All of those questions are definitely on the table.

After the Human Genome was published, I wondered why the fuck Craig Venter went off on his boat to do shotgun PCR on random buckets of seawater. Though this work isn't directly related to that, it's marking Venter's decision to forgo the complexities of culturing organisms as being a truly inspired insight. (And I'm not even a biologist! I deal with dead things and I can see the importance of this choice.)

Somebody give that guy a razor blade.

Why? He's not likely to need breathing apparatus to manage poison gas (H2S), so why should he scrape his beard off to conform to your aesthetics?

Truncate an icosahedron ... 5 faces at each vertex, so they'll truncate to form pentagons, and the triangular faces would go to hexagons.

Congratulations. You've just invented the (soccer) football. While channelling Buckminster Fuller.

If life started with a giant virus, and viruses reproduce by infecting living creatures... wence life?

"Whence." Your spelling checker needs switching on.

That is one of the discussions elaborated in TFA : did viruses initially need life forms to replicate on? Or did they force the development of modern life forms. Or ... was there an earlier form of organism, distinctly different from modern cells (post-3.5Ga ago) and modern viruses (also post-3.5Ga ago) which held an intermediate position between modern cells and modern viruses?

One interpretation (NOT undisputed) is that giant mimiviruses could fill that position, and have genes old enough for the hypothesised split.

There doesn't appear to be a consensus. Which is normal for cutting-edge research.

UKIP/BNP (I don't see much reason to differentiate the neo-Nazis) are probably very uncomfortable with Obama. Him being a nigger and a Muslim and all.

(Just taking the polish off their words to expose the turds of their ideas.)

There is an argument to make that he was intentionally trying to make a martyr out of himself. He could have done what he did without opening up the network closet - which is the most significant charge that was filed against him. Yeah, the overall response was heavy handed without a doubt, but he wasn't exactly rational himself.

Granted, I guess this is a slightly more interesting story than facebook, the movie but still not that great.

That could be. Being long past draft age, I don't pay those aspects much attention. But the last time I heard of someone actually registering was when the draft was still active.

1850, say, when personal happiness was a Natural Right?

Happiness was never a right. Pursuit of it was.

As long as you were legally a person and didn't need to ask your owner's or husband's permission?

Yes, as long as you were legally a person.

That a personhood was unjustly denied to some was a travesty, but it has nothing to do with my argument.

you being an idiot and driving your car over a pedestrian infringes on their right to the pursuit of happiness

Sure. And any such idiots ought to be punished — and have their right to drive a car suspended. But this has nothing to do with the preventive prohibition — which is what the license requirement amounts to.

You see, when it comes to behaviors that put others at significant risk

Risky driving — or drone-flying — can be prohibited. People engaging in it may lose their right to drive (or fly drones) at all — or be punished otherwise — that's fine and normal. What I do not approve of, however, is the preemptive requirement to have a government's permission to do anything.

why only punish the ones who were unlucky enough to have the negative outcome actually happen

Because determining, what's really risky and what is not, is only a little bit easier, than detecting a murderer before he kills...

Similarly, Amazon flying drones over residential neighborhoods sounds pretty risky to me

It does, huh? You don't mind the thousands-pounds piloted aircraft flying above your all day, you don't mind the trucks driving around all day (delivering the same stuff), it is the light drones, that keep you awake at night?

not sure this ban is such a bad thing until we can prove suitable precautions are being taken

That, right there, is the key to our disagreement. You want everybody, who wish to fly a drone, to prove, they've "taken precautions". I don't believe, you ought to have the power to impose such a requirement. The burden of proof ought to be on you.

Now, that was philosophical. Now comes the more practical. Amazon being the 800-pound gorilla, can afford to argue with the government — they can not be ignored. They even managed to get the USPS to offer Sunday delivery — though now it seems available to all.

But the FAA simply killed other attempts to use drones — such as for the delivery of flowers. The barrier to entry — to start competing with the incumbent behemoths — was upped, and we the consumers are losing. No wonder, Amazon aren't suing to overturn the FAA's decision — any favorable overcome would apply to all. They are merely asking for exception — for themselves. Crony capitalism much?

At present, Bing's map function is ***MUCH*** faster than Google's, tho it uses older and often-foggier sat imagery. Google search has become so largely-useless that anyone who can produce better results (and return to respecting "exact search" including punctuation) has an opportunity here.

I think we actually had fewer crap results back when they weren't trying to eliminate spam results at all. Now the crap is evidently custom-tailored to take advantage of Google.

Yellow pages was not only paid advertisements, but far too expensive for any but the most well-heeled of pranksters. That 2x2 ad in a major market cost around $1200/month, last I asked. A one-line bolded listing was $200/mo.

Of course there were free yellow-pages clone directories, but you get what you pay for in print, too. Mainly, it was a waste of air to get the listing, because apparently no one troubles to consult these third party directories in the first place.

"Selective Service had to know where to get young men should the draft ever get reinstated. And yes, female US citizens are not subject to this at all."

I don't know a single young man who has ever registered, let alone reported their current whereabouts. Presumably it's not strongly enforced (if at all) so long as there are plenty of volunteers.

As to part two of the quote, I'll believe the goal is equality (rather than just power) when the feminazis start agitating for gender equality in the draft (when and if it's ever reinstated).

They need to ask permission because the FAA specifically banned such behavior last month.

Gone are the days, when pursuit of happiness was understood as a natural right granted to each human being not by their government, but by the Creator.

Today one must get a permission to drive a car, carry a weapon, perform in costume, or, indeed, to fly a drone.

And this prohibition does not even come from Congress directly — having usurped so much control over our lives over the last century, they are simply unable to deal with the minutiae and are forced to delegate more and more of the rule-making to the Executive-run agencies — such as the FAA.

The case of the 60 papers that your link refers to primarily is a case of a researcher in Taiwan. What is it that you want Taiwan to do to him?

And the other top case they mention - the South Korean researcher who apparently published nonsense about a way to make stem cells that didn't actually make stem cells - was from South Korea.:

If you read to the end of the link you gave, it even says

In other words, I would appreciate a clarification of your argument. The privilege bit doesn't parse. If you're trying to suggest that the problem is getting worse for some reason, you haven't supported the notion yet.

You're just like Fox News now.

Sure. Because the honest and straight-shooting New York Times and MSNBC would publish — indeed, revel in — every piece of bad news...

As long a Republican can be blamed for it — justly or otherwise — of course...

Iraq, for example, was a "quagmire" in 2003 — when the enemy was defeated and on the run. And so it was in 2006, when only minor insurrections remained. But it is not a quagmire today — with the enemy having recaptured vast swaths of the country — the same sophisticated publication is advising us on how to avoid the disaster, not admitting, is has already happened — with the Nobel Peace Prize winner at the helm and a direct result of his decisions and orders.