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Comment Re:Sexual selection by the opposite sex. (Score 1) 190

Not faces that are easy to punch. Faces that can take a punch. This isn't an attempt at humor, I'm serious. A strong jaw, chiseled features, and a cleft (therefore padded) chin -- these are modifications that help a face receive punching with minimal injury. They have also become preferred characteristics in sexual selection.

Comment Re:Well... (Score 1) 493

Mutant registration acts are fictional also. I think you have to look at this as if we're living in a comic book world. If mutants are real, then are mutant registration acts legal and ethical? Can you then compare them to vaccination registration acts? I don't have an answer to any of these questions. I think it's a very thorny debate.

Comment Re:No. And there is a precedent. (Score 4, Insightful) 297

Don't pin your hopes on teaching people what your religion believes. *Every* religion believes in wacky, nonsensical things that can be twisted around and laughed at.

Teach people that your religion *acts well*. That should be your central difference with Scientology -- the Scientologists break the law to spy on and destroy their enemies, while legitimate religions treat people fairly. Belief does not matter at all. The way a religion acts is what makes them honorable or criminal.

Comment Re: damn EA.. i hate you (Score 1) 329

The problem is that in order to do that the original companies need to sell the Intellectual Property to the new owners. That won't happen cheap. Even the City of Heroes IP, which was shut down by NCSoft because it was no longer worth running the servers, could not be sold for less than ten million dollars. IP is expensive. The companies are all speculating that they might be able to make a new game with the same IP someday. With that kind of IP hoarding mentality, they will never let another company run servers for a defunct game that might someday compete with them for the same IP.

Comment Re:Magnetic particles (Score 1) 71

No reason to get snarky, especially when the original post is correct. There are magnetic materials in birds' eyes. However, they only register when exposed to a magnetic field under certain conditions, as a quantum phenomenon. It is an electron spin transfer that is delayed by the quantum Zeno effect to a timescale where the birds' retina can detect the difference.
It's not as simple as a compass that points them in the right direction. Birds use some seriously weird quantum tricks to see magnetic fields.

Comment Re:So they still find their way? (Score 1) 71

I think the bigger problem is that the avian electromagnetic sense is tied to their eyesight. So the electromagnetic noise isn't just causing them to fly in the wrong direction, it's interfering with their ability to see. This may cause them to run into buildings, wind turbines, and power lines more often than usual.

Comment Re:Isolate the Protiens (Score 1) 178

It might not be that the young mice have something the old mice don't. It might be that old blood has too much debris -- malformed platelets, histamines, hormones, viruses, and rubble from collapsed cell walls. That junk could be gunking up the metabolic works in the elderly. Then you're not looking for a protein factor, you're looking for a filter, which is much more difficult to develop.

Comment Re:Are you kidding (Score 2) 818

What you call 'spiral dynamics' sounds a lot like Machiavelli's theory of political history, which he laid out in his book The Prince.

Machiavelli postulated that Monarchy tends to devolve into an aristocratic and oligarchic Tyranny, Tyranny is supplanted via revolution by Democracy, Democracy eventually (and inexorably) falls into Anarchy, and Anarchy is solved when one person rises to lead the masses and forms a Monarchy.

History is cyclic. The question is whether we can break the cycle, and do we want to. As powerful as the security state has become, we're likely to break the cycle by spawning an eternal Tyranny instead of a sustainable Democracy.

Comment Computable? Simulatable? (Score 4, Interesting) 199

Hmn. This sounds as if they are trying to prove that the essential nature of quantum mechanics is not computable. I wonder, if they framed this research another way, if it could solve the question of whether or not the universe is a simulation. (I suspect not, it might just indicate that classical and quantum objects are simulated in different ways.)

Comment Question: How to un-screw up a Windows Install? (Score 0) 353

Years ago I built a computer with all the right ingredients, an SSD, a good graphics card and CPU, enough fans to aerate a 747, etc. I made one major mistake. When prompted by the Windows 7 installer whether I wanted 32 or 64 bit operating system, I chose 32. I have a lot of legacy software (most importantly an old version of Photoshop) that I was worried would not work on a 64-bit OS.

That one decision has severely limited my computer. Most noticeably, it caps my RAM at 4 GB. The SSD drive has helped by providing swap space.

How can I undo this? All I can think of is to cleanse the drive and reinstall -- a hell of a hassle.

(Don't advise me to change to Linux, I have too much Windows software on this PC. I have a separate Linux machine.)

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