My outrage only applies to people richer than me.

Did you just say it is an anachronism to do what every living creature does - react? Maybe computers are not quite as advanced as you think.

I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you go home now. Someone is working on your street and I am too stupid to work around that unless someone gives me an alternate route. Too bad I am so much more knowledgeable than you.

On my way to lunch today I was driving on a residential street, and the gas company had the road dug up. There was a guy there with a 'slow' sign indicating that the 'road' was now a few pieces of plywood on someones lawn. How do you prepare for something like that?

You yourself talked about "until they reach 18 years of age"; abortion is clearly but one aspect of this, and arguably not the biggest one by far (there are far more children who are born, but have their rights limited until they are of age, than aborted fetuses).

I didn't want to touch on abortion for the simple reason that it's vastly more complicated - there's the issue of when you start considering a fetus a person (it is obvious to any rational person that a fertilized egg or an embryo is not a person in any meaningful way, while a pre-birth fetus is; but where do you draw the line in between?). There's also the sticking issue of the fetus, regarding of any rights it may have as a person, potentially infringing on its mother's rights to her body. Reconciling those two rights is not obvious.

In any case, none of this has anything to do with this particular case.

This is not true, actually. The hardline conservatives are into cop worship, but libertarians are pretty strong in pro-gun movement as well, and they are generally not a fans of police militarization and excessive use of force.

Assuming that you're referring to actual babies that have been born, then they still have human rights that their parents or legal guardians can't deny them. For example, you can't lock up your kid in a cage, even though other more reasonable limits on the freedom of movement are allowed. Generally speaking, it's okay so long as it's in their interest. Similarly, in this story, they're not letting the orangutan go where it wants, but admitting that the current arrangement is definitely not in its interest.

I thought about it as well, but now I think there might be precedent for a kind of a special status there. Think about those uncontacted Amazonian tribes - they're definitely considered human, and if you were to kill one of them you'd be charged with murder, but I'm pretty sure that those tribes don't know or care about e.g. Brazilian laws, and they are not actually enforced against them. I do wonder how they word that in law, though.

I would assume that if this ruling stands, the law would treat an ape the same way it treats human children, or adults that are considered incompetent. This means that someone else makes the decision for them, but the law still protects their fundamental rights (such as e.g. a right to life), and, at least in theory, the decisions must be in their best interest, which can be legally enforced in some circumstances. It's still way better than being treated as property.

There is a difference between tolerating and supporting. With Batista, US has actually supported him - helped him maintain power and suppress his political opponents. With Cuba, we're talking about tolerating what they are. Which is clearly the best that can be done, given how several decades of attempting to pressure them did absolutely zero good for anyone in the country.

The only people who object to the lifting of sanctions are those that are motivated by personal revenge against the Castros. There's no other logical reason for the embargo.

He said "One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years"

Yes, he is promoting the idea that the ice caps are going to be gone.

You can see him claim 5-7 years here (from 2009) :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsioIw4bvzI

BTW, it is now 5 years later and there was still ice this summer.

"Too many" is not "wrong kind"

We should be able to articulate what we intended much better than was done here, especially those people criticizing literature and editing skills. If this was a formatting error (as was indicated) then that was the problem, the letter should have indicated it. And since it was a formatting problem, it was easy to fix, as was proven in this matter.

There was no need to remove the book, and a human (not an automated response) could (and should) have politely asked for a correction. Amazon simply came across as a boor.

And "The Interview" was a problem for Kim (North Korea, not Kardashian) so what? The problem with listening to every whiner is that they get too much power in the process, and normal people start being impacted by all the various "rules" the whiners come up with that serve no purpose other than to annoy everyone else.

Hey, I just described political correctness :-D

The difference with a 3d moulder being that, instead of taking a couple hours to 3d print a mould, then stop your production line and manually install the new mould in place of the old, then start it back up again you could effectively instantly form 3d mould (via microactuators or whatnot), do a 15 minute production run and make a couple hundred parts, then move on to mass producing the next part you need with no break in-between. Your "factory" could be in full production mode nonstop yet have a single line produce many dozens of different types of parts over the course of a day.

When one thinks of space colony applications, it quickly becomes clear how essential such a thing will be. Even if you try to simplify, you're still going to have tends to hundreds of thousands of types of parts that will wear out with time. Let's say 100k unique types of of parts with a mean lifespan of 3 years - that's probably pretty realistic for a colony. That means you'll have to produce a new type of part every 15 minutes nonstop - with quantities varying from one-offs to the tens of thousands, depending on the part. Now think of how big your typical production line is and how much mass that means transporting from earth. Clearly, rapid production flexibility is critical! (same applies to all steps of the chain, including robotic assembly)

(and yes, I know a single moulder or whatnot cannot achieve all possible production jobs, real production lines involve many types of materials and many processes... it's just an example of a common production mechanism :) )

(as another side note, it should even be possible to make 3d moulds for metals. Carbon fiber cloth - or better, graphite fiber cloth - can tolerate temperatures hotter than many metals, but still has stretch and could be shaped with an array of actuators).

They were okay with hitman contracts, but not with guns?

That's hilarious.

What's wrong with that? The vast majority of the planet has a far healthier work-life balance than we here in the US have. Time to take your blinkers off.