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Submission + - Could Life Be Older Than Earth Itself? (discovery.com)

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: Applying a maxim from computer science to biology raises the intriguing possibility that life existed before Earth did and may have originated outside our solar system, scientists say. Moore’s Law is the observation that computers increase exponentially in complexity, at a rate of about double the transistors per integrated circuit every very two years. If you apply Moore’s Law to just the last few years’ rate of computational complexity and work backward, you’ll get back to the 1960s, when the first microchip was, indeed, invented. Now, two geneticists have applied Moore’s Law to the rate at which life on Earth grows in complexity — and the results suggest organic life first came into existence long before Earth itself.

Comment Profit and loss (Score 1) 476

by srussia (#43471701) Attached to: Excel Error Contributes To Problems With Austerity Study

More than that: according to his logic, an "investment" should only count as such it is is successful. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine how you can possibly decide that, and when.

In a business,
How: Profit/loss
When: Quarterly/Financial year

In Soviet Russia,
How: Regime collapse
When: 1991

Comment It's not about debt (Score 4, Insightful) 476

by srussia (#43470361) Attached to: Excel Error Contributes To Problems With Austerity Study
It's about what you spend it on.

If you spend it on capital goods that allow you to produce more, that's investment.

If you spend it on final use goods, that's consumption

Simple concepts: consumption is not production and not all spending is investment. And yet, look at how Gross Domestic Product is calculated.

GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports - imports)

Comment I'll contribute (Score 4, Funny) 190

by srussia (#43376573) Attached to: Hatebase Tries To Scan For Precursors of Genocide In Language
From hatebase.org:

"Language-based classification, or symbolization, is one of a handful of quantifiable steps toward genocide.
To support Hatebase, please contribute to our database, either by adding vocabulary or by logging sightings and citations.

My submission:

Language: Beltwayspeak
Vocabulary: "senior operational leader", "enemy belligerent", "imminent threat", "organized armed groups"
Source: http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf

Comment Actually, meta-Streisand (Score 5, Interesting) 197

by srussia (#43368531) Attached to: Film Studios Send Takedown Notices About Takedown Notices
First there was the Streisand (unintentionally calling attention to what you don't want publicized),

then the reverse Streisand (intentionally calling attention by demanding suppression of ostensibly unwanted but actually desired publicity),

and now comes the meta-Streisand (unintentionally calling attention to intentional demands that caused unintentional publicity of what you didn't want publicized.)

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