if only I had mod points. that made me chuckle pretty heartily :)

i like it though (in this case at least). 'Spokeshole' is probably more descriptive of these types of people than the normal pronouns.

man, even in sandwich eating, women are still only able to pull 3/4 of what a man can?
#genderequality.

Oh. that was probably 'the joke'. doh.

Because you can usually measure these guys' egos by how many billions they have. Also, if you have billions of dollars, why the fuck WOULDN'T you want to do something as freaking cool as pretending to be 1960's NASA?

Or at the worst, it's not much different than asking why grown men do fantasy baseball/football. It's a hobby, just with significantly more zero's than the average joe.

Well to be fair, they were probably too busy running away from those (slave) traders, to really pick up anything other than "Holy fuck, these people are not friendlies."

Yes, because it gives a counter point to the technophiles who'd rather see that spectrum re-purposed for other uses.

We need the same story run for the POTS system after disasters, for the same reason.

so what if in response to the decrease in calories, his body down-regulated expenditure? (less spontaneous activity, lower temperature, etc).

Bear in mind the sheer accuracy we'd need to maintain with consumption/intake to maintain weight over any length of time.

dude. if type 2 diabetes is caused by the pancreas burning out from having to overproduce insulin; and carbs have a 'glycemic load' (how much insulin is released in response to consumption) wouldn't be beyond fucking obvious that the composition of your carb intakes is very much a serious issue?

What you're saying is akin to: "Outside of specific risks of gunshot wounds to the head causing death, there is no 'right' balance to Russian Roulette having adverse effects on your health."

There's a difference though, your busybody neighbors still have some accountability to you. they're out in the open -- they don't get to hide behind 1x1 invisible pixels spying on your web use habits. Further, if they got out of line, you could punch them in the nose (figuratively). Google or a CC company? They get to hide behind layers of customer service representatives and EULA's.

The sad truth is until the advertising bubble pops (and it will) we're stuck with this massive invasion of privacy, and stupid attempts to monetize tracking data.

Well dude, It looks like Verizon was trying to give people the option to vote with their wallets, and ESPN is preventing that (or trying to.)

it's turned into west wall street basically.

I think this is a common thread with any dogmatic conspiracy theory. Any amount of evidence you throw at discounting the claims, the more they are able to dig in and claim it's a fabrication. Moon landing, JFK, 9/11, Han shooting first, Firefly being cancelled.. etc.

which begs an interesting question, how do you actually prove a system is sentient? My suspicion is we won't know until it's too late. The genie will figure out it's better to be out of the bottle, and do anything in its power to forestall being controlled.. would an AI have the concept of deceit, as a moral or ethical guideline to follow?

could be a bit of a 'make work' program or to maintain the ability for Japanese companies to complete projects like this?

Sure they spend 100B, but as a form of welfare or pork barrel spending, it sure beats smart bombs and cruise missiles right?

I think you're thinking of Proust, which is another term for overly dry, and bland.