We got audited by a human and they haven't been yet. The most likely explanation for that is that someone officially complained to Google about something here.
(my bolding)
My guess is someone with an axe to grind complained to Google and with what the ultra-litigious society that is America now, Google decided to cover their ass.
NIMP = Not In My Profession. A cousin of NIMBY. I love it how everyone is for "Free Trade" except when it is disadvantageous to themselves. Also, "Democracy" except when the they don't like the people elected. Also "Free Speech" except when the find they speech offensive or politically inconvenient (Wikileaks). You Westerners reap what you sow. Good luck with turning protectionist and see the prices of your goods go up while other countries would no longer buy your goods when China and India makes them cheaper.
Churchill tanks are descended from "infantry" tanks, heavily armoured (for an Allied tank), slow moving and usually with a relatively small main cannon. Their primary function is to assist the infantry, not fight tanks and as such are next to useless against German heavy tanks such as the Panthers and Tigers. In fact, to the Germans, the Panther is a medium tank while the Western allies incorrectly classified it as a heavy tank and assumed that it was only present in small numbers, like the Tiger tanks. They paid dearly for this false assumption when Allied tanks were torn apart after the Normandy landings, like the in the battle of Villers-Bocage. You can read about it here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Villers-Bocage/. It was by using their superior numbers and a combined arms approach, especially fighter bombers that the threat of German tanks was beaten back. It was only until near the end of the European war that the Western allies fielded a tank that was on near equal terms with the Panthers and Tigers. Also, let's not forget that it was the Soviets who annihilated entire German field armies on the Eastern Front. If Hitler didn't fight a war on two fronts, the outcome of the Normandy landings, might have been different.
Lets not forget about Antarctica too. The next great War is going to be there. An entire continent ripe for colonisation. An entire continent of untouched resources. It will be like the Americas before Columbus, and even more so, since there are no native peoples there to agonise about. I think it is time that we accept the Earth is not static. This statist view of geography and climate is a by-product of our short attention span. The Earth changes and had always been. Entire ecosystems have many times went through great extinction events. What were once sea bed, are now mountain tops and vice versa. Rivers, lakes, even entire oceans had dried out. We humans will adapt or we will be replaced by other more successful species.
I have been looking back at my posting history on Slashdot and noticed a trend. I have been more and more "defending" if you can call it that, China here. I then realized that, China is now the fashionable country to hate by many Westerners, mainly Americans, usurping Arabs and Muslims and possibly even the Iranians (who are not Arabs, despite what many bigots here like to say). Being a Muslim myself and weathering through horrible post-September 11 outright bigotry and hatred has made me more alert. All the classic signs are here in this thread. You know, the "they're stealing our jobs/innovations/money/women", "their culture is a debased/derivative of our own superior culture", "they have {insert negative racial trait} while we don't. I am also surprised to see about half of Slashdot suddenly turning into RIAA spokespersons about piracy in China when usually it's fuck the RIAA!. I guess it's "their piracy is inferior to our piracy" thing. More disturbingly, further down the thread someone tried to find the purported original article and couldn't find it, possibly making this story a racist smear campaign as well. There is even the "White man's burden" argument where China's human rights record had something to do with pirating the latest movies (the irony here is that Chinese citizens can freely copy any movie they like while you couldn't). Guess, even among geeks there are hypocrites, racists and bigots.
See, it's all nice to go misty eyed, chest out, with the Federation flag flapping in the wind behind you about space colonisation but think of it this way. We are living at the bottom of a deep and steep (gravitational) cliff, though generally, it is pleasant here and we (still) have what we need. The Moon/Mars/Alpha Centauri, with all its riches, gold and hot green women is on top of this cliff. Why should we have to expend money and energy to climb this cliff, to get stuff that we can easier get down here? Factor in the cost of going to the moon, mining it and transporting it back to Earth, it is probably more economical to extract gold from sea water. I'm not saying space colonisation will never happen. It could happen. But then again, I have a dim view of our chances. Also, there is no soil on the moon. In fact, moon dust is very abrasive and would be very hazardous to humans and our machinery.
Wow. Around half of the comments in this thread are for "lynching" Assange and Wikileaks. Now, I am all for secrecy where it is warranted. For example, the launch codes for nukes should be kept a secret. However, atrocities and war crimes should not. Governments may try to cover it up but exposing such atrocities is not only a right but a responsibility of a human being. If you come from a country where governments are elected, then you are responsible for what your government did, unlike people from dictatorships. By not caring or worse, supporting efforts to cover up atrocities by your military and character assassinate Assange, you too have blood on your hands. Show me and the rest of the world, that the Unites States deserves its "Leader of the Free World" moniker.
Would it kill the story submitter to give people like me with no background in open source politics some info on what the heck is LibreOffice, why was it forked and is this latest development good or bad? I occasionally use Go-oo to open incompatible files but that's about it. Wikipedia and Libreoffice's website aren't much help either. So, someone knowledgeable, please reply below. Thanks in advance.
I don't get Fanboyism either, which are mostly on mass consumer products and even more baffling, on free, open source software. Even the most low spec netbook can run 2 or more browsers. Why not have them all, especially if they are free? Why limit yourself to one particular browser, as if by doing so, you earn karma, expiate your sins, restore balance to the Force and prevent the sky from falling down. And why the vitriol on people who have a different browser/game console/airline/computer manufacturer/OS/processor/ad nauseum preferences? I have said before when iPad just came out. We as consumers owe nothing to manufacturers, rather they owe everything to us. If you like their products, good for you and good for them. If you don't like it, try something else and move on.
Scientists (I am one) will often carry out research on what seems to the layperson as "obvious". Contrary to the opinions of such laypersons, such basic research are not a waste of taxpayer's money. Before you can get to the "useful" applied research, years of basic research man-hours needed to be done in the background until enough data had accumulated. These scientists, are looking at the brain signals associated with the phenomenon that they are studying. Their findings would add more information to our understanding of the human brain, mind, individuality and society. Only those with a mistaken understanding of how scientific research works would narrowly look at similar research like this and think that it is not very useful.
Sigh, why is it I find myself siding with China all the time on Slashdot, even though I don't actually like the Chinese government? The US is not blameless or is Guantanamo bay just a tropical holiday resort? Sure the Chinese is in Tibet, but the US is in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sure the Chinese imprison and torture people, but so do the American government. Sure the Chinese execute its enemies, but so do the US, only difference is that the US uses Predator drones instead of a bullet to the back of the head. Sure the Chinese are propping up dictatorships in Africa, but the US is supporting genocidal Israel. In fact, looking a the balance sheet of foreigners killed, the US had killed more foreigners than China had in the last 20 years. If you hold China to such standards, then it is only logical and internally consistent that you should boycott the US as well. Or are you a hypocrite?
Maybe if you stop from getting into expensive un-winnable foreign wars, propping up puppet states and general meddling in the Middle East and Afghanistan, you could save trillions of dollars easily, make less enemies, get "free" healthcare, better schools, lower taxes, more investment in science and RnD, send man to Mars etc. and as a bonus, save lives (your own and others). Heck, just give 1% of the money saved as "incentives" to other countries so that they like you more, instead of bombing them.
100 jobs may not seem that much, but for small town it is significant. It means, 100 people plus probably another 50 to 90 spouses + another 20 to 100 kids (all numbers pulled out of my ass) will either continue to stay there, or better, move in. That's at least another 200 people extra. This means that schools, shops, petrol stations, the post office etc. can still remain open and the town won't turn into a one garage ghost town. Most of them will also want their own houses, so that's another benefit to the local economy.
And of course, most "modern" SAM, i.e. even 1st generation 60s ex-Soviet hardware http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA-7_Grail have infra red tracking ability rendering the use of this iPhone app moot. This is just self-important bureaucrats doing make work to justify their existence while feeding the paranoia of the masses.
What about the ones that are lost sales though? Should they be ignored? What about the ethics of it? Should people enjoy the fruits of your labour for free when you've made it clear that you want to be paid for them?
Not a personal rip on you or anything, just a general observation. Capitalists are only ethical when it is profitable to them. Make of this what you will.
When China was resolutely Communist, you Westerners were always barking about the utopia and freedoms and the Golden Age that would follow if they adopted capitalism. Now that China had shown (as they had historically always been) better capitalists than Westerners and as a results are gaining stature as a world power (again, as they had historically been), it is all environment this, air pollution that. Make up your mind. And have you not forgotten your recent oil spill disaster, never mind the continent sized forests you mowed down and the countless species you drove to extinction to be pontificating on what other countries should do? Western countries got to where they are now due to the very polluting Industrial Revolution. Do you think other countries will want to stay an agricultural backwater forever? Maybe become bucolic tourist atractions for Western tourists to see Giant Pandas and half naked villagers knee deep in rice fields, framed by picturesque majestic mountains in the background. Then, after many glasses of Martinis served by discreet native servants, you jet back to your mega cities and drive home in your luxury cars. Give me a break.
From my non-American point of view, the difference between American Liberals and Republicans is like the difference between getting bitten by a cobra or mauled by a bear. One might be somewhat less painful than the other but the end result is not that different. From what I have seen, it does not matter who is the American president or from what party he is from since all of them will stick to the status quo on foreign policies (preserving American "greatness") while also eroding the rights of not only American citizens but by setting bad examples to other foreign governments to follow.
I am a microbiologist and this claim in my opinion is very weak. Remember, extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof to be accepted. This guy is a physicist, not a biologist, so that already raises many red flags.
In the arXiv blog linked, it says that Godfrey collected numerous samples of the "red rain". Since he is not a microbiologist, I doubt he took the necessary precautions to prevent contamination with terrestrial microbes, though it is debatable whether this is even possible. This alone is the biggest stumbling block to his claims. The blog also says that the cell "reproduce" at 121C yet also states that it has no DNA (all form of nucleic acids?). This flies in the face of all known life on earth. Even red blood cells initially have a nuclei before losing them as they mature. The point of reproduction is to pass on your genetic code to your offspring. This suggests to me that we might be looking at a abiological/chemical process. Did Godfrey try to detect the production of metabolite byproducts from his sample? Reproduction is a very energy intensive biochemical operation and should produce detectable metabolites. My research field is hyperthermophilic Archaea that grows at 90C or more and I know the existence of microbes that can grow at even higher temperatures, so this part of the claim is feasible. Overall, I caution extreme scepticism until Godfrey can provide extraordinary proof of his claims.
Excuse me, but your generalization of "all religions" opposing stem research is false. I hear this all the time, when actually you meant fundamentalist American Christians. There are many Christians that I know who are not opposed to stem cell research. I am a Muslim myself and I am not opposed to stem cell research as in Islam, a fetus is only considered "online" after 120 days of conception, meaning before that it is not yet fully human. Having said that, I am more comfortable if more focus is given to research on adult-derived stem cells but I do not object to embryonic stem cell research as long as it is obtained from embryos that are less than 4 months of gestation. So please, next time, qualify your statements when damning any religions or any groups of people for that matter or you will commit the same behaviour of the very people you despise. Like it or not, religion plays an important part as a checks and balance mechanism to scientific progress. Religion provides another voice in the ethical debates on any new technology. Scientists (I am a microbiologist myself) are prone to jump into any new breakthrough without thinking of the larger consequences. As in everything in life, there are always give and take.
No, even though you can't read Chinese, you know it is a written form of the language. You weren't shut in your parent's bunker your whole life did you? Then you surely have seen depictions and explanations that it is Chinese script. This is the big fallacy that many extra-terrestrial intelligence enthusiasts make: assume that alien life and technology will be similar to ours. On the most basic level, we humans can still communicate with each other, regardless of language and cultural barriers because we are human. Many gestures and responses are hard coded in our being. We cannot assume this about aliens because they would have developed to different evolutionary pressures. Let us speculate that an alien civilization communicates using chemical signals, analogous to pheromones (there I go, making Earth-centric assumptions). An entire "technology tree" would develop that would be unintelligible to our technology. They might not develop radio or other EM-based communication technology that is compatible with ours. On an aside, is it just me or are Singulatarians starting to get on my nerves? Maybe it is because I'm a biological sciences researcher and I get annoyed when uninformed people trivialise the complex biological mechanisms of the brain. Heck, even the "simple" unicellular bacteria is much more complex than any that we have ever created. Read about the DNA replication and error-checking mechanisms if you don't believe me. Or Wikipedia about the glycolysis and the Krebs cycle and then learn how enzymes, biological catalysts that are millions of times more efficient and selective than inorganic catalysts work. Then you will revise upwards when the "Singularity" will occur.
You know what, screw you. Screw you because you lumped all Muslims as supporting the terrorists. Screw you because people like you are one of the reasons why many misguided Muslims turn to terrorism. Screw you because you are against real Muslims trying to bridge the divide with the American people. Screw you because you made a hypothetical straw man argument. Yeah, mod me down as a troll or what not. I'm a Muslim and I am against terrorism in any form, be it carried out by amateurs or by someone hiding behind a Predator Drone. The US had destroyed more civilian buildings, killed more innocent people, wiped off villages off the map, then what was lost during the September 11 attacks. It has destabilised the volatile Afghanistan region and is kindling a greater fire in Kurdistan. All this at the cost of benefiting the people behind the original attacks and your military-industrial complex. What is wrong with allowing some people trying to heal the wounds by building this Islamic Centre? (it is not a mosque)
My country was colonized by the Portuguese, Dutch, British and Japanese. Let me tell you something, they did it not for the "White man's burden" or "Asia for Asians" but for money and resources, pure and simple. Science fiction has bred several generations of people with unrealistic views of space exploration. We are creatures of this planet. We may try to leave, but we will not last long away from it. We can try to artificially reproduce Earth-like conditions for long-term missions, but there are nearly infinite variables here on Earth that essentially we will fail in the attempt. Accept the fact that we will not survive long without the Earth, that space "colonies" will never be self-sufficient. We will not likely "terraform" a planet or do other grandiose things like FTL. In fact, we will never likely even leave the solar system and visit other stars. What will we do when we get there anyway, that robots can't do. There are no green space alien chicks for you to have sex with. The outer space is not the secular version of the Hereafter. It is not the eternal salvation or the promised land. Accept these premises, and we can begin to do real science.
Slashdot Mirror
We got audited by a human and they haven't been yet. The most likely explanation for that is that someone officially complained to Google about something here.
(my bolding) My guess is someone with an axe to grind complained to Google and with what the ultra-litigious society that is America now, Google decided to cover their ass.
NIMP = Not In My Profession. A cousin of NIMBY. I love it how everyone is for "Free Trade" except when it is disadvantageous to themselves. Also, "Democracy" except when the they don't like the people elected. Also "Free Speech" except when the find they speech offensive or politically inconvenient (Wikileaks). You Westerners reap what you sow. Good luck with turning protectionist and see the prices of your goods go up while other countries would no longer buy your goods when China and India makes them cheaper.
Churchill tanks are descended from "infantry" tanks, heavily armoured (for an Allied tank), slow moving and usually with a relatively small main cannon. Their primary function is to assist the infantry, not fight tanks and as such are next to useless against German heavy tanks such as the Panthers and Tigers. In fact, to the Germans, the Panther is a medium tank while the Western allies incorrectly classified it as a heavy tank and assumed that it was only present in small numbers, like the Tiger tanks. They paid dearly for this false assumption when Allied tanks were torn apart after the Normandy landings, like the in the battle of Villers-Bocage. You can read about it here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Villers-Bocage/. It was by using their superior numbers and a combined arms approach, especially fighter bombers that the threat of German tanks was beaten back. It was only until near the end of the European war that the Western allies fielded a tank that was on near equal terms with the Panthers and Tigers. Also, let's not forget that it was the Soviets who annihilated entire German field armies on the Eastern Front. If Hitler didn't fight a war on two fronts, the outcome of the Normandy landings, might have been different.
Lets not forget about Antarctica too. The next great War is going to be there. An entire continent ripe for colonisation. An entire continent of untouched resources. It will be like the Americas before Columbus, and even more so, since there are no native peoples there to agonise about. I think it is time that we accept the Earth is not static. This statist view of geography and climate is a by-product of our short attention span. The Earth changes and had always been. Entire ecosystems have many times went through great extinction events. What were once sea bed, are now mountain tops and vice versa. Rivers, lakes, even entire oceans had dried out. We humans will adapt or we will be replaced by other more successful species.
I have been looking back at my posting history on Slashdot and noticed a trend. I have been more and more "defending" if you can call it that, China here. I then realized that, China is now the fashionable country to hate by many Westerners, mainly Americans, usurping Arabs and Muslims and possibly even the Iranians (who are not Arabs, despite what many bigots here like to say). Being a Muslim myself and weathering through horrible post-September 11 outright bigotry and hatred has made me more alert. All the classic signs are here in this thread. You know, the "they're stealing our jobs/innovations/money/women", "their culture is a debased/derivative of our own superior culture", "they have {insert negative racial trait} while we don't. I am also surprised to see about half of Slashdot suddenly turning into RIAA spokespersons about piracy in China when usually it's fuck the RIAA!. I guess it's "their piracy is inferior to our piracy" thing. More disturbingly, further down the thread someone tried to find the purported original article and couldn't find it, possibly making this story a racist smear campaign as well. There is even the "White man's burden" argument where China's human rights record had something to do with pirating the latest movies (the irony here is that Chinese citizens can freely copy any movie they like while you couldn't). Guess, even among geeks there are hypocrites, racists and bigots.
See, it's all nice to go misty eyed, chest out, with the Federation flag flapping in the wind behind you about space colonisation but think of it this way. We are living at the bottom of a deep and steep (gravitational) cliff, though generally, it is pleasant here and we (still) have what we need. The Moon/Mars/Alpha Centauri, with all its riches, gold and hot green women is on top of this cliff. Why should we have to expend money and energy to climb this cliff, to get stuff that we can easier get down here? Factor in the cost of going to the moon, mining it and transporting it back to Earth, it is probably more economical to extract gold from sea water. I'm not saying space colonisation will never happen. It could happen. But then again, I have a dim view of our chances. Also, there is no soil on the moon. In fact, moon dust is very abrasive and would be very hazardous to humans and our machinery.
Before every flag waving murrican scream USA! USA! USA!, your country do it too. In this case, it is against Iran. You can read it here: http://www.voanews.com/english/news/middle-east/Iran-Confirms-Refueling-Problems-for-Some-of-Its-Planes-in-Europe-105276043.html. So, how does it feel to be on the receiving end for a change? Not very nice, is it?
Wow. Around half of the comments in this thread are for "lynching" Assange and Wikileaks. Now, I am all for secrecy where it is warranted. For example, the launch codes for nukes should be kept a secret. However, atrocities and war crimes should not. Governments may try to cover it up but exposing such atrocities is not only a right but a responsibility of a human being. If you come from a country where governments are elected, then you are responsible for what your government did, unlike people from dictatorships. By not caring or worse, supporting efforts to cover up atrocities by your military and character assassinate Assange, you too have blood on your hands. Show me and the rest of the world, that the Unites States deserves its "Leader of the Free World" moniker.
Would it kill the story submitter to give people like me with no background in open source politics some info on what the heck is LibreOffice, why was it forked and is this latest development good or bad? I occasionally use Go-oo to open incompatible files but that's about it. Wikipedia and Libreoffice's website aren't much help either. So, someone knowledgeable, please reply below. Thanks in advance.
I don't get Fanboyism either, which are mostly on mass consumer products and even more baffling, on free, open source software. Even the most low spec netbook can run 2 or more browsers. Why not have them all, especially if they are free? Why limit yourself to one particular browser, as if by doing so, you earn karma, expiate your sins, restore balance to the Force and prevent the sky from falling down. And why the vitriol on people who have a different browser/game console/airline/computer manufacturer/OS/processor/ad nauseum preferences? I have said before when iPad just came out. We as consumers owe nothing to manufacturers, rather they owe everything to us. If you like their products, good for you and good for them. If you don't like it, try something else and move on.
Scientists (I am one) will often carry out research on what seems to the layperson as "obvious". Contrary to the opinions of such laypersons, such basic research are not a waste of taxpayer's money. Before you can get to the "useful" applied research, years of basic research man-hours needed to be done in the background until enough data had accumulated. These scientists, are looking at the brain signals associated with the phenomenon that they are studying. Their findings would add more information to our understanding of the human brain, mind, individuality and society. Only those with a mistaken understanding of how scientific research works would narrowly look at similar research like this and think that it is not very useful.
Sigh, why is it I find myself siding with China all the time on Slashdot, even though I don't actually like the Chinese government? The US is not blameless or is Guantanamo bay just a tropical holiday resort? Sure the Chinese is in Tibet, but the US is in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sure the Chinese imprison and torture people, but so do the American government. Sure the Chinese execute its enemies, but so do the US, only difference is that the US uses Predator drones instead of a bullet to the back of the head. Sure the Chinese are propping up dictatorships in Africa, but the US is supporting genocidal Israel. In fact, looking a the balance sheet of foreigners killed, the US had killed more foreigners than China had in the last 20 years. If you hold China to such standards, then it is only logical and internally consistent that you should boycott the US as well. Or are you a hypocrite?
Maybe if you stop from getting into expensive un-winnable foreign wars, propping up puppet states and general meddling in the Middle East and Afghanistan, you could save trillions of dollars easily, make less enemies, get "free" healthcare, better schools, lower taxes, more investment in science and RnD, send man to Mars etc. and as a bonus, save lives (your own and others). Heck, just give 1% of the money saved as "incentives" to other countries so that they like you more, instead of bombing them.
100 jobs may not seem that much, but for small town it is significant. It means, 100 people plus probably another 50 to 90 spouses + another 20 to 100 kids (all numbers pulled out of my ass) will either continue to stay there, or better, move in. That's at least another 200 people extra. This means that schools, shops, petrol stations, the post office etc. can still remain open and the town won't turn into a one garage ghost town. Most of them will also want their own houses, so that's another benefit to the local economy.
And of course, most "modern" SAM, i.e. even 1st generation 60s ex-Soviet hardware http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA-7_Grail have infra red tracking ability rendering the use of this iPhone app moot. This is just self-important bureaucrats doing make work to justify their existence while feeding the paranoia of the masses.
Anything I missed?
What about the ones that are lost sales though? Should they be ignored? What about the ethics of it? Should people enjoy the fruits of your labour for free when you've made it clear that you want to be paid for them?
Not a personal rip on you or anything, just a general observation. Capitalists are only ethical when it is profitable to them. Make of this what you will.
When China was resolutely Communist, you Westerners were always barking about the utopia and freedoms and the Golden Age that would follow if they adopted capitalism. Now that China had shown (as they had historically always been) better capitalists than Westerners and as a results are gaining stature as a world power (again, as they had historically been), it is all environment this, air pollution that. Make up your mind. And have you not forgotten your recent oil spill disaster, never mind the continent sized forests you mowed down and the countless species you drove to extinction to be pontificating on what other countries should do? Western countries got to where they are now due to the very polluting Industrial Revolution. Do you think other countries will want to stay an agricultural backwater forever? Maybe become bucolic tourist atractions for Western tourists to see Giant Pandas and half naked villagers knee deep in rice fields, framed by picturesque majestic mountains in the background. Then, after many glasses of Martinis served by discreet native servants, you jet back to your mega cities and drive home in your luxury cars. Give me a break.
From my non-American point of view, the difference between American Liberals and Republicans is like the difference between getting bitten by a cobra or mauled by a bear. One might be somewhat less painful than the other but the end result is not that different. From what I have seen, it does not matter who is the American president or from what party he is from since all of them will stick to the status quo on foreign policies (preserving American "greatness") while also eroding the rights of not only American citizens but by setting bad examples to other foreign governments to follow.
I am a microbiologist and this claim in my opinion is very weak. Remember, extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof to be accepted. This guy is a physicist, not a biologist, so that already raises many red flags.
In the arXiv blog linked, it says that Godfrey collected numerous samples of the "red rain". Since he is not a microbiologist, I doubt he took the necessary precautions to prevent contamination with terrestrial microbes, though it is debatable whether this is even possible. This alone is the biggest stumbling block to his claims. The blog also says that the cell "reproduce" at 121C yet also states that it has no DNA (all form of nucleic acids?). This flies in the face of all known life on earth. Even red blood cells initially have a nuclei before losing them as they mature. The point of reproduction is to pass on your genetic code to your offspring. This suggests to me that we might be looking at a abiological/chemical process. Did Godfrey try to detect the production of metabolite byproducts from his sample? Reproduction is a very energy intensive biochemical operation and should produce detectable metabolites. My research field is hyperthermophilic Archaea that grows at 90C or more and I know the existence of microbes that can grow at even higher temperatures, so this part of the claim is feasible. Overall, I caution extreme scepticism until Godfrey can provide extraordinary proof of his claims.
Excuse me, but your generalization of "all religions" opposing stem research is false. I hear this all the time, when actually you meant fundamentalist American Christians. There are many Christians that I know who are not opposed to stem cell research. I am a Muslim myself and I am not opposed to stem cell research as in Islam, a fetus is only considered "online" after 120 days of conception, meaning before that it is not yet fully human. Having said that, I am more comfortable if more focus is given to research on adult-derived stem cells but I do not object to embryonic stem cell research as long as it is obtained from embryos that are less than 4 months of gestation. So please, next time, qualify your statements when damning any religions or any groups of people for that matter or you will commit the same behaviour of the very people you despise. Like it or not, religion plays an important part as a checks and balance mechanism to scientific progress. Religion provides another voice in the ethical debates on any new technology. Scientists (I am a microbiologist myself) are prone to jump into any new breakthrough without thinking of the larger consequences. As in everything in life, there are always give and take.
No, even though you can't read Chinese, you know it is a written form of the language. You weren't shut in your parent's bunker your whole life did you? Then you surely have seen depictions and explanations that it is Chinese script. This is the big fallacy that many extra-terrestrial intelligence enthusiasts make: assume that alien life and technology will be similar to ours. On the most basic level, we humans can still communicate with each other, regardless of language and cultural barriers because we are human. Many gestures and responses are hard coded in our being. We cannot assume this about aliens because they would have developed to different evolutionary pressures. Let us speculate that an alien civilization communicates using chemical signals, analogous to pheromones (there I go, making Earth-centric assumptions). An entire "technology tree" would develop that would be unintelligible to our technology. They might not develop radio or other EM-based communication technology that is compatible with ours. On an aside, is it just me or are Singulatarians starting to get on my nerves? Maybe it is because I'm a biological sciences researcher and I get annoyed when uninformed people trivialise the complex biological mechanisms of the brain. Heck, even the "simple" unicellular bacteria is much more complex than any that we have ever created. Read about the DNA replication and error-checking mechanisms if you don't believe me. Or Wikipedia about the glycolysis and the Krebs cycle and then learn how enzymes, biological catalysts that are millions of times more efficient and selective than inorganic catalysts work. Then you will revise upwards when the "Singularity" will occur.
You know what, screw you. Screw you because you lumped all Muslims as supporting the terrorists. Screw you because people like you are one of the reasons why many misguided Muslims turn to terrorism. Screw you because you are against real Muslims trying to bridge the divide with the American people. Screw you because you made a hypothetical straw man argument. Yeah, mod me down as a troll or what not. I'm a Muslim and I am against terrorism in any form, be it carried out by amateurs or by someone hiding behind a Predator Drone. The US had destroyed more civilian buildings, killed more innocent people, wiped off villages off the map, then what was lost during the September 11 attacks. It has destabilised the volatile Afghanistan region and is kindling a greater fire in Kurdistan. All this at the cost of benefiting the people behind the original attacks and your military-industrial complex. What is wrong with allowing some people trying to heal the wounds by building this Islamic Centre? (it is not a mosque)
My country was colonized by the Portuguese, Dutch, British and Japanese. Let me tell you something, they did it not for the "White man's burden" or "Asia for Asians" but for money and resources, pure and simple. Science fiction has bred several generations of people with unrealistic views of space exploration. We are creatures of this planet. We may try to leave, but we will not last long away from it. We can try to artificially reproduce Earth-like conditions for long-term missions, but there are nearly infinite variables here on Earth that essentially we will fail in the attempt. Accept the fact that we will not survive long without the Earth, that space "colonies" will never be self-sufficient. We will not likely "terraform" a planet or do other grandiose things like FTL. In fact, we will never likely even leave the solar system and visit other stars. What will we do when we get there anyway, that robots can't do. There are no green space alien chicks for you to have sex with. The outer space is not the secular version of the Hereafter. It is not the eternal salvation or the promised land. Accept these premises, and we can begin to do real science.