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Comment Hear Hear! (Score 1) 76

Since it's a question of when, rather than if, a rock large enough to extinguish human life arrives at our doorstep, I'd venture this is a neat cause to get behind.

I mean, it's very likely to be more productive than what you are going to do this week to better the habitat.

Sigh... slackers with barely the energy to complain.

Comment Operating in Africa (Score 3, Interesting) 25

Overcoming tribal belief sets, sometimes even nationwide backwater thinking, is one of the key obstacles to stemming the flow of disease on the African continent.

There is an inherent mistrust of outsiders that has been compounded by centuries of bad behavior by folks who look just like the people who are just here to help you.

I suspect many tribal people would rather not be diagnosed at all.

Comment Re:Do not react AT ALL (Score 5, Insightful) 371

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the So Carolina church shooting is the grace with which the survivors remarked on the assassin.

Rather than the low road reponse taken in previous shootings, their's was exemplary in that they clearly identified themselves as better people.

Tolerance, and yes, even the defense of that which you find most disgusting, is the hallmark of personal freedom.

Comment Re:Magnetic Field? (Score 1) 136

if we don't get off this orb, we are destined for extinction.

What ever dooms us on Earth would likely also doom us on Mars. For example, if a mad invader wanted to take over everything, he/she would come to take Mars also. If run-away AI takes over, it will also likely infect Mars colonies.

I suppose certain mistakes like LHC producing run-away black-holes, or one-off suicidal acts are less likely to spread to Mars, but Mars is so close that most human-created maladies would also put it at risk.

An interstellar or extra-solar colony or ship would have a better chance. Just don't tell The Borg where you are going because they'll probably be able to move faster than us.

Agreed, but even an extra-terrestrial settlement on our rather generically labelled moon would be a head start to figuring out the learning curve for preserving human life off of this planet.

Comment Colossal (Score 0) 152

will will increase to more than 115,000 petabytes by 2019, compared to under 30,000 petabytes this year, representing almost a four-fold increase

10 terabytes would hold all the information stored in the Library of Congress. A single petabyte is a hundred times that. Perspective

Comment Re:Magnetic Field? (Score 3, Interesting) 136

Sure, but that's everyone's new go-to criticism of exploring (and maybe settling) the World with the second best human habitation probability in our solar system.

Start with caves and bunkers. Terraform and generate anthropogenic atmosphere. See what happens: if we don't get off this orb, we are destined for extinction.

28,000 workers died to bring you the Panama Canal. What is an acceptable human sacrifice for a whole frigging planet?

Comment Re:CSA never won a war (Score 1) 818

230+ years since the American revolution, and the Confederate flag still intimidates aloft from a State Capitol.

Many Southerners still hate Yankees. Sounds horrible, until you realize people of differing religions hold grudges in the Middle East that are 5000 years old. We cannot game plan for shit these days, but ignorant human stubbornness can last eons.

Nice Sig.

Comment Re:Prime Scalia - "Words no longer having meaning" (Score 1) 591

Implied powers. Their authority is spelled out in the constitution -- how it was to be exercised was not. But that's true for all three branches of our government.

When I think of the elder Statesmen in Congress having to administer law in a technological age they are ill equipped to understand, I am worrying about a generational change. A Senator who grew up in the '50s or '60s, for example, who's spent a great deal of his free time getting reelected the last two or three decades is probably not the best equipped guy to determine internet protocol... sadly, he might do just that under the advisement of a clever lobbyist.

Now, just imagine how life was in 1780's America. There is no pfocking way Benjamin, Samuel, John(s), Thomas, Alexander, and George saw this future.

Many tenets are implied powers. Without the room for some evolution in a Republic's lawmaking, a representative government will not long survive.

Comment Re:Amazing and dreadful, simultaneously (Score 1) 381

You just prove yourself valuable, then refuse to work. They either fire you, or tolerate you working 40 hours a week.

That option is arguably available to a few exceptional employees who have a reserve of living expenses stowed away.

Many, if not most, of the worker bees I know are much closer to needing a check every week to remain solvent, housed, and driving.

Their own fault? Perhaps, but that doesn't excuse the not so level playing field created by this silly loophole in wage law.

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