If we learned anything from The Hitchhiker's Guide, it is that the mice are the supreme species on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
What's the point of injecting inferior genes into their brains?

On a more serious note, it will probably be a long time before genetic science can safely determine the source of intelligence or any way to manipulate it. And a long time beyond that to overcome social and legal impediments to using the knowledge in any practical way. Expect to be just as dumb as you are for the rest of your life.

"I'm pretty sure all regulations are available on the internet."

You may find it interesting that the Municipal Code for my current city, and probably yours, is a copyrighted document prepared by a private company. Illegal for you to make a copy without paying them. Our city doesn't have the resources to create such a document. The publisher is able to create a generic municipal code and then make minor alterations for individual cities.

I worked for the private law firm that wrote the Chicago municipal code. The attorney whose name appeared as author was simply the head of a committee, but he had connections and got all the credit. That was a merger of private/public cooperation long ago that probably was beneficial to the City and lucrative for my boss.

Ownership of the law, in written form, will be more commercialized over time. Slashdot readers are pushing for scientific journals to be more 'open' ... This is another place where openness is important.

"Ask Slashdot: How Can Technology Improve the Judicial System?" - this is it.

These allow you to edit a web page. Remove the ads, the fluff, anything you don't like. Or simply select the text that interests you and poke CMD-i to isolate it. Print, copy the text, or make a PDF if you want to keep it. Aardvark is legacy, may not work on your newer Firefox. Hack seems to work well.

If you have a name like Ichabod Rumpelstiltskin you will find it hard to hide on the internet. Change it to John or Mary Smith and you will be difficult to pinpoint. Change it to common words and searching you out will be nearly impossible. Consider words like 'and', 'the', 'if', or 'swell'. You could start a baseball team and call it Who's On First. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

In the US, a corporation has only one mandate- maximize profits for shareholders. There is no rule about being nice to employees or customers or suppliers or environment. There is no rule against manipulating governments in ways that increase profits. There are legions of lawyers across the land who will sue on behalf of shareholders if there is a perceived failure to take a profit opportunity.

This is the reason our society is polarized between the 1% and the rest. There are owners and there are workers. The owners enjoy low taxes and high profits. The workers compete for the scraps and pay for the war machines and government surveillance. The workers appear in the company books as an expense. To maximize profits, that expense must be minimized. CEO bonuses are largely based upon how that expense is minimized.

A new kind of corporation called 'Public Benefit Corporation' is emerging in some states. It allows profit, but these companies have a larger purpose that takes priority. This idea, if supported by the public, could help bring balance to the economy. OTOH if we keep buying from Public Screwing Corporations, abandon all hope.

Sorry. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter have obviated your argument. War still exists as an incentive for innovation, but it is less prominent. Any programmer today who wants to make money or make an impression has to come up with an app that appeals to ordinary humans.

Does any programmer care about DARPA or their nasty association with surveillance on citizens, with CIA, with spyware ... ? Our time is about enabling citizens, privacy, and online freedom. There are still profits to be made in spying on citizens, but who will opt for that?

It's my futile hope that the Evil Empire has less influence on future developments than enthusiastic ideas from commercial and creative programmers in the future. Will you join me in this?

Trust me. I'm just like you and I'm an expert. You can believe my comments when I tell you that this story is bogus. You and I, we're like peas in a pod and we know when a slashdot story is misleading. Less savvy readers believe stories like this but not us. NYT, WSU, what do they know? As long as we stick together we will know the truth. Right on bro!

This is a great idea. Preserve previous generations of software & data, emulate old hardware . Then we will be able to enjoy all the goodies from the Apple ][, IBM 360 and Commodore 64 era!

But wait, we can already emulate just about any old equipment. Most of what was worthwhile on floppy disks or tape is now online, available to most of us. Even our government, slow though they may be, has found ways of bringing old software & data to modern machines. Cloud storage and networking brings more interoperability over time and the future looks bright. Movies from the 1920s are available on modern media as well as Edison's cylinder recordings. So what's the problem? Oh, your dad's home movies. Sorry about that.

After 1/4 million miles on two wheels, it is my experience that a rider never senses any tilting in turns. You can test this theory by placing a carpenter's level across the handlebars and taking sharp turns that require an extreme lean angle. The bubble on the level will indicate that you have never left the vertical.

Our system was perfect. Anyone could voice command anything in the house. The four of us were happy as clams but ... over a six month period we gained a total of 102 pounds, one of us now has diabetes and another is pre-diabetic. All of us suffer aches and cramps at various times and we don't sleep as well as we did before.

In the interest of preserving our remaining health we have bypassed the voice control system. We have moved the control apparatus for each light or other device as far as possible from any convenient place, requiring us to stand up and walk somewhere to activate or deactivate the device. Certain devices such as the television will not function until someone pedals the stationary bicycle/generator at a vigorous speed.

Yes, we've gone back nearly to the stone age. It's been 6 weeks and we've collectively lost 18 pounds and we have fewer health problems. While this story may be exaggerated, or entirely fictional, it serves as a lesson for those who idealize a perfect system for lazy people.

A search for 'iCar' will bring speculation and images to tickle your fancy. Facts may be harder to find.

See the USA in your Chevrolet... But bring a physical driver license.

How do you monetize the page of a dead person?

from TFA: "Thync announced a study showing that its device reduces stress without chemicals."

  - guess who conducted the study--Thync, of course. Miraculously they found no problems with the product. Thynk 'scientists' (not sure how they define the term) assured the DailyDot reporter that the product works better than a 'sham'.

A company spokesman said "we have been collecting data around how people use Thync in their everyday lives " -- which seems odd for a product that hasn't reached the market yet and few people have had extensive exposure to it.

Again from TFA: "Thync offered an anecdote from a student" ... This seems mostly to be anecdotes and little science.

That said, there is hope that this technology or the transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) experiments will prove useful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

When one is reduced to praying that they will get something for nothing, they have made an error that will lead them to ruin.

Americans have always taken pride in their ability to forge their way to success. Regardless of their initial status, they always feel that they can move up, improve, make a better life than their parents. This and only this is what made America great.

When Americans sit back on their easy chair and hope for a miracle to bring them a fortune, they have reduced themselves to being no better than the Asians who worship 'luck' in the casinos across the country. It is unAmerican and I, for one, would be ashamed of participating or winning such a gambling enterprise.