You should note that isn't a theory. At some point the ocean *will* be warm enough to cause this to happen. It's been a well studying and established *fact* for a number of decades now. Further, you should note that the debate is no longer about whether we're heading in that direction, but about whether it's the fault of humans.

Then it still wouldn't need food, water, sex, comfort or any of the things that drive us to killing each other.

As a structural engineer turned programmer: HA.

Your landline is safe. this is a horrible article. They are trying to get rid of old, non-SIP/VoIP circuits... not get rid of land lines altogether. Think of it like saying "we want to phase out IPv4" not "we want to get rid of the entire internet" ...

I work in telco and what this is abut is making all telephony VoIP/SIP not getting rid of the land line altogether. You will still be able to get a normal phone, with a chord and all. It will just work over a different set of circuits is all. Which is entirely black box to the vast majority of.. everyone.

I believe that Schrodinger's cat/the Copenhagen interpretation is a sign of optimization. Basically, the back end determines the possible results and stores them in the buffer, then presents/renders the result upon observation, but not until the observer is present - much like things off the screen in a video game. I know some asshat will come along and tell me that's not what it means. But you tell me whether the cat is dead or alive before we observe it, please.

So they started atheist crusades? They sent out inquisitors specifically to root out non-atheists? Is a government limiting religions deemed a threat any different than us rooting out the Taliban or religions we deem "cultist" ? Just because those who are limiting religions happen to be atheist doesn't mean that it's an atheist action. Especially when the same actions are taken regardless of faith across the world and history.
Have there been anti-religious movements? sure; definitely. But pinning anti-religion actions on all of atheism is no different than pinning the acts of Islam on all of theism. You don't see many atheists blaming, say, Catholicism for the actions of the Taliban (outside of the "fedora" make-fun-of-atheists-by-exaggerating-it crowd, that is)... Also, please stop throwing the word "terrorist" around. The people you mention definitely do not qualify as "terrorists." You disagreeing with their actions doesn't meet the definition.

Absolutely not. That is a horrible idea. It would nearly eliminate basic science research. Anything that lacks a direct and immediate application would simply not get researched, or have minimal research at best. Consider things like the LHC. A multi-billion dollar investment, funded by multiple governments. Nothing coming out of there will have applications in the next several decades. What company, or even group of companies, would pay for something like that? It's basically throwing away money! Yet... it is among the most important research being done at present. All because the government isn't interested in immediate profit.

I think what you meant to say is that government officials shouldn't be allowed to make money off of their political influence. Get rid of campaign funding and the likes and it solves the problems of politicians trying to push fake/corporate agendas.

For as long as there are human drivers on the road, I think that's inevitable. But in the long run, once there are nothing but automated cars, and humans couldn't take over if they wanted, there would be no reason for speed limits, stop lights, etc.
However, how long it takes authorities to recognize this is a totally different question. I suspect it wont be until our grandchildren are our age that we'll see a push for that model. Which is really too bad, considering the amount of money we could save on infrastructure and traffic police sooner than later.

This is actually the second bit of recent news that supports the same notion. https://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20130917-a-jewel-at-the-heart-of-quantum-physics/ is the other. Neither time or location are important to the math, which is a shocking result.

We can't see the windows code. We can see the linux kernel code. That's the difference. And now that he's admitted to adding a back door, there will be plenty of people digging through the code to remove it. Whether they can check those changes back into the main repo, or have to start a whole new branch is a different issue. But regardless, it's more than we can with windows.

These children our going to grow up in the current world, not their parents world. Why do people feel that it's so detrimental that kids grow up the same way they did? I see this a lot on forums, and many people (even in this thread) seem to agree with it, yet it doesn't make much sense. It would be like if bill gates parents only allowed him to play marbles, rather than learning about computers. Or if all of our parents decided we weren't allowed to learn to program - simply because it wasn't what your parents did when they were growing up.

More importantly, while it might not seem like it, the skills that those kids are learning with modern tech now will be detrimental to their future employment. Much like you learning to use computers as a child became detrimental to yours. If anything, I feel these parents are harming their children by putting such extreme limitations on them.

You say "OR" as if it isn't the rich and privileged getting us into these wars.

Actually, if i recall correctly, the media was all over "ameri-fries" and people yelling that if you don't trust your '''commander in chief''' that you're free to move. Illegal wiretapping and spying on citizens literally the same topic we had in 2002, but the news is actually covering it MORE now. That said, I full heartedly disagree with your assessment.

Only difference I see is that with a dem being in office now BOTH sides are up in arms about these issues. And I honestly feel that if Romney were in office today we would have a repeat of 2002 instead of this unified hatred that we have at present.

It's fairly conspiracy-theory-esque but I'm pretty sure that a large enough portion of our government has been bought out by the military industrial complex that it would be impossible to actually change any of those things, and likely dangerous to even try. I wouldn't be surprised if Obama earnestly intended on changing those things, only find that it would be more impossible than expected.

Either way, though, the practical matter is that he didn't, and wont, and we can only hope that the next person in line will.