0% of the exoplanets discovered so far pass the IAU's definition of a planet, since that definition specifies that the planet must orbit Sol. Exoplanets are a different category.

This is essentially just TRESOR with a different acronym. It's already been broken.

Exactly! The actual Turing test is a great test, but the common modifications remove its ability to determine anything of interest.

You are correct, I should have said it's a problem with the popular conception of the Turing Test. The popular descriptions in the media are quite unlike the test described by Turing.

No, they have to talk to both a human (trying to convince the investigator that he/she is human) and a computer. Removing the foil means it's not the Turing test anymore, it's a very different test.

The problem with the Turing Test is that it's so often done wrong. The test is supposed to be adversarial, with two humans and a computer. One human (the investigator) has two terminals and can communicate with the other human and the computer, but doesn't know which is which. The goal of the computer is to convince the investigator that it is the human. The goal of the second human (the foil) is to convince the investigator that he or she is the human. This is then supposed to be repeated with different investigators and foils, and only when a statistically significant portion of the investigators fail is the test passed by the computer.

Investigators should be trying to find which one is human, not simply chatting with the computer. Too often people are simply connected to a chatbot and not told that it might be a computer until after the fact, no foil is involved, etc. The test is also often declared to be passed if even a single investigator fails.

They actually do this, just the reporters strip that out.

Yeah! Stick the computer in the keyboard!

You can even have a flatscreen connected to it, with a hinge so the user can adjust the angle. Then stick on a battery so it can be used for a while away from a wall socket, and you've got an innovative new product!~

Nokia loosed their market share to run free across the hills of competition. It promptly ran off and got lost.

Except that a single tab pretty much never dies. I've not had that happen for quite a while now.

In fact, it stopped happening about the time I uninstalled all plugins (flash, Java, etc). Probably not a coincidence. I use Chrome for the few things that need Flash, which is thankfully getting even rarer these days.

No, the ice age didn't end. The presence of an ice age is defined by the existence of polar ice caps year round. There are still ice caps. We're in an interglacial period within the ice age.

I think you've swapped cause and effect there. The cause is being uncivilized bastards, the effect is the belief in Islam.

Civilization changed Christianity. That's why it's not the same as it was 500 years ago.

"And in fact the criminals who murdered these 12 people are not followers of Islam though they claim to do it in the name of Islam."

BULLSHIT. That's a simple "No True Scotsman" fallacy. It's a religion, they follow the religion. An extremist, homicidal version, but it's still Islam. Just like Anders Behring Breivik is Christian. Their versions of these religions are sick and twisted, but they're still Islam and Christianity, respectively. All it takes to be a member of a religion is to claim belief, and (for some) to go through an initiation ceremony (eg baptism).

It's not even about evilness.

The NSA has a summer program where academic mathematicians (professors) can go to work. Back in the late 90s, my father (a mathematician) participated. Of course, he had to get security clearance, so they know everything important about him.

He's now quite vocally against the NSA and their dragnet spying.

If they're not paying special attention to former employees, especially former employees who worked on the actual crypto math, and especially former employees who publicly voice their disagreement with the organization, well, the NSA would have to be utterly moronic.

It doesn't take evil to be a target.

Even better, the natural extension (that google maps can't do, not even partially at the moment): allow you to purchase tickets if necessary for the trip, in one go.

EG plan a trip to a different city. Public transit from Hartford, CT to NYC, NY, takes two busses and a train. I should be able to go to google maps, plan the route as normal, click the "public transit" button (that exists), select one of the departure times, click "buy" and have it buy me bus and train tickets for that route. Instead, I have to track down the various means to purchase tickets on several different transit system's websites.