I agree we have to be on the look out for Unintended Consequences. What if we cured bipolar disorder, alcoholism and depression and the milder forms of autism? Would the only art we made be ala Sleeper - Rod McKuen and Walter Keane? I was diagnosed as BPII over 50 years ago. I always drew and painted and my pieces were quite good, an outlet. Ever since menopause and early retirement (stressful job in advertising) I have been sane and have not done one damn thing artistically. Maybe if people could slip in an out or just keep the good parts but I fear a total cure via gene manipulation or whatever tech applies in the future will make us Eloi.

I have kept charts on my sleep schedule for years being as there is absolutely no circadian rhythm to it at all. There is no pattern, at least not that I can find. When I was in school and working I had to be up in the morning despite only having a few hours - or none - of sleep. Now that I am retired the whole day/night thing has just disappeared completely. Sometimes I won't sleep for 30 hours, sometimes 2, sometimes 12. I have read several books on sleep and took one of those TTC courses on it but have yet to encounter any mention of individuals having no pattern at all although I am sure there must be other people out there experiencing the same thing. My Mom was sorta the same way and as my sister gets older, it is becoming more pronounced in her as well. My Dad and brother were totally regular 8 hours a night people. I think there is way more variation in sleep needs/patterns than we suspect.

I started downloading back in Napster days. Back then it had the thrill of sharing. Then came Mininova and bittorrent and the thrill was twofold - the ease of which media was available and a the sense of sticking it to the man. I still do it but there is no more thrill. It is just practical - easy to grab a TV show being as I do not have a TV. But what I have noticed is that grabbing oodles of movies and TV shows I will never watch has devalued them. This has already happened with music. I used to listen to it constantly but now just about never despite having huge amounts of it. There is still a huge problem with content not being priced realistically but when it is priced fairly I now buy. I find that paying for it makes it more important to me. I have had to make a choice in selecting it and so it is more cherished than that which I can download for free in three minutes. I have found that that I am very average so I expect that what I am experiencing is being experienced by others as well and that we are at a transitional point in history. People will pay more in the future. They will be choosier but they will want to pay because paying for content makes it more valuable to the consumer and reinforces what we deem in our own minds to be important. I am not saying file sharing will go away but it will be used more to taste new artists. This all assumes, however, that content providers wise up, that they make content as easily available as it is illegally and that they lower their prices to reflect technological innovations in production and distribution, If they don't, there is still a bit of thrill in 'sticking it to The Man'.

Here's another one. Rape is cheating in the reproductive realm. The male forces his sperm into an unwilling female and then, as if that is not bad enough, supplies no resources in raising the offspring to reproductive age. I am not claiming this is conscious. We are animals after all, no offense to our fellow creatures. Forcing a female to bear the offspring of the rapist rewards rape pure and simple. The male has cheated and won. As long as we allow rapists to win there will be rape. Make it an unsuccessful reproductive strategy and there will be less of it. It is is not surprising that so many males are the most vocal supporters of the 'right to life'.

The reproductive imperative for all males of all species is to create offspring that will in turn reach reproductive age. I think there will be a deep seated reluctance to use anything that interferes with that.

I suspect much of the success of our species has to do with genetic wild cards. Eliminate that and you have the Eloi. I further suspect that a knowledge of this fact exists deep within us and motivates the conservative abhorrence of birth control and abortion. Being as conservatives do not frame their perception of reality in intellectual terms they are unaware of the biological basis of their opinions and instead frame them religiously, religion being the voice of the subconscious. But it seems to me that all these ancient ‘rules’ favor-ing unbridled reproduction favor the continuation of the male line and that is why religious men of any stripe so fervently insist that the females do nothing to hinder reproduction. As a woman, however, I say fuck that shit. OTOH, I realize that females controlling reproduction means entering a new territory of Unintended Consequences.

There are so many varieties of coleus because it is relatively common for a plant to produce a 'branch' that is of a completely different appearance from the the rest of the plant. Cut it off, root it and you have new strain. I don't know if the seeds from the new strain would revert to the parent, however. Now that we are looking, we may find that most organisms we think of as distinct are really co-ops. We have that part of the mind we think of as our self but there is that sub self which oft times seems to have a different agenda. A plant's top may have a slightly different agenda from its roots. In both cases there is cooperation but not slavish agreement.

You are right, this has nothing to do with Amazon per se. It was a third party seller and there are many further non-Amazon related details people here have added which is why I always read the comments.. We bemoan the hyperbole of Fox News and the media in general and yet this post demonstrates how easy it is to fall into that trap in an effort to get noticed.

Printer for nearly 30 years here. There is a big difference between the legibility of a typeface on paper and on the screen. Times New Roman is a horror on the screen but, yeah, fine for printing on the cheap paper used for paperbacks.

I buy around a 100 books a year from Amazon, all used from third party sellers. I think Amazon is comparing new book purchases the Kindle purchases but not taking into account the thriving market in used books. It would be a literally different story if these sales were included.

Of course it is true. This war is about a patriarchal culture seeking to prevent the emancipation of its women. The purpose of women in that culture is to bear children - children that can be reliably sourced as belonging to a particular male - and provide sexual gratification. They are obsessed with wanton Western women. They just want to make sure they stay in the West or on a dvd. They don't want them in their neighborhood or raising their children.The West may be fighting to keep the oil flowing but these guys are fighting to keep their women as chattel.The more patriarchal the culture, the more obsessed it is with sex and power..

I use Opera and it displayed fine yesterday and today. There are so many setting combinations possible, I think that would be the difference.

My dentist is installing a machine that will allow him to custom make crowns while you wait. What with all of the 3D printers coming out I imagine it will not be long before the mold can me made from an impression taken in the otorologist's office and manufactured on the spot.

Yes, I use that Old versions of java uninstaller thingee.

I do not allow anything but AVG and Comodo to automatically download. I check the chatter on Windows patches before installing them because, as you know, they sometimes cause problems. I signed up for Secunia's reminder service which makes updating easy. However, it always indicates that java needs updating when it does not which I know because I check. I recommend this method to all my fellow female retiree friends. I think it is interesting and perhaps would surprise Slashdot that many of these retired females are in charge of the home pc.