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User: fastest+fascist

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  1. Re:vegetarians on Cooking May Have Made Us Human · · Score: 1

    You didn't really think that through, did you?

  2. Re:vegetarians on Cooking May Have Made Us Human · · Score: 1

    How did you end up thinking this equates to the neck-stretching theory? On a low-quality vegetarian diet, the individuals with larger stomachs and intenstines would be able to digest more food and do a better job of it, which would lead to a reproductive advantage. So if you took the GP and their offspring out of modern society and they were able to survive on a solely vegetarian diet without modern agriculture, they could very well develop larger stomachs over time. As things are, though, a high-quality vegetarian diet is quite possible to maintain, and so no such adaptation is likely to be beneficial.

  3. Re:vegetarians on Cooking May Have Made Us Human · · Score: 1

    Unlikely if they all eat modern industrially produced food. The obesity epidemic shows us it's easy nowadays for a westerner to obtain all the calories they need and then some, and just dropping meat out won't change that. We have an abundant supply of calorie-rich starches - you can easily get all the calories you need from grain and rice and potatoes without needing a larger stomach. There are also perfectly fine, rich vegetarian sources of protein available. The agricultural revolution changed many things for us, but our bodies evolved to what they are before that. You could, of course, ask whether grains and starches are such a great source of nutrition for an organism that never really evolved to eat them, but we are capable of surviving on them as we are just fine.

  4. Re:"Non-lethal" on G20 Protesters Blasted By "Sound Cannon" · · Score: 1

    What about, say, tasering a fleeing, unarmed suspect? I'd rather not see cops resort to lethal force just to stop someone from getting away, but it also seems odd that they would have to just watch them leave if they have a non-lethal option for stopping them. I realize there are risks with "non-lethal" weapons, but the point is there are border cases where lethal force is not justified but other weapons may be.

  5. Re:A HRM is a really REALLY valuable exercise aid. on Heart Monitors In Middle School Gym Class? · · Score: 1

    What exactly do you mean by "too fast" where heartrate is concerned? A healthy person isn't likely to damage themselves by overexertion due to heartrate rising too high - they'll just get pain and nausea and will probably stop if it gets too bad. Maybe if you're trying to optimize your level of exertion for maximal endurance a monitor might be useful, but that's a highly specialized type of fitness. For most generally useful exercise going at it hard and listening to your body is enough.

  6. Re:Unscaled photo link on Most Detailed Photos of an Atom Yet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not to pick nits, but is a picture that is the result of electrons striking a surface actually a photograph?

  7. Re:Operation Chinese Freedom on China Considering Cuts In Rare-Earth Metal Exports · · Score: 1

    Oh, you must be one of those overly defensive knee-jerk militarists.

    Sheesh,way to go off on a tangent. All I said was, China isn't the kind of place the US can just waltz into and "liberate". They're not exactly defenseless. What your baseless assumptions about my political agenda or your rants about China's aggression have to do with it is beyond me. The fact remains, currently any military conflict between China and USA or allied countries would be far too costly for both parties to be worth it, both in terms of military losses and in terms of economic ramifications. And that, I suspect, is also why your country isn't taking an aggressive approach to Chinese transgressions.

  8. Re:Operation Chinese Freedom on China Considering Cuts In Rare-Earth Metal Exports · · Score: 1

    Try that, and I think you'll find in communist China, it is the authoritarian regime that liberates the people of the aggressor nation.

  9. Re:Update on China Considering Cuts In Rare-Earth Metal Exports · · Score: 2, Interesting

    China doesn't really need WMDs or stolen designs to hold off an invasion. Conventional weapons combined with their sheer manpower would make it a suicidal proposal to attack them on their own turf. It's not exactly Iraq.

  10. Re:Some counterpoints on Copyright Troubles For Sony · · Score: 1

    One point regarding Jammie Thomas. She actually had 2500 illegally obtained tracks on her PC, but was only prosecuted for a handful of them so the $K22.5 I often see bandied around isn't strictly accurate.

    It doesn't matter what she had on her PC - if she wasn't prosecuted for it, it didn't, or at the very least shouldn't have counted towards the reparations she has to pay. Otherwise an accuser could go to court on a single charge they can prove and tack on any number of charges they haven't even tried to prove, and have a person sentenced for all the charges.

  11. Re:So, what I read is.. on Making Babies In Space May Not Be Easy · · Score: 1

    I can see it now, the catholic church in 3rd world countries preaching abstinence from space sex as a means of avoiding AIDS. At least they can expect to have a reasonable rate of conformance to that rule.

  12. Re:The beginning bit is probably tricky too on Making Babies In Space May Not Be Easy · · Score: 1

    And in space, no-one can hear "eww" screams.

  13. Re:Wouldn't a map suffice? on Augmenting Reality With Your Mobile Phone · · Score: 1

    And, of course, the logical conclusion: porn-o-vision. "Aim the camera anywhere and I'll show you people fucking.

  14. Re:Oh yeah, right on Mexico Decriminalizes Small-Scale Drug Possession · · Score: 3, Informative

    In Switzerland, they've been experimenting with providing the most severely addicted heroin users with legal doses of the drug, in small amounts. Enough to keep the withdrawal at bay, no more. They say they've had some success, and also claim the system has deglorified heroin, making it mostly an old junkies' drug, unappealing to young people. Not much cool factor in waiting in line at some state agency for your daily shot.

  15. Re:How about the back or chest? on BrainPort Lets the Blind "See" With Their Tongues · · Score: 1

    It's been done. This device appears to stem directly from Paul Bach-y-Rita's experiments as early as 1972 in providing blind people with vision via a video camera connected to a grid (16x16 or 20x20) of tappers on the back or belly of the subject, who quite quickly learned to interpret those signals in a manner that appeared to be similar to vision. I can only assume the tongue method is better, since that's what they've moved onto now.

  16. Re:WTF? Sour grapes on How To Prove Someone Is Female? · · Score: 1

    OTOH, the genitals as such have very little to do with athletic performance, whereas hormonal makeup has a lot to do with it. Sports aren't split into men's and women's events because they have different bits between their legs, it's because one gender, on average, has a large advantage over the other in athletic performance.

    I'm sure transgender folks are happy for whatever public exposure this gives to the ambiguous nature of gender in some people. It's a complex and confusing issue, especially if you don't clearly define what you mean by gender and for what purposes that discrimination is made. I'm sure there will be no really satisfactory way to put these issues to rest in the sporting world, but perhaps these cases will do some good by providing a little insight into the complexities and varieties of human gender and sexuality.

  17. Re:we need to end drug prohibition on Mexico Decriminalizes Small-Scale Drug Possession · · Score: 1

    Well, to be fair, that was a huge dose, the sheer psychological trauma of an experience like that could be very damaging.

  18. Re:Not quite a myth. on The Myth of the Isolated Kernel Hacker · · Score: 1

    Also, programmers are people too!

  19. Re:Don't feel bad, CmdrTaco on NASA Probe Blasts 461 Gigabytes of Moon Data Daily · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Also, I'm almost sure he could get a 100 Mbps link to his house if he was willing to pay what NASA is paying for theirs. At least I don't think it would be much more expensive.

  20. Re:The Columbia test on The Homemade Hard Disk Destroyer · · Score: 1

    So basically baking in an oven would do it? Perhaps not the same oven you bake your bread in, there's some nasty stuff in those drives, I suppose.

  21. Re:Nut jobs are nut jobs, troll should be no surpr on College Credits For Trolling the Web? · · Score: 1

    Are you saying the folks at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary only eat cockroaches?

  22. Re:Locked out? on Has Conficker Been Abandoned By Its Authors? · · Score: 2

    Have there been any relevant arrests recently? Maybe the controllers are behind bars or otherwise caught up in real-life problems. Maybe they decided the worm got a little too well known and thought better of trying to do anything with it for fear of getting caught.

  23. Re:Why on Fewer Than 10 ET Civilizations In Our Galaxy? · · Score: 1

    If you have to assume the existence of FTL to arrive at the possibility of an advanced civilization colonizing the galaxy, then in the light of what we know about the speed of light - namely that it seems likely there can be no FTL travel - you have to assume there are no such civilizations. Kind of a summary of what I said before actually. Travel is too slow for colonization to be reasonable.

  24. Re:Why on Fewer Than 10 ET Civilizations In Our Galaxy? · · Score: 1

    Given how rare alien life appears to be, I'd say the risk of creating a rival civilization by the simple act of sending colonists out is probably greater than that of bumping into a completely alien one.

    As for dumping excess population, that would be some serious dumping operation. Even with the 6+ billion people we now have, you'd have to send out millions and millions of people for it to make any difference. And this is just one planet. Far easier to find means of population control.

  25. Re:Why on Fewer Than 10 ET Civilizations In Our Galaxy? · · Score: 1

    Information is not transferred. It is copied.