and there are quite a few human pairs for which one would not be able to convince the other that they were speaking intelligibly, either.

it is irrelevant. it is only necessary for one computer (however that's defined) to pass this test. i don't see how it's really any better than Turing though. it's a nice idea, it seems even more vague than the Turing test.

i wasn't blaming you, and yes, 'they' drew first blood on this. it's just a shame that it goes this way.

it's another piece of capital that never ends up on the balance sheets and is thus disposable: trained workers who aren't backstabbing betrayers out of necessity. pfft! gone.

Well, if your definition of "build" is "cobble together using spit for glue, and some duck tape if you're lucky"...

It does include csc.exe and vbc.exe, however.

Why would regular people care specifically about having "Windows native code"?

There can be no "scientific consensus" in a society that hasn't discovered the scientific method. In those times, at best, what you had was the consensus of the "wise people".

So out of all the things you've listed, the "plum pudding" atomic model is the only one that would even qualify. But there was no consensus that it was like that. At best, it was accepted as the most reasonable model given all the evidence at the time (but, really, physicists had wildly different notions of atoms back then, and none of them were solid theories). It only took five years for more evidence to appear that proved the model was not viable.

The stairwell in Venice is submerged because Venice itself is sinking, not because sea levels rose several feet since it was built.

Save the planet, kill yourself?

Fine, but you start.

A culture without loyalty is doomed. Now we will see what happens when loyalty is not only worthless, but actively detrimental.

But free-to-p[l]ay gaming is also becoming a serious contender. It solves the problem of gamers who won't buy a game without a demo, it solves the problem of having an adequate online player base, and it solves the problem of gamers who simply won't buy games but who might buy the occasional piece of DLC.

The truth is that Gamestop guaranteed their eventual nonexistence when they dropped games for old consoles. I get that they can't stock everything, but it eliminated my reasons to go in there. I can get all the same stuff cheaper somewhere else, and I can get a lot of stuff that they can't (or won't) get. Since I don't really need a $200+ headset, I'm not sure what I'd go in there for anyway.+

By what metric do you declare Plutonium to be the deadliest substance on Earth?

Well, if it's not the deadliest, it's gotta be in the top ten. Doctor Jonathan Osterman, notwithstanding, that is.

Oh, and you are absolutely wrong about Hobby Lobby being "just like it was a sole proprietorship". A closely-held corporation is not like a sole proprietorship. They are granted a level of exemption to liability by the government that sole proprietorships are not. That means there is a "veil" between the individual and the corporation.

Apparently, the five (male) justices on the Supreme Court who comprised the majority in the Hobby Lobby case believed that the veil is impervious to all but the Judgement of the Lord God Jehovah, based upon absolutely nothing but their own religious beliefs in the Lord God Jehovah.

As I said, it will be looked back upon with embarrassment.

When I talk about "they" I am not talking about a corporation, but Mr. and Mrs. Green who own Hobby Lobby.

But Mr and Mrs Green are not the ones paying for the employees' health care. Rather, those checks are from the corporation.

People are acting like Hobby Lobby employees are somehow harmed by not having their employer pay for something they never paid for in the first place.

Maybe you don't understand how employer health care works. The reason an employer provides health care is because an employee works for them. So, in a very real way, the value of the health care has already been earned by the employee. Thus, it's not Mr and Mrs Green paying for the health care at all is it? It's the employees who pay for it, with their labor (and also direct deductions from their paychecks). Employer health care is not charity.

Hobby Lobby is this era's version of Plessy v Ferguson. In a relatively short time, it will be looked back upon with embarrassment.

Oh wait, it gets better. The esteemed Dr Cohen also stated that you could not die from exposure to radiation.

I'm pretty sure you'll agree that 1410 lbs of plutonium is probably not safe to keep under your bed.

You will notice that while Dr Cohen offered to consume as much plutonium as you would caffeine, he never actually did so.

The annals of the history of science are littered with cranks.

Dr Cohen also said that he believed uranium to be a renewable resource. Unless he's figured out a way to grow uranium, I'm sure you'll agree there is a finite amount of the substance. Dr Cohen did not believe that the amount of uranium on Earth was finite.

Crackpot.