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User: ChrisMaple

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  1. Re:Space Patrol Unsatisfactory on What Star Trek Owes To Robert Heinlein · · Score: 1

    As long as we're hypothesizing replicators, we should also hypothesize efficient and effective energy <-> matter transformation. Energy becomes literally dirt cheap, too low in value to be an effective currency.

    Energy is not and never has been a good currency. (BTW, look up exergy.) It isn't rare, different forms aren't equally valuable per standard unit and aren't stable with respect to each other. It isn't durable, generally speaking. It isn't compact. In many cases, it isn't possible to measure it without consuming it.

  2. Re:Space Patrol Unsatisfactory on What Star Trek Owes To Robert Heinlein · · Score: 1

    I can own a unique good and refuse to allow it to be replicated. It may have value that I can trade for someone else's unique possession.

    Ever notice that dollar bills have serial numbers? They're unique. If you ever have two dollar bills with the same serial number, at least one is counterfeit and in principle without value.

    In a law-free society, anyone could make serialized "unique product tokens" and trade them for unique items (although in practice only tokens from a few reliable firms would be widely accepted.) These "unique product tokens" (a.k.a. money) become an intermediary in trade, allowing more efficient commerce.

    There are many other objections to your flawed claims. Some of them involve human nature, things like the desire to be different or to achieve great things, that no mere replicator can sidestep.

  3. Re:Space Patrol Unsatisfactory on What Star Trek Owes To Robert Heinlein · · Score: 1

    Once you've left the frame of a conventional society - and a "post-scarcity society" is certainly outside that frame - the other concepts in the frame have to be re-evaluated to ensure that they still have meaning. You can't just say "legal weight" and "functional society" and assume that they will still mean what you think they mean.

    Money is a medium of exchange (for goods and services) whether or not it is formalized as a legal construct. The very recent example of bitcoin illustrates this perfectly. There is no need for government or law in order to have money.

  4. Re:makes no sense on DEA Wants Access To Medical Records Without Warrant (thedailybeast.com) · · Score: 1

    They don't want arrests so much as they want blackmail. A prisoner is an expense, a prisoner is someone defeated in body only. A blackmail victim is an owned mind, a slave. This is the goal of all totalitarians.

  5. Re:Hey, Obama, Trump doesn't need any help... on DEA Wants Access To Medical Records Without Warrant (thedailybeast.com) · · Score: 1

    Obama has clearly stated his objections to Constitutional principles. He is an active enemy of the Constitution of the United States of America, just as he is an active enemy of the United States of America. Many of his actions are treason.

  6. Re:First it was the NSA ... on DEA Wants Access To Medical Records Without Warrant (thedailybeast.com) · · Score: 0

    What you chose to do with your own body, mind and life is up to no one but you

    Up until the time you have children. Once you have taken that responsibility, you are honor-bound to not damage your child's life by screwing up your own.

    Then again, honor is probably a foreign concept to a drug abuser.

  7. Take your racist lies and shove 'em.

  8. High levels of black crime started with and were caused by Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society". Democrats encouraged black women with children to go on welfare programs, programs which required that there be no husband at home. Fatherless families strongly tend to produce criminal children.

    Typical liberal program produces tragic results. It seems intentional.

  9. Re:Jobs for tiny tube replacers on Future Phones May Use Vacuum Tube Chips As Silicon Hits Moore's Law Extremes (inverse.com) · · Score: 1

    Most tubes fail because the filament breaks, and many others wear out as the emission-enhancing oxide bakes off. Field-emission vacuum tubes lack those mechanisms, although I do wonder about the tiny electrodes eroding under heavy current flow.

  10. Re: How to design complementary logic on Future Phones May Use Vacuum Tube Chips As Silicon Hits Moore's Law Extremes (inverse.com) · · Score: 1

    It is in large part a cost issue. Cheap FETs operating in the low frequency range that metal detectors use tend to be noisy (1/f noise). More costly FETs or more complex circuits could do the job, but why bother when a BJT is close to the theoretical limit and is dirt cheap?

    Vacuum tubes seem like a poor choice. They're not magically quiet, they're inefficient, fragile, and have short lifespans.

  11. Re:No one hurt . on Tesla: Model X Accident Caused By Driver Error, Not Autopilot (computerworld.com) · · Score: 1

    Disengaging the clutch while slowing down depends entirely on circumstances. It's not the normal operation when slowing from 70 mph to 50 mph, and it's entirely superfluous in a panic stop.

  12. There are a great many varieties of Christianity, and I've yet to read of one that has anything even close to your formulation.

  13. Re:Before anyone starts the FETUS wars... on Wheelchair-Bound Stroke Victim Walks Again After 'Unprecedented' Stem Cell Trial At Stanford (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 1

    Cutting the umbilical chord immediately after birth prevents the blood in the chord from being pumped back into the new child. This makes the baby weaker and probably degrades its lifetime health to some degree. Whether storing this blood for future use has a greater benefit than letting the baby use it immediately is a technical issue (and probably isn't known yet.)

  14. Re:There will be no shortage of volunteers. on Wheelchair-Bound Stroke Victim Walks Again After 'Unprecedented' Stem Cell Trial At Stanford (washingtonpost.com) · · Score: 1

    The concept of murder in political posts usually refers to killing evil people without their permission.
    As good as most dogs are, they're not people and don't have the rights of people. The dog's owner rightfully gets to choose.
    Innocent people should be able to choose whether they live or die - no interference from government, family, or neighbors. (The only exception to this I can think of is parents of young children, who have taken on a responsibility that in most circumstances they should not be allowed to shirk.)

    A practical problem is that the seriously debilitated elderly sometimes have lost the ability or will to communicate. They may have in the past said "I don't want to be a burden" or "I don't want to suffer", but now they don't say "I want to die". Sorry, I don't have a solution for this.

  15. Re:New Anti-Missile Laser Tech on North Korea Ballistic Missile Explodes On Launch Fourth Straight Time · · Score: 1

    In atmosphere the effective range of laser weapons is short. 20 km is a generally safe upper estimate on range

    There isn't much atmosphere if you're shooting straight down.

  16. Re: Recession is really a depression on US Death Rate Rises, Health Officials Aren't Sure Why (nbcnews.com) · · Score: 1

    Gasoline price is greatly affected by political/regulatory/tax environment and technological changes. Fracking has changed the supply picture, damaging the validity of price comparisons.
    It's only been 2 months since I could buy gasoline at $1.69/gallon. The price is volatile (and so is the gasoline).

  17. Re:It costs millions now... on We Need To Build Industrial Zones In Space In Order To Save Earth, Says Jeff Bezos (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Gravitational potential is almost as much a problem if your raw material is too high as it is if it's too low.

  18. Hillary...Trump...banking cabals... Illuminati. Between the evil politicians and the fantasies, many people don't try hard enough to succeed and the others have their production stolen. Don't despair, hide what you can from the government, support the good people and oppose the bad.

  19. Re:Multi-threaded applications on Intel Launches Its First 10-Core Desktop CPU With Broadwell-E · · Score: 1

    Memory bandwidth or shared cache limitations can prevent multithreading from reaching its full potential.

  20. Re:Don't agree on Sorry, There's Nothing Magical About Breakfast (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    The amount of Calories consumed by exercise for most people is easy to calculate; the energy that goes into lifting weight, walking, running, swimming is all fairly straightforward. Body efficiency food-to-mechanical-energy runs about 25%.

  21. Re:I knew it! on Sorry, There's Nothing Magical About Breakfast (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    No joke. Decades ago, some food companies realized modern lifestyles meant reduced consumption of the then-popular breakfast foods. They gathered up some doctors who agreed to claim "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" in order to reverse the trend. It is literally a conspiracy.

  22. Re:Well duh on Google Is A Serial Tracker (softpedia.com) · · Score: 2

    Google Analytics is particularly abusive. Many streaming audio sites won't work until G.A. is allowed, even though it has nothing to do with the streaming.

  23. Re: Why does this matter? on YouTube Is Guilty Of Criminal Racketeering, Grammy Winner Says (torrentfreak.com) · · Score: 1

    Dodd-Frank.

  24. Re:She's right of course on YouTube Is Guilty Of Criminal Racketeering, Grammy Winner Says (torrentfreak.com) · · Score: -1, Troll

    Youtube is deliberately and with malice of forethought providing a streamlined method for massive copyright violation; leaving the owner of the copyrighted material with the unreasonable burden of frequently searching youtube for the owner's material.

    An artist should be able to say to youtube "anything with my name on it is prohibited", and then it becomes the responsibility of the uploader to demonstrate that the material is not covered by copyright.

  25. Re:Just more copyright extension.. on YouTube Is Guilty Of Criminal Racketeering, Grammy Winner Says (torrentfreak.com) · · Score: 1

    <sarcasm> Of course I should sign a contract with a thief, so that the thief will check all his stolen goods to make sure none of them are mine. Make perfect sense. </sarcasm>

    Hiding behind third parties does not remove your responsibilities. Much, perhaps most, youtube material is copyright violation.