You know that it usually takes 18 months after birth for a child to recognize itself in a mirror and before that they just assume it's another person in the mirror. Can you prove to me that an infant is self aware, because that would be pretty impressive. By your logic it seems like one should be able to abort their child in the first year and a half after birth.

... there are a lot of parents who would love that ...

I've mentioned this before in other contexts, and people get all in a jam about it. If, for example, someone is so brain-damaged that they no longer have a sense of self, a sense of others, etc., it doesn't really matter if they can do some sort of somnambulistic imitation of "someone being home" - there's no person, so why not just pull the plug.

I don't know that it's a full year and a half - animals (dogs and cats) catch on quite quickly that the "other" is really them, and ISTR playing peek-a-boo with my daughters via a mirror before 6 months, so they certainly understood that even a reversed image was the same person, and they didn't try to play the game with themselves ...

I think they pick up cues from the eye motion. It would make sense, since there are mirror surfaces in nature (water surfaces, for example), and it would be in every species' interest to be able to discount their own reflection when looking down (unable to see attackers directly). cf Aesop's Fable about the wolf crossing the stream with a chunk of meat in his mouth - pure fiction. No way is a wolf going to drop a chunk of meat for an image of one.

It IS a valid point. Would be fun to do experiments (then again, playing with your own kids is usually fun - its' OTHER peoples' kids who are the whiney, noisy, spoiled brats. :-)

Eureka! Finally, someone who "gets it!" As you point out, even a small false positive rate, among a large enough population, will screw things up.

We're seeing this in other areas as well - like the "Do Not Fly" lists.

One bunch of retards fighting another because "God told them to."

I think "God" is often framed when people say this, no voice-hearing necessary to explain that.

Exactly. Further, there's no proof that EVERYTHING people do "because it's God's will" is a put-up job.

They could at least send God an email asking for confirmation.

"Besides the fact that talking for hours to your computer is extremely tiresome, just like hearing everyone in your office is extremely tiresome... the security issues of everyone speaking out loud what they type would be astronomical. I mean it doesn't make any sense, and it will never make any sense."

But think of the benefits. Stupid ideas nipped in the bud because, as someone "dictates" their proposal into their email program, everyone else who's stuck in the same area starts laughing or going "that's one fucked-up idea."

Too many ideas receive consideration because some moron has made them into a powerpoint presentation, along with an overly-optimistic spreadsheet, and a cut-n-paste "executive overview."

-- Note: Any typos are due to having to type ths in idle's 20-character-wide text box. WTF can't they fix that?

As the memristor was developed in HP Labs while working on fabrication techniques for "normal" memory, the fabrication technology is already here. It'll only be a short while before we'll see memristors in consumer products.

"HP prototyped a crossbar latch memory using the devices that can fit 100 gigabits in a square centimeter.[10] HP has reported that its version of the memristor is about one-tenth the speed of DRAM.[27]"

So, knowing HP, we can expect memristors that need a new cartridge to "refill the memory" every few weeks.
And your initial memsistor will have just a "starter cart" that only accesses 1/4 the data.
And for best performance, you should only use genuine HP Brand electricity.
And random blocks of memory in the memristors won't be accessible under linux. Especially when you try to send data via a wireless connection.

resistance changing based on past... fuses do that too!

Yes. Resistance is fusile.

The problem is that you're going to need a significant amount of insulator material at 50 volts, which means that the physical spacing will be much further apart than on today's devices. So we will see much higher latency, much more bulk, and because of the physical separation, much higher internal current consumption on the interconnects.

You won't be seeing this particular implementation displacing flash.

" At a critical temperature,"

"Gee, I had it stored on this memsistor chip - but I left it in my shirt pocket, and my data melted."

The article doesn't say what temperature, so there's probably an issue there. Until that issue is solved, it's about as useful as write-only memory.

Also, looking at the required voltage (50 volts @ 0.6 amp), this is NOT going to be either high-density, or portable,or particularly energy-efficient.

But I will go further, though not to the extent you imply. While I won't boil people, I'd be happy to add schizophrenics to the "non-viable" list. Mandatory sterilization once it manifests. The human race has had enough problems with people who claim to "hear voices" telling them what to do, or what is right, rather than making decisions based upon observation and testing. It's time we grew up, and put away childish things.

If your definition of "schizophrenic" includes religiousity or leadership of religious people you really need to moderate yourself. Remember that even the craziest religious people tend not to display any other symptoms of schizophrenia (including "hearing voices"... they read books).

Really? Look at all the wars throughout recorded human history. One bunch of retards fighting another because "God told them to." We don't need any more of that shit, and the quicker we purge it from the gene pool, the better. If someone claimed to hear God telling them to steal cars for Jesus, we'd refuse to give it any credence. If someone claimed to hear God telling them to rape people, we'd refuse to believe it (though the people in the Bible acted on exactly that "command from god" when they'd rape the women after killing the men). If someone claimed to hear God tell them that it was their duty to shit on your living room carpet every morning at 7AM, you'd kick their ass.

So why would be believe them because they say "You must kill these people!" Simple - it aligns with the mob's secret desire to violence - not any rational thought process. Same as the rabid death penalty supporters who can't wait to execute an 8-year-old. Better yet, read some of the comments here and here.

"God says put them to death!" Yeah, riiiiight. Got any witnesses to that? No? Just a voice in your head? God sent me an email saying you should give me all your money. And that abortion is okay. What, you don't believe me? Send an email to god AT trolltalk DOT com asking if it's true.

the fact that you can boil a person down to 'non-viable' is fucking disgusting.

A fetus is not a person. The brain at 20 weeks is smaller than a pig or a cow. At 12 weeks, you're on the level of an aardvark, at best, but without the survival traits.

The fact that you insist on calling a clump of cells a "person" when there's no evidence that "anybody's home" is more a testimony to wishful thinking or knee-jerk rejection of evidence in favour of indoctrination is what's disgusting.

But I will go further, though not to the extent you imply. While I won't boil people, I'd be happy to add schizophrenics to the "non-viable" list. Mandatory sterilization once it manifests. The human race has had enough problems with people who claim to "hear voices" telling them what to do, or what is right, rather than making decisions based upon observation and testing. It's time we grew up, and put away childish things.

i can stalemate you easily on that abortion point too. we have no proof that it *isn't* a person at 12 weeks. there's really not much proof either way, it's all purely the realm of philosophy.

No, you can't. Since the 12-week fetus doesn't have a brain that is capable of the functions of a person, such as self-awareness, your claim is totally wishful thinking. Actually, it's an example of willful ignorance in the face of scientific fact. Superstition rather than observation and reasoning. It's an extraordinary claim, and as such requires extraordinary proof. There is nothing even approaching "proof"; quite the contrary, the brain growth spurt commences in the 6th month.

Heck, even a sheep or a pig has more brain cells than a 20-week fetus - which is closer in complexity to an aardvark, if you want to put things into perspective. At 12 weeks, even a shark, cat, alligator or rabbit has more brains.

Flush it. Use it for medical experiments. See if it blends. It's just tissue, not a person.

Ummm. There's really easy proof that there is a "person" in every single 12 week fetus. Let it go to term. If at the end of the 40 weeks the woman does not deliver a fully formed individual human being, then you can make claims.

The same "logic" was used in times past to argue that sperm contained fully-formed homonuclei - little people.

A person is more than just a hunk of meat. According to your argument, we should never bury someone who is dead, because they are a "fully formed individual human being."

You mistake the form and the functionality.

A "person" is a sentient, self-aware being. Neither the dead, nor the brain-dead, nor the grossly mentally retarded, nor 12-week-old fetuses, qualify. Filling up space when there's obody home, a la Terry Shiavo, is just a waste of oxygen and an example of superstition overriding common sense and ethics.

...how you can justify people having kids that are going to have a grossly shortened, painful, and ultimately tragic life.

By not having the arrogance to assume I know what's best. That also happens to be why I'm pro-choice.

So you're okay with a parents' "right" to knowingly have another human being suffer for years and then die? That's just fucked up thinking from the time when kids (and wives) were regarded as property. We may not have ALL the information, but we have enough to make reasonable choices. People who knowingly bring guaranteed-risk pregnancies to term should have their tubes tied, and the fetus aborted on birth if it's been allowed to get that far. Maybe we could extend it further ... here's a thought - we could start with Sarah Palin, the "poster child" for "people - even children - should have children".

.every fetus that should have been aborted that wasn't potentially takes the place of one who could have been viable.

You're going to have to explain that one. Be sure to explain why that matters in a discussion of medical insurance as well.

Simple - if the parents abort the defective one, they can try again, and maybe the next mix of genes will be better. After all, a lot of the genetic disorders are 50-50.

Also, it's a lot cheaper on the medical system to get an abortion than it is to finance the care cost of the seriously non-viable - not to mention the additional psychological and time burdens on the parents, which also ends up costing in lost time and $$$.

Same as euthanasia - I'm all for it.

You're really getting off topic here...

Why - any talk of making the results of genetic screening available to insurance companies ultimately comes down to $$$ - and euthanasia saves money and resources. If genetic screening shows that the treatment options available won't work, you better believe that this info will be used to deny treatment, so you might as well at least be humane and not let people needlessly suffer when they don't have other options.

We're already a few billion over capacity. If we're going to have to limit the number of births anyway, might as well make sure that they're the best possible. The alternative is NOT to limit births and get down to some sustainable level of population, in which case the eventual culling (either human or natural disaster) will be much harsher, and the "defectives" won't have a chance anyway.

It's not eugenics. It's reality. We've over-bred, and the last thing we need is to preserve defective genes that are going to hinder our chances of long-term survival. One viable child per couple for the next 100 years, no exceptions, should do it. Either we make the choice voluntarily, it it WILL be made for us.

Death row test: On what? To see if they're dead yet? If a test has that much error, why arent the lawyers attacking that?

The lawyers are part of the problem. It's journalists who have uncovered the problem, not incompetent lawyers. That's why Illinois, a pro-death state, became the first to issue a blanket moratorium on executions in 2000 based on wrongful convictions:

On January 31, Illinois Governor George Ryan (R), a death penalty supporter, put a hold on executions in the state after 13 inmates on death row had their convictions overturned. Since the state reestablished the death penalty in 1977, Illinois has released more prisoners from death row after proof of their innocence than it has put to death?13 overturned convictions and 12 executions. In recent years, journalists rather than lawyers in the system have been largely responsible for pursuing the exculpatory evidence. A Northwestern University journalism professor and his graduate students conducted investigations resulting in the overturning of three murder convictions, one of them days before the scheduled execution.

The moratorium has a number of supporters who back the death penalty, but want to ensure that it is justly applied. Crime solving using DNA technology has made tremendous strides over the past two decades. Many of the overturned Illinois convictions were supported by DNA testing and other evidence. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy (D) has introduced legislation that would make DNA testing less complicated for death row inmates and improve the counsel they are afforded at the state and federal levels. On One Hand...

Executions must stop until all convictions are carefully reviewed to ensure there are no innocent persons on death row. The state of Illinois, facing exonerating evidence, has set free more death row inmates than it has executed. With numbers like that, there is little doubt the Illinois and other states have wrongfully executed many innocent people.

How do innocents end up on death row? Bad legal representation due to lawyers who have never tried a capital case or who show up in court drunk. Others are wrongfully convicted for lack of DNA evidence or corrupt witnesses. In Alabama, Judy Haney was convicted of murder and sentenced to death, even though one of her lawyers came to court drunk. In Chicago, Rolando Cruz was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl, even though another man confessed to the crime. After 10 years, Cruz was set free, thanks partly to DNA evidence.

With a proven false-positive rate of over 50%, the legal process that resulted in wrongful convictions in Illinois was clearly unconstitutional, nevermind a travesty of "justice".

False positives can kill.

Just keep telling yourselves that God really wants you to breed kids that will live a shortened, painful, and meaningless life. Stupidity, like intelligence, is partly genetic.

You have by far surpassed many fundamentalists and pro-lifers in terms of stupid statements by implying that your religious beliefs and position on abortion is based on inteligence, which is based on genetics. You also just proved they're not the only ones with a tendancy to oversimplify things to black and white.

I'm an atheist - I have no religious beliefs, you ignorant clod! :-)

Look, there's no proof whatsoever that there's a "person" in a 12-week fetus, so anyone arguing against abortion based on "it's a person" is making an argument based on wishful thinking, not the evidence.

So, tell us how you can justify people having kids that are going to have a grossly shortened, painful, and ultimately tragic life. My position on abortion is based on simple decency - I wouldn't let a dog go through what some parents put kids through by not aborting when they had plenty of time.

Same as euthenasia - I'm all for it. Why should people have to continue to suffer in pain because of someone else's religious beliefs? Anyone who put an animal through such crap would be stoned to death in a show of public outrage. But for people, "It's different - it's God's will!" Bullshit. If "God" wants people to suffer, I'd rather be in hell than sit at the same table as such an asshole. Let "God" clean up "his" act first, and get a decent set of morals and ethics.

But keep breeding those mouth-breeders - the RNC needs them. Just remember that every fetus that should have been aborted that wasn't potentially takes the place of one who could have been viable.