I was making a joke, but if you'd like me to be serious, I do know about RepRap, and I have to say: the premise that we can make self-replicating devices (or device families) that not only reproduce themselves, but acquire the resources for their reproduction in an efficient way, seems far-fetched to me. That is what this article is about: we assume that evolution has made refinements on reproductive processes that should be clues for people trying to improve self-replication in machines. Unfortunately, even biological processes, honed by millenia of natural selection, are pretty wasteful, because most of them have never had to adapt to Earth's very finitude.

...which are themselves manufactured in big, smoke-belching factories.

Good post. You reminded me of a Franz Kafka story: http://records.viu.ca/~Johnstoi/kafka/beforethelaw.htm

Won't this inevitably lead to a situation where we are forced to purchase wind-generated energy just to get the wind farmers to release enough breathable air for humanity to survive? I, for one, say "no thank you" to eternal debt slavery to the alternative energy consortium.

"Interorbital Systems, a space exploration company that specializes in small satellites, offers a list of applications including imaging, research, space art, and space burials."

Spend the first few years of eternity... in space!

That will be great - by sucking nutrients out of the deepest parts of the ocean, we'll ensure that humanity causes extinction events at every level of terrestrial life we possibly can!

Thank you, that was a good post. That article's argument is no different from divine right, manifest destiny, racial superiority, male prerogative, and all the other delusions people have maintained over the centuries to justify fucking over other people.

Yes, that is exactly the kind of meaningless "political" "opinion" I'm talking about. What do you know about people crushing other people's throats with combat boots in the Cuban revolution? A revolution in which 58 men inspired a country of 6.5 million to throw out a dictatorial, postcolonial government? You know nothing.

You're comparing the Cuban Revolution to the rise of Nazi Germany? Congratulations on almost completing your American primary public education little guy.

Thanks for posting your reply, I never considered the mythology of the breakthrough before. Very interesting idea!

There was just a question the other day asking if we were past the age of invention. I believe one of the tags on it was "retarded."

I know this is a little bit like sneering, but how appropriate that this question to the Slashdot community was inspired by Funimation Roku.

Except even the Federal Reserve has a little bit of a mandate to do what's in the best interest of America and long-term financial stability, whereas these people have no guiding principle but profit. I'm not saying the Federal Reserve is doing a great job with that, but there's a real difference between state-aligned central banks protecting their currencies and this kind of collusion.

Don't put an alarm on your luggage. Please. For the sake of all the other passengers, please don't use one.

I don't have any hard science to back this up, but past experience compels me to guess that you are likely to set it off accidentally many times for every one time it's set off by theft.

It will cause problems if you are separated from your bag by security personnel in the course of routine security measures, and that might subject you to non-routine security measures.

A proximity alarm will not prevent someone from taking just the things they want to steal and leaving the rest. An alarm that activates if the luggage is opened seems to me like a more expensive alternative to a crate.

If I were a thief with your luggage and it started making an alarm noise, I would get rid of it and distance myself from it as fast as possible, without caring about the longevity of the contents. You can see how this might work on a train. Even a loud alarm would be hard to hear when it's sitting on the trestles twenty miles behind you.

I think the most sensible security advice, which has probably been repeated elsewhere here, is that you shouldn't be carrying anything you couldn't stand to lose. If there's some kind of special circumstance here you should just talk to the people at the train station if they have a safe, a cargo cage, or some other secure place so that you aren't wrestling with paranoia the whole time.

Are you insane? Why would you build the Death Star to any unit standard EXCEPT the one called "Imperial?"