>'If you ask a parent of an autistic child if they want the measles or the autism, we will stand in line for the f--king measles.' That missing line rather changes the tone of her position considerably, writes Phil Plait and is a difficult stance to square with someone who is not anti-vaccine.

There is nothing necessarily anti-vaccine about her words here. The devil is in the details -- the relative risks of each choice for the individual child, and the risks to the population from the reduction of herd immunity resulting from an individual child's being opted out.

You're saying that the "standard layman" does not use a common English word in its everyday sense -- in short, that he is not only not technically trained, but is an idiot.

whether the world really exists or could be a simulation/fantasy/etc

Anyone who thinks there is a distinction between the two has not thought enough.

If I read you right, you are saying that it is illegal to use a technological measure such as encryption to prevent others from accessing data that are not copyrighted works. Please cite some authority for that claim.

It may be true, but it is nonetheless a joke.

And to top off the insanity, a so-called "hybrid" (a purely petrol-fired vehicle with regenerative braking) will be exempt, while a non-"hybrid" that gets better mileage will not? Idiotic.

Scathingly brilliant, sir.

You failed to engage the implicit argument of noblebeast that states cannot be trusted to manage a currency that they can create by fiat, and offered no evidence that your criticisms of cryptocurrencies do not apply equally to state currencies. But then, spouting unsupported assertions is characteristic of trolls, so I guess my replying means you can chalk up a success.

Originally, it meant to reduce by one tenth. It has evolved to mean "nearly wiped out".

I had exactly the same thoughts upon first encountering Conway's Life Game. You, too, have probably had difficulty persuading others that the seemingly complex relations within a simple mathematical object or function do not need to be derived on a computing device, but just are.

I think a momentary glitch in my wetware would be a more parsimonious explanation.

There is reason to believe that a 'real' universe would not also be describable by mathematics.

>0 is the first index of a typical storage location, it isn't because it is useful for counting, it is because it is base10.

This is to bring your typo about base10 to your attention so you can correct it before you get flamed.

Iterating through offsets beginning with zero is simply not counting. The writer is confused.

If writers now feel it necessary to inform us when someone with whom any state employee is not perfectly pleased has not been arrested, we are in a sorry state indeed.