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Comment Or -- (Score 1) 368

I'm not looking for authenticity. If I were, I'd be reading non-fiction.

Epic Poetry, or Medieval Romance novels or some other form of metaphor, which fosters what Aldous Huxley called the Perpetual Philosophy.

Some very few SF writers have been able to include cultural/philosophic themes in SF -- Huxley, Heinlein, Burgess and few others, as Twain was able to do in ordinary fiction/humor.

Don't expect genius from today's publishers.

Comment Whaaa? Where Does TFA Say That? (Score 2) 62

As I read the judge's ruling, he throws out the case because no evidence of damage was shown, because the lawyer himself was not defamed (the website, a corporation the lawyer worked for, was), and that except for the use of the word "cheated" there was no tort (right of lien). IANAL but I find it hard not to see that the judge might well have ruled the other way had the plaintiff been the website corporation.

Where is the expansion of the right to publish bad reviews here? I don't see it.

Comment The Only Hope (Score 1) 257

A large proportion of people will not willingly share their commute space with others. Since people who "vote with their feet" seem to prefer to drive their own cars in privacy to sharing a vehicle, route and schedule with other people the rider may not like, it will take more than engineering to get the intended result. It will mean, eventually, either outlawing ownership of private cars in certain places or making permissions prohibitively expensive.

I see a big, expensive failure in this. Nevertheless, it will get funded by groups who are obviously against union labor: the Koch brothers, government planners, et al. Retailers like Wal-Mart, on the other hand, will be against, as they have few stores within cities, and it's hard to lug their stuff home on a minibus. Amazon and other internet sellers will see the same cost-without-benefit scenario.

The winners? Media outlets who will see an increase in revenues of "for-and-against" political ads.

Comment Bad PR (Score 1) 155

Even though I had no computer vulnerable, and I did not buy one of Sony's malware-laden Music CDs, I remember the event so clearly and strongly I still refuse to consider buying any Sony product whatsoever, including their cameras. Is there some malware hidden within those proprietary, compressed RAW image files?

So I am of two minds. I don't like the use of ransomware. And I don't like Sony. This reminds me of the old joke where the guy sees his mother-in-law drive off a cliff in his new Bentley.

Comment Re:My house of cards, taller than your house of ca (Score 1) 103

Yes, yes and yes. That's exactly why I concentrated on "funding": The politics of it are critical. Lots of hypotheses exist, but few get to be funded and none without extensive peer review by proven fundraisers.

It's a bit like The Movies in that there are lots of screenplays around, but only the ones producers think will turn a profit or an Oscar get produced.

I tried to be non-cynical in my post.

Comment Re:My house of cards, taller than your house of ca (Score 2) 103

While everything you write is true, you leave out the actual importance of funding this: If SIMPS can be found, examination of their behavior in interactions would tend to prove or disprove fundamental ideas of the standard model.

That's my take on this all, anyway.

NB: I have been wrong before.

Comment Why Overstated? (Score 1) 403

1. Carmarketers like good gas mileage figures; they're good for sales.

2. The specifications for the test are gamed to provide a bigger benefit for underpowered cars which tend to get better mileage anyway. The test include acceleration at a rate *that depends on the car's power* (percent of full-throttle). which has the big-engine (more powerful) cars zipping around the virtual course at higher speeds.

Remember, lobbyists write or co-write most of our laws and regulations.

Comment Re:"Self-Assembling?" (Score 0) 36

I don't usually respond to ACs but cause you're dead wrong and call me a liar, here's both barrels..

From the first link

We found that extracellular fields induced ephaptically mediated changes in the somatic membrane potential that were less than 0.5 mV under subthreshold conditions. Despite their small size, these fields could strongly entrain action potentials, particularly for slow (~8 Hz) fluctuations of the extracellular field. Finally, we simultaneously measured from up to four patched neurons located proximally to each other. Our findings indicate that endogenous brain activity can causally affect neural function through field effects under physiological conditions.

As to the 8 Hz magnetic resonance, see http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4..., which is the most nearly objective overview of this subject I can find right now. Wikipedia also has an article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Comment "Self-Assembling?" (Score 0) 36

DNA is magnetoresponsive. Magnetism itself is self-assembling, and since DNA has been shown to be magnetoresponsive http://www.nature.com/neuro/jo... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., it would be interesting to see if this origami folding can take place outside of the earth's magnetosphere, which has a magnetic harmonic at the same frequency as the resonance demonstrated by DNA.

Does anyone know anything about other self-assembling substances?

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