Yeah, because it's impossible that complex life could be protected by a different (better!) kind of UV shield like... water. From my understanding, it's not exactly rare in the universe.

Yeah, it was my impression that Google wanted Mozilla to be healthy, but instead of just giving them money directly, they basically "bought" top billing in the searchbox for the money they just wanted to give them. Yahoo is not paying for the good of the Mozilla project - they just can't afford to splash the cash like that. They want to buy traffic. But you know, I think it's a good thing, because the fact that this happened means that top billing in the searchbox is actually worth real money, and that Firefox is more than a charity case being kept alive by the good will of Google. That bodes well for Firefox's long-term prospects. The only thing that scares me is that Google might now look at Firefox and see an enemy - a Chrome competitor who is keeping users off Google's search engine. If Google goes to war against Firefox, Firefox will lose. Yahoo is not a true ally to anyone.

What I don't get is why you think that as a casual player, you'll stand a better chance against 13 year old kids who take the time to master this game, as opposed to kids who take the time to master Counterstrike.

Wow, that's too perfect.

Granted, this $4649 is for a system with three graphics cards, but only one CPU socket! That one CPU is a hex core, but still, if you're making a fantasy computer for the stupid rich that want "the best there is", you should have at least dual Xeons.

Sorry, there are many legitimate worries about digital divide stuff, and there are even more about ISP business practices. But this red herring about your education being compromised because your video link is only 1080p, that's just stupid. Why not worry that rich people's cars accelerate faster than poor people's cars? Is that causing a "kinetic divide" that we now have to worry about? The difference between the "poor" 171/122 Mbit/s connection and the gigabit connections will basically turn out to be just as unimportant to society. Let's focus on solving the real social problems, which are still many.

I don't often use OSX, but I'm a little mortified that the system font is dictated by the whims of Apple, instead of being selectable by the user. When I install Windows, one of the first things I do is to change the system fonts. In KDE I used to, but now I'm happy with the defaults. But it never occurred to me that there might be a modern OS that doesn't give you this option!

Make it 2050 and I'll offer you $10 instead of $1. Nothing gets commercialized in 10 years, not even the soundest of science. It took more than 50 years to commercialize the laser after Einstein figured out stimulated emission. Cold fusion isn't even theoretically sketched out. Of course it won't be commercial in 10 years, but neither will anything else that is not in the prototype stage today.

Right, and since not one of those sheets is going to be maxed out across the board, you have to pick the one which best fits with what you think is best for your child.

I think it's too easy to justify grueling jobs with bad work conditions and inadequate compensation by saying "Oh but the people who take them do the work out of loooove!" We do the same thing with teachers: Their jobs suck, their hours suck, their pay sucks, they deal with absurd bullshit, but all that is ok because allegedly, "they loooove kids and receive intrinsic rewards from their work."

We don't think this way about accountants or dentists. We don't expect them to loooove replacing fillings or mastering actuarial tables. We pay them so that their jobs are worthwhile even without the love. And I wish we would apply this standard to all jobs. A coding job where you produce games should be compensated like a coding jobs where you produce financial software, or anything else.

I guess I'm saying that for personal flourishing in the real world, CHA, WIS and CON are the traits that matter most. And as parents, that's what we want - or should want - for our kids, right? INT has been shown to be negatively correlated with happiness. I would still hope that my kids get a high INT, STR and DEX, but I'd be happy to let the dice fall where they may. But if I could affect only a subset of their traits, as with this zygote selection method, I would focus on the traits that give them a happy temperament, CHA, WIS and CON.

Not really. Remember, this is a process where you create lots of zygotes, test them all, and implant the ones with the most desired trait combinations. It's limited by how many eggs can be extracted from the mother - maybe a few dozen? This is not a process where you're splicing genes, or doing any other kind of trait engineering. This is just zygote trait prioritizing. You'll be choosing from a very finite set of "natural" (randomly generated) offspring.

I think you underestimate how easy it will be to mechanize "intelligence" work. A hint: The cost of running code is falling at Moore's exponential, the cost of hardware is basically stable. Janitorial work requires hardware, intelligence work is just running code. Picking stocks, searching law precedents, designing bridges, and many other smart-person jobs, are already being done by computers. Yes, I wouldn't want my kids to end up in a profession from which humans will disappear, but if she ended up a chef or a real estate agent - just picking jobs that don't require a ton of raw brainpower - I would be a proud father. What matters is that she's happy, and that depends a lot on her genes, as it turns out.

Maybe it's because my wife and I are both academics, but when it comes to the intelligence of my kids, I'd be happy to let the dice fall where they may. But because we both have some serious melancholy in our families, the intervention that I would find most tempting is the one that will prevent these dispositions from manifesting themselves in our kids. I don't think that a high intelligence improves a life anywhere near as much as a sunny temperament, and I would never prioritize the genes that predispose for the former over the latter, if my kids couldn't have both.

I'm sure that Slashdot is full of munchkins who always try to max out the stats of their characters, but please, don't bring that attitude with you when you're designing a baby. If you want the best for your kids - and I hope you do - you should basically do the opposite of what you would do for D&D - prioritize charisma, wisdom and health (CON). Don't worry so much about STR, DEX and INT. All of these traits have genetic correlates.

If I were to choose a child from a huge batch of zygotes, I'd want the one that's generally disposed to be happy - easy going, social, even tempered, and not too fussy growing up. But apparently, geneticists aren't working on identifying the genetic correlates of those traits, even though we know that they are just as heritable as intelligence.

I don't think that I'll have kids, but if I did, the thing I'd want most is that they grow up happy. I would work hard to make sure they grow up in an environment that encourages it. But genetics contributes a lot to happiness outcomes, and if I were offered well-tested genetic help, I wouldn't refuse it. Maxing out their intelligence would not be at all high on my list of priorities. Is this a weird attitude? I thought it was a kind of typical parent attitude, but apparently, geneticists have different ideas.