"If I were to write in a paper in medicine and try to get it published in one of the various medical journals that are out there that have a reasonably good reputation, I would be rejected so quickly if I were to try a "Algorithm for using instruments in surgery, nurse hands over knives handle first" journal article."

Well... there are good journals and then there are publish-anything journals. Sadly, I've been in some faculty meetings where the thesis has been, "anything you write can get published somewhere" (which is necessary for tenured academic advancement... fortunately I'm not on that track so I don't face the same pressure).

For example: In 2007 a medical researcher found a breakthrough method for approximating the area under a curve by means of rectangles and trapezoids (i.e., basic integration). This was published in the journal of Diabetes Care, the researcher named it after himself ("Tai's Model"), and the medical community cited the paper 75 times. (Also covered on Slashdot at the time):

http://fliptomato.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/medical-researcher-discovers-integration-gets-75-citations/

Me too.

"the notion of converting matter to energy, beaming it somewhere, and re-making the object from it is basically sound."

No, because the interesting part of an object or person is not the matter = energy transformation. It's the complex structure of the matter, i.e., the information, which is entirely lost if it just gets transformed into energy (which you could say is due to entropy).

Think about 3D printing. Destroying a copy every time you send out a file would be stupid and superfluous. The hard part is getting the scanned copy of the structural information. Once you have the structural information, it is inherently copyable and separate from physical instantiations, or the material of the original copy. Pretending that it's useful to send the actual atoms of the original is nonsense, and many times moreso to send the matter deconstructed into homogenous energy.

Much like the Darmok episode itself, this idea is technobabble masquerading as science fiction. It tickles people's sci-fi yearnings without delivering the real goods.

I agree, Darmok is probably the single-worst of all Star Trek episodes. Coincidentally, it came on TV last week in a hotel room I was staying at and I started swearing up and down at it to my girlfriend.

The central thesis is totally incoherent: all language is based on referents, and if the universal translator can't work on that, then it can't work on anything else, either. Or on the other hand, the alien race would have no way of expressing the legends to which they're referring to each other in the first place (no language can just be proper nouns). The main problem is that it's a Star Trek episode that wants to be actual hard science fiction (and not just space opera) -- the prospect of which excites fans, but scratch the surface and the premise actually is insulting, obviously stupid.

Mostly agreed. But admittedly the Republican party has long been a gluing-together of different and not totally compatible factions, such as fiscal conservatives (business) and social conservatives (religious). On some issues they agree, like military adventurism abroad (for their own reasons). Other times, it looks more like a confused back-and-forth run around, like that recent crowd-controlled video game (whatever it was). Even without many individuals in the electorate being themselves hypocritical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factions_in_the_Republican_Party_%28United_States%29

It's not business correspondence, nor a grade in academia.

But the reason that all your posts are downmodded into oblivion is that no one wants to see or spend time decoding your hellacious writing. If that's happening on a casual internet forum, then just think about how much it's costing you elsewhere in your life, that you don't even get to see directly.

I generally agree with all that.

I agree that the solutions are in that direction, but I'm sure how politically feasible they would be. Those suggestions in particular require (a) an end to home-schooling, and (b) not increasing payments to people with more children (as is currently customary with WIC, food stamps, tax deductions, etc.)

The author seems to be unaware that in 2011 Netflix tried to spin off its DVD business (proposed spinoff "Qwikster") and focus on streaming-only. The outrage from its existing customer base forced it to reverse this plan and publicly apologize to its customers:

"It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming, and the price changes,” wrote Hastings. “That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology.”

http://www.geekwire.com/2011/reed-hastings-netflix-customers-i-messed-up/

In theory I'm in favor of basic income. But here's the problem I foresee: There will inevitably be some (likely religious) group who institute a "maximize population" dogma and outstrip any available resources.

Case study: Haredi of Israel.
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2014/02/06/ultra-orthodox-jews-protest-after-funds-cut-in-israel-conscription-row/

Pretty much agreed. Already a higher proportion of people in their 20's are living with their parents. Just pack more family members into a single living space and do with less. It's possible to go pretty far in that direction. :-/

This is one of the great geek myths. People have been claiming this for over 100 years, but the overall trend is that average hours worked isn't changing (or specifically increasing for women; see link below). I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader why technological advancements tend to give added benefits to the richest parts of society and not the rest.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1997/04/art1full.pdf

Good god, take a remedial writing class, please.

"On the other hand, you have the realm of vitamins and other alternative treatments which may not necessarily be shown to be effective in FDA-approved studies, but seem to offer genuine anecdotal evidence to their benefits."

Where "genuine anecdotal evidence" = "lies and misunderstandings".

Incorrect. Half of his DNA (on average) is copied in his sister. Therefore if the "male gay gene" as expressed in women causes them to have about twice as many children (as per the article), then just as much of his DNA gets into the next generation as if he himself had kids.