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User: Hythlodaeus

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  1. Re:Time scale on Biologists Debunk the "Rotting Y Chromosome" Theory · · Score: 1

    Many of the remarkable feats of memorization and numeracy seen in autistics may not be a result of more developed faculties, but underdeveloped reasoning and executive function that normally mediates between those lower-level functions and final behavior. (In programming terms, cognition encapsulates memory/calculation and doesn't expose direct interfaces.)

  2. Re:Coloured license plates to ID drivers on Nevada Approves Rules For Self-Driving Cars · · Score: 1

    Really, the point of speed limits is so police can pull people over at will because the posted limit is comically slow.

  3. Re:USA has 11 aircraft carriers on Candidate Gingrich Pushes a Moon Base, Other Space Initiatives · · Score: 1

    Really, doctrine ought to be warming up to living with 0 aircraft carriers concordant with 0 human-piloted combat aircraft. The weapons we need delivered are cruise missiles, UAVs, or (hopefully soon) magnetically-accelerated projectiles, all of which can be supported by smaller vessels with much more agile logistics.

  4. Re:seriously — they're totally missing the p on Visual Studio Gets Achievements, Badges, Leaderboards · · Score: 1

    The goal seems to be to get developers aware of and experienced using particular features of the most premium editions of VS.

  5. Re:Some issues on Multiple Sclerosis Damage Washed Away By Stream of Young Blood · · Score: 1

    The summary brings up stem cells, but as far as I can tell the actual paper attributes the benefit to white blood cells.

  6. Re:Terry Wahls, MD, defeated her MS with nutrition on Multiple Sclerosis Damage Washed Away By Stream of Young Blood · · Score: 1

    While her nutrition advice generally aligns with current research, the only evidence that her "protocol" does anything for MS specifically is the anecdotal evidence that Wahls, who had relapsing-remitting MS is not as bad off as she was awhile back. The first three pages of Google results for "Wahls protocol" are connected with the Wahls foundation itself.

  7. Re:social security on DHS X-ray Car Scanners Now At Border Crossings · · Score: 1

    You don't have good insurance. When my daughter was born, I paid $150 out of pocket.

  8. Re:Great, on DARPA Seeks App Developers For War App Store · · Score: 1

    DARPA doesn't recruit UAV pilots - it does R&D to meet the needs of the service branches. The USAF on the other hand wants all the UAV pilots it can get its hands on. I've heard from people in the air force that once you are trained to fly UAVs it is basically impossible to get transferred to anything else because the UAV stations are so undermanned. Of course that means they work the pilots so hard, and don't let them transfer, so retention is poor, keeping the cycle going.

  9. Re:Broken Window Fallacy on DARPA Seeks App Developers For War App Store · · Score: 1

    We could have, but we wouldn't have - at least not in the same decade as we did.

  10. Re:Turned it into a Run & Gun - Rambo type gam on Battlefield 3 Performance: 30+ Graphics Cards Tested · · Score: 1

    The point of the commander was not the commander abilities, but issuing commands to coordinate the team. Without a game mechanic for this, it only happens in prearranged clan matches.

  11. Re:Exotic principles of Quantum Mechanics on Hybrid Technology Could Bring 'Quantum Information Systems' · · Score: 1

    We always know the speed of a photon, but velocity is a vector. As for the article, it went through way too much journalist filtering to say anything about the science.

  12. Re:Not the Meissner effect on Researchers Demonstrate Quantum Levitation · · Score: 1

    It's an application of the Meissner effect, just ensuring the superconductor is thin enough that penetrable locations exist.

  13. Re:non-profit? on US Student Loans Exceed $1 Trillion · · Score: 1

    At most universities, sports are revenue positive (even after coaches' salaries, stadium construction, etc.) and education is revenue negative based on tuition alone.

  14. Re:scrambled eggs in the bleacher seats on The Genetics of Happiness · · Score: 1

    That post was art.

  15. Re:Solves some big problems, creates new small one on Amazon Pushes For National Internet Sales Tax · · Score: 1

    There's definitely no longer any validity to the 90's moratoriums, as there's no longer anything nascent or emerging about internet retail that needs protection.

    On the broader issue of taxes, if it were even possible to overcome all the vested interests to do a ground-up redesign of taxation in this country, it would only make sense for the state to be the single point of contact for a taxpayer. The state can distribute money to counties, and the federal government could tax the states, in an arrangement that's truly "federal". Preferably these taxes would not include income taxes, as per the Fairtax.

  16. Re:There is no morality without science on Should Science Be King In Politics? · · Score: 1

    Any moral position reduces to either utilitarianism or uncritical appeal to authority, when placed in a broad enough context. A society's position that people should be secure in their possessions, including bodily integrity, is because the inefficiencies that result are far preferable to the total war of "all against all" that would threaten the very existence of that society. You don't cheat on your wife because the satisfaction you gain ongoing adherence to that commitment exceeds your expected enjoyment of breaking it.

  17. Re:Very cool tool on Researcher's Tool Catches Net Neutrality Cheaters · · Score: 1

    There's a difference between identifying externalities, and making a cost/benefit analysis, versus declaring that since externalities may exist, whole domains of human behavior are inherently illegitimate.

  18. Re:Very cool tool on Researcher's Tool Catches Net Neutrality Cheaters · · Score: 1

    If that's a "failure" then it's simply your failure to deal with reality as it is, instead of as you wish it could be, if you could impose your wishes by force.

    You seem to have redefined reality to exclude use of force. I think you meant that use of force to prevent monopolization is unethical, rather than unreal. A consequentialist argument for this position would be inconsistent with a historical examination of actual monopolies in practice. A deontological argument would propose that the monopoly has a right not to have violence done to it, or society has a duty not to perform violence. Proposing such a right or duty would require supporting proof.

    A right may be a natural or legal right. The supreme court has ruled that, in the U.S., the government possesses antitrust authority on the basis of its authority to regulate interstate commerce, so there is not a legal right for monopolies to be free from interference.

    The only way for a right to be a natural right is for it to be naturally secured de facto. If a right is not secured in a state of nature, then it can only be secured by human agency - and is therefore a legal rather than natural right. Any right not to have violence committed upon oneself is not provided by nature - rather the opposite. The right to commit violence is a natural right because it cannot be curtailed without being exercised. It is however an alienable right, whose provisional alienation is the foundation upon which legal rights are built.

    Establishing that the government has a (natural, rather than legal) duty not to commit violence would require recourse to Kant's categorical imperative (or Rand/Rothbard's clumsy reformulations of the same). Since the key criteria of the categorical imperative is to act by principles that that one would wish to be applied universally, this is essentially consequentialism in deontological clothing so brings us full circle.

    Deontology can only get us so far as to say its sensible to alienate our right to violence to participate in a political system. The political system defines within itself what actions are right according to itself. Consequentialism can judge the correctness of the political system.

    With reference to telecommunications monopolies:
    We are participating in a political system.
    The political system has determined monopolies require regulation.
    Examination of the alternatives gives no reason to believe life would be better without this regulation.

  19. Re:Sounds like they may be too late... on GE Bets On Holographic Optical Storage · · Score: 1

    In the "cloud" there is still physical media somewhere.

  20. Re:Yet Another Lack of Understanding on Could the KGB Infiltrate LulzSec? · · Score: 1

    I'd really like to see a bunch of Russian KGB types try to come up with a meme that resonates with chan kids.

  21. Re:They've got a point on Happy Tau Day · · Score: 1

    RTFA e^(i*tau)=1

  22. Re:Not surprising on PLA Develops First Person Shooter With US Troops as Targets · · Score: 1

    In the current version of America's Army, you shoot at soldiers of a fictional country called Czervania.

  23. Re:Cute, but meh. on Scientists Unveil Worlds First Computerized Human Brain Map · · Score: 1

    Gene expression is useful only for disease mapping.

    That is the most ignorant thing I've heard today. Gene expression levels are germane to understanding any biochemistry or signaling pathways in a given tissue.

  24. Re:The next step on Air Force Supercomputer Made From PS3's · · Score: 1

    The reason it was cost effective is because, like all console manufacturers, Sony subsidizes the hardware with the expectation of recouping the cost via game developer license fees.

  25. Re:Human trials on Kidney Printer · · Score: 1

    I attended a talk by Dr. Atala earlier this year. His background in urology, so urethras and bladders were the first applications of the technology. The problem with other organs is vascularization. Without infiltration by blood vessels, the printed tissue can only survive in a layer 5cm from blood. That's fine for hollow organs like those that have gone to trial.