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Comment Re:Wasn't there a book about this? (Score 4, Informative) 138

Your understanding of macro evolution is seriously flawed. Macro evolution is just a long series of micro evolution. That's ALL it is. There is nothing special or different about it.

The problem is you are not smart enough (no one is - except perhaps god) to understand all the intervening steps.

You don't 'give up' teeth, you get a mutation and are stuck with it. They are not making conscious decisions to evolve, that is just plain ignorance. If you can find a way to survive without the teeth, you continue on. Eventually you get another mutation, and maybe it evolves to take the place of something you lost.

Birds found a way to survive without teeth before they gained a beak. Possibly it was those rocks some birds swallow and use to grind up large chunks of food (I don't know when or if all do this).

Maybe teeth became a liability. People used to die from a rotten tooth, maybe there was an epidemic of bird tooth infecting microbes. It doesn't matter.

As for gender based on-single cell organism, you have that wrong also. Sex evolved from eating - the victim's genes survived inside the single cell that tried to eat it, and it's grew from there. At that point all those single celled life forms were hermaphrodite - they could eat or be eaten and their DNA would survive in the eater. Eventually, the hermaphroditic single celled life forms developed into two varieties - one that could eat and absorb the DNA (female) and the other that could be eaten and pass on their DNA (male).

Also there was no clear line between single celled life forms and multicelluar life forms. First came colonies that learned to cooperate but could also survive on their own.

Comment Re:Consider Your User Base (Score 1) 247

The system I am considering works fine over the internet. Specifically, the commercially available phone linked technology lets you take a picture of your screen with your cellphone, using software installed on the cellphone. Then it sends a text message that unlocks your account, just as if you had entered a password.

Submission + - How to convince my company to stop using passwords. 1

gurps_npc writes: People hate passwords more than 4chan hates, well everything. Any password policy sufficiently complex to be secure is too complex to remember so people write them down. Worse, company policy is to leave a message on your answering machine describing it — when the software uses a 6 number password to get your 8 letter/symbol/number/capital/no dupes (ever) real password.



I want to suggest a better method. I want to go with a two factor system — either token based or phone based (LaunchKey, Clef, Nok Nok). Does anyone have any advice on specific systems — or points I should bring up? Or alternatives such as graphical based passwords?

Comment Total Bull (Score 1) 307

I always despise these reports. They come up with something that life identical to our own - on our world could not stand up against and then say "No life is possible anywhere else".

No.

If we didn't have a Van Allen belt, some bright scientist would say no life could survive on earth, because of the radiation.

Life as we know it evolved to deal with earth. It evolved to live with at atmosphere, with a van allen belt protecting it, with limited meteors strikes (because Jupiter protected us), with our sun, with tides, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Just because we can't deal with a series of Gamma Ray burst does not mean living creatures living under an ice ocean, feeding on volcanic energy can't survive it.

Basically, what's going on here is some one asked a Physicist a question about biology. You get an answer that makes about as much sense as if you ask Stephen Hawking if the tumor in your kidney is benign or malignant.

Comment Re:It's The Parts Count (Score 2) 293

That's ridiculous. The history of business is someone coming along with a way to cut their costs a small percent, reduce their prices that much plus a little extra (i.e. reducing their profit margin), then using the new, low price to totally destroy the competition. That's exactly how Japanese car markers took down GM, Ford and Chrysler.

Every single car executive knows that is what happens and there is no way they are going to make the same mistake that American car companies made in the 70's and 80's all over again.

Comment We already do that (Score 1) 367

We have already adjusted the earth's climate - both intentionally and unintentionally.

We screwed up the ozone layer but are already well along the way to fix it. reference

We can create conditions favorable for earthquakes (fracking) and we can redirect lava flows. reference

The reason why people think climate can not be engineered is ignorance.

Comment Good vs bad Code (Score 1) 186

Generally it takes about the same amount of time to actually write Good Code as it does to actually write Bad Code.

The differences are more along the lines of:

1) You often don't know code is bad - or how to write good code - until after you have done the work once. So effectively it can take twice as long to write the good code - once to write it badly, then again to write it well.

2) Good code usually requires a good working environment. You can never write good code while your boss is demanding you hurry up and finish the project.

Comment Google is a freaking genius (Score 2) 319

First and foremost, the program itself doesn't have to make google any money.

Because when you do this, you are giving google information on all the websites you visit.

Want to advertise to people that visit the Onion? Well, google can do that now - as soon as you leave the Onion, your next ad will be for Cracked.com or some other funny website in competition with The Onion.

Comment To America? Yes. To the GOP? No. (Score -1, Offtopic) 247

America still cares about being #1.

But the GOP has become obsessed with the idea that government is evil. They will not fund anything except military and espionage.

That includes weather forecasting.

The GOP is wrong about government being evil. But despite the recent gains, they are in for a rude awakening over the next 7 years.

Comment Re:Responsibilitiy (Score 1) 137

Google is not expect to be extensive, it just reports what it can find. Their algorithms tend to be very good at recent stuff, but practically worthless for long term stuff. Go and try a search - even if you have someone's name chances are it won't find any bankruptcies that are over 7 years. You will find lawyers doing bankruptcy work. If you add in a date or year, you might get it - but if you already have the date, you already know about the bankruptcy. You definitely will not know if this is the 'right' person. They could simply have the same name.

So most banks don't rely on google - and the banks often don't have the time to do extra work.

So far, it has not become a significant problem. If it does, that might change.

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