletion has been in flux. There are now both “archive” and “delete” commands in the current UI. I think the test bears re-running to see what happens with the current delete command as I think you get warned that the other person will lose access to the message as well.

Comments:

1. Mr. N on September 26th, 2011 at 8:37:

   In the metalwork business, it took 150 years of fights to make the companies responsible for providing tools and suitable protective devices to the workers. Yet another step back in the working class rights battle.

2. Desiato on September 26th, 2011 at 9:39:

   Citrix discovers that people prefer Macs over thin client winterms. Awesome.

3. John Sinteur on September 26th, 2011 at 21:01:

   If Citrix took this as a statement about their own products, and set out to improve them until their own employees would love to use them as well… that would be a great outcome!