That's got to be the weirdest "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!" argument I've ever seen.

Actually, I've been calling for someone to graft the THC-production complex into kudzu. That way, either we get government help to wipe it out, or the government finally gives up; either way, kudzu becomes useful for something.

Of course, I don't have much deep knowledge about GM or plant biology, so coming up with this idea was about on a par with saying "somebody ought to build a flying car". Here's hoping that the task these folks are tackling turns out more tractable than that one.

"I'd never wear a seatbelt! It might prevent me from being thrown to safety!"

You can never have too many safety features!

I understand that many people attach a lot of their self-image to their vehicles, and devote disproportionate time, attention, and money to them. That doesn't mean that their priorities should be encoded into law.

Your hobby is not more important to society in general than human life. Yes, it may be more important to you than some other person's life. Laws exist partly to mediate between people's conflicting self-interest.

Light.

And who doesn't like anything that brings light?

That's a reasonable definition, although I'm sure there are those who would quibble over non-deterministic operations and such. But "The new program—it could be an idea, a novel, a piece of music, anything—" seems to imply something very different. The paper talks a lot about writing stories, designing letterforms and so forth. Stories are not "programs" in the sense you (and perhaps I) think.

What's a "program" ("anything")?

What does it mean to be "engineered to produce" one?

What's a "hardware fluke"?

What constitutes "explanation" of how it was done?

Not. Even. Wrong.

I can imagine how that would be the case, although I certainly couldn't derive it.

...by ensuring that no plants ever get built.

In theory, I suppose, double liability would motivate everyone involved in design, construction, and operation to make sure that there are no mistakes. In practice, every human -- and every human organization -- has the power to cause accidents that they can't possibly pay for. Doubling the liability for those accidents won't make a bit of difference.

I drive carefully. I've still had a couple of accidents, though. If one of those accidents had sent me into a van hauling $10M worth of Swarovski crystal sculptures, I'd have been sorry, really I would, but I wouldn't be paying off the damages. If the courts found me at fault and fined me $20M, I wouldn't be any sorrier, or in any better position to pay.

I wish the author had elaborated a bit on this. I know that we're far away from the "ideal gas" regime here, and that things get independently wonky when you're dealing with supersonic flow, but "cooling down as it gets compressed" is so counter-intuitive that they should throw us at least a few lines of explanation.

Anybody here want to step up to the plate?

Any effort to emulate or restore declarative memory will obviously include emulating the association and activation networks that drive it. Believe it or not, the people doing this kind of research already realize that.

Nobody is talking about adding a USB port so you can plug a thumb drive into your hippocampus and instantly "know" everything contained on it. That would be great, but there's a lot of other work to do first, as you say.

Well, if avoiding pregnancy is all you're concerned about, it sounds like there's an easy solution: you get the chip.

If only getting pregnant always required long, conscientious, deliberate effort, and avoiding pregnancy were the easy result of one night's drunken whim.

But that's now how it is, and this proposal won't make it so.

Seriously, it looks like a guinea pig with dual rotors. I can't be the only one who sees this.