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Comment Re:I am very sceptical... (Score 1, Troll) 1093

Of course, you should also point out that scientists at universities are funded by government grants. It's hard to get those grants if you say something that the politicians don't want you to say.

I'm willing to bet that you've never been to grants.gov in your entire life. I'm also willing to bet you didn't know the application proposals are reviewed and approved by scientists (not politicians). You're probably a non-scientist / non-researcher who's attacking a system you clearly don't know jack about, so you've attempted to compensate for your ignorance by filling in the gaps with your (incorrect) assumptions.

Comment Re:Get a leash! (Score 1) 218

Letting your pets wander around is no more "humane" than letting a toddler run around.

I think this is slightly hyperbolic. A 1 year old cat is much better equipped for survival than a 1 year old human. Otherwise you probably wouldn't be seeing many cats outdoors to begin with. If you don't believe me, consider this experiment: Get an angry pissed off dog and unleash him on a 1-year old cat. The cat may get hurt, but his odds of survival (by fleeing) are actually pretty good. Now get an angry dog and unleash him on a 1-year old baby. The baby's chances of surviving aren't going to be anywhere near the cat's. I don't think comparing a pet to a toddler is fair, they're built too differently.

I would like to say that there are some practicality issues with cats+leashes. Unlike dogs, who let you lead them, every cat I've attempted to "walk around" would always just do his own thing. You can't take a cat on a walk without literally dragging them. Also, wandering cats are common, and territorial. If your cat is leashed in your backyard, and a particularly nasty neighbor's-cat wanders into the yard, your cat being leashed may actually put his health at risk.

Some cats aren't happy as indoor kitties.
Some cats aren't safe outdoors.
Keeping your pet safe and happy is a balancing act.

Anyway, while a pet-tracking GPS unit isn't going to save anybody's pet after it gets into trouble, it could still be useful. For instance, if you know based on previous-GPS tracks where you cat tends to hang out and travel through, the information would allow you to more efficiently search for where they are if they go missing for a day.

Besides, I think there are fun reasons to slap a GPS on a cat that have nothing to do with trying to ensure their safety. I'd probably do it if I had an outdoor-kitty. (my current cat has to stay indoors for medical reasons).

Comment Re:Balance Sheet (Score 1) 627

Believe it or not, there is very good software like Final Cut Pro that is not cross platform.

Another example that more here might be immediately familiar with is WoW. WoW isn't Mac only, but it does have some really nice options that are (like the built-in video recording/compression along with the fact it's able to easily hide cursors and UI from the video without hiding it in-game).

Not to mention I prefer to code on the Mac (Cocoa is fun), and having a Unix OS that is extremely usable is great (can't get that with Windows).

There are indeed things unique to only Windows or Macs. Not often, but they're there. Buying a Mac is cheaper than buying hardware for both platforms.

Comment Re:Switch it on, switch it off (Score 1) 187

Do better for yourself, the individual, perhaps, but it could also have the very negative impact of intellectual stagnation for the species, causing progress to plateau.

How would any future Einsteins ever be born with a population that refuses to die and make room for new life?

Immortality, even for a sentient species, could be a bad thing in the big picture.

Comment Re:Switch it on, switch it off (Score 1) 187

Life doesn't revolve around making the lives of individual organisms comfortable or convenient. It revolves around the ability of the species genes to propagate. Having immortal organisms would actually hinder genetic variation and hurt the species. If an organism did stumble upon an unlimited source of energy, the specie's survival is best served if that organism still eventually dies and it's then the energy source is utilized by offspring, who in turn later die too.

It serves a purpose that's somewhat analogous to Presidential term limits.
Evolution and immortality wouldn't mix well.

Comment Re:Hope (Score 1) 427

1) Giving people the choice to eat GM foods is fine, provided that doesn't infringe upon the freedom of people to also eat non-GM foods. Here, the judge indicated that one of his concerns was that the GM crop's pollen could spread into other populations, contaminating them with the non-GM species.

2) On top of infringing the freedoms of different farmers, history has shown that when this occurs, due to the GM company's intellectual property rights on their GM product, they'll sue the non-GM farmer when they find some of their GM product accidentally growing in their field (they actually put marker-genes in product to help them easily identify instances of contamination, which they pass off as theft/intellectual-property violations). This isn't a "what if" scenario. This actually does happen (Monsanto is infamous for it). There's no reason to assume that it wouldn't happen again.

3) Finally, you are actually wrong that human-health isn't a concern in environmental impact assessments. It is very much a factor. Environmental law wasn't originally conceived to "protect the environment". It started because people were pissed that toxic chemicals dumped near them were making them sick. Saving the environment for the sake of the environment can be a concern too (like endangered species), but human-health issues found in an environmental impact statement can kill the project. Have you ever actually studied environmental law?

4) Some GM foods can harm certain people. If you take genes from a nut which some people are allergic to, splice it into a soybean, don't have laws that label GM foods as GM, people allergic to that nut can eat the soybeans and get sick or die. Fresh produce doesn't usually have allergy warnings on it, because you can't normally find "trace amounts of nuts" in your carrots. But genetically engineered crops make this possible, yet we still don't warn people about it.
And before you say that isn't a practical problem, I would like to point out that it has: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=soybean+brazil+nut

Comment Re:Extradition Act 2003 (Score 1) 278

And you know that this "fry" was spoken of literally as opposed to being a metaphor ... how?

1) As problematic as the American justice system can sometimes be, we (thankfully) don't have a habit of frying people on giant skillets. So we can rule out death by frying pan.
2) Despite the electric chair technically being an option in a few states, is almost never used. The prisoner would almost have to request it. Lethal injection is the preference.
3) A common meaning of "fry" could be that he plans to give an especially difficult series of questions during the trial. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with any court proceeding, otherwise your prosecutor is incompetent.
4) While America's laws may be harsher, their laws still don't allow execution for this sort of crime. So... knowing that his life is not in jepordy, why would you believe that this "frying" would be means to avoid extradition?

Comment Re:Good intentions (Score 1) 874

You mean the carbon that, when plotted next to global temperature, shows that increases in temperature lead to increases in C02, but not vice versa?

[Citation Needed] (cite peer reviewed literature, and check its funding to make sure it's not from the private energy sector). You appear to be seriously suggesting that higher temperatures causes more CO2, despite the fact that there's no known mechanism that would support such a thing. On the other hand, there is a known mechanism in which CO2 is opaque to thermal infrared radiation, which does explain the warming trend. And that's without even getting into looking at other things like CO2 sink behavior and oceanic acidification measurements.

Oh, but that's beside the point. Show me the health effects on you of my carbon emission, and you can sue me in court, and anyone else for that matter.

Except you (and every corporation in existence) know that it would be so costly and inefficient to sue thousands of corporations simultaneously for contributing such tiny fractions to the whole of a serious problem, that it becomes financially and judicially prohibitive. Especially when everyone is trying to do it to everyone simultaneously. You can't have everyone in a country suing half of the rest of the population, no matter how good their moral justification is. As inefficient as some would have you believe government is, a tax scheme would be more efficient that the court-costs of everyone suing everyone.
And even such a scenario wasn't prohibitively expensive, and we tried to CO2 damages privately in courts, you'd still be operating under the illusion that CO2 wasn't as amazingly mobile as it is, and that proving a set of molecules on this side of the planet didn't originate on the other side (they very well could have). You can't claim damages for simply being wronged, you have to prove the defendant was causally responsible for what happened to you.

No, the problem should and would be solved through privatization.

If that's the case, then why hasn't the current scheme solved it yet?

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