By "printing" I'm assuming they mean to duplicate the template person entirely - including memories. That tech might not exist today, and we might never be able to, but if we could, it would certainly work great for this.

Depending on the data size it might be feasible to store the templates of a few dozen individuals. Half male, half female. All the varying skillsets. Send out a few hundred probes that would systematically search star systems and if it finds an uninhabited one that could sustain human life, touch down and print/deploy/grow/whatever its digitally stored crew to colonize the planet.

The same individuals might get duplicated on quite a few planets - possibly during different time frames. IE, a probe lands, one crew builds a society, persists for thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, and then finally perishes, whilst the other ones continue to search and might touch down and redeploy further duplicates of those individuals millions of years later.

Ultimately, the question of "are we alone" in the universe becomes meaningless. Is there other life elsewhere? Quite likely, but even if its NOT, life in the universe has begun - as evidenced by ourselves. Even if we're the only examples, we can spread life everywhere else.

Up until recently that was true, but all 4G LTE Verizon phones have SIM cards too.

Dang. Why is it that none of these devices are ever available on Verizon? Its the 2nd most popular carrier in the US, and yet we never get these straight-pay phones for it. Their "full price" phones you actually buy from them are prices basically at a premium/penalized rate to get you to renew the contract, while the $200-300 phones from Google and this are unavailable :(.

Eh - still better. The northern hemisphere is far more populated and has much more land than the southern. All of North America, Europe, and Asia are in the Northern Hemisphere, as well as half of Africa, and a bit of South America. From a simple "number of lives" perspective it'd be better to hit the lower portion.

The only way I see the system working is one where there is no "driver override". I can just imagine how many crashes would occur becauase the driver as absolutely "sure" that the computer was about to crash while going 125 MPH (which computer drivers might be able to operate at just fine). They take control, are unable to pilot the vehicle at that speed, and then crash, blaming it on the computer.

Heck, ideally I wouldn't imagine that future automated cars would even have a steering wheel or direct controls (aside from temperature, entertainment, etc). I'd imagine it to more closely resemble a modernized version of a stagecoach - seats facing each other. Heck having the seats be reclineable for naps would be great too. Driving myself say, from New York to Austin is a 27 hour trip. Not really a good drive. However, if I could just punch in my destination to a Google Maps console in the car, kick back, take a nap, play on the computer, etc, it wouldn't be so bad.

Sometimes you have to give it a try before you determine if it delivers a good enough value.

Remember just because something isn't worth its price doesn't mean that the price is prohibitive.

Example: a local place might start serving a $30 hamburger (and I'm sure some places do have burgers higher than that). $30 is a lot for a hamburger, but in and of itself it's not really that much money. I might be willing to try one and see how it is. Afterwards I might decide that it really wasn't worth the price. That doesn't mean that I could have known that before the purchase, or that I "shouldn't" have bought it.

This doesn't really effect copyright. Remember, copyright governs rights to reproduce and distribute material.

In this case the material has already been reproduced and distributed by the copyright holder. Later they decided to change their minds.

I could see a restriction on being able to redistribute such material, but I don't see being required to delete it.

Besides - enforcement of this would be virtually impossible. Anybody who wanted to keep the pics would just make a secret copy. Are they going to make weekly inspections of his computer for life to make sure they don't find pics of his ex?

There's no logical argument that makes INCOME taxes specifically "theft" that wouldn't apply to other taxes.

The bottom line is that we live in a society in which we have determined that a certain level of services must be maintained for all citizens. Those services must be paid for. Such payments must have funds, and those funds come in the form of taxes. No matter if income, sales, or property tax, all taxes must be paid under penalty of law, and are not "theft". Heck the entire concept and punishment of theft is a concept enshrined and enforced by the legal system - a system that is paid for and maintained by - TAXES!

I work for a local government and am heavily involved in the property tax process. I'm sure like all things it varies by state, but here (South Carolina) I'd say that the urban subsidizes the rural even on property taxes.

For one, there's the plain and simple situation that large tracts of rural land are worth much less per acre than land in the cities. A 0.25 acre lot in town might be $30k whilst land out in the woods is less than $10k per acre.

Secondly, large tracts of agricultural land used for crops or timber are given an EXTREME tax break. Most of them pay taxes on less than 5% of the actual value of the land.

And last, serious tax breaks are given to "owner occupied" residential properties. Owner occupied properties are far more common in rural areas. Its not uncommon in the urban/suburban areas, but there are far more rental properties and such that end up paying nearly twice as much in property taxes.

I know in our specific locale its been an area of concern lately that a small urban area that is less than 10% of the size of the county generates more than 25% of the property tax revenue.

Me neither, but I also don't use Ctrl+X and Ctrl-V for Cut and Paste either, though that's what most people know them as.

I learned Alt+F S for save, and Shift+Delete for Cut and Shift+Insert for paste many years ago and that has continued to work in almost any program.

The exception tends to be Unix text editors. Naturally in vi there's a different command set, as well as nano. Using nano for a while right before browsing the web can be particularly problematic, since the Ctrl+W used for find in nano happens to close the current tab in Chrome and Firefox.

That's always the problem with impression based results.

I've seen the same with vegetarians. They'll have a cookout and then claim "I served all veggie burgers and no one even noticed!!!!". More likely, you just don't have a room full of guests who are going to take a bite, throw the burger on the floor, and scream "WHAT THE FUCK IS IN THIS NASTY BASTARD!?!?!". No, people generally just nod and put on a smile.

Same with things like this. You can smell pretty darned bad before people are going to start coming up to you and complaining.

Besides, where the hell is the control group in this? They need anonymously submitted ratings of the BO. 4 groups at least. 1 who doesn't wash and the responders are told this. 1 who does but the responders are told otherwise, and vice versa.

Same here. I have seborrheic dermatitis. There are various things that can be done to control the condition, but the easiest way is to simply wash my face each morning with dandruff shampoo. If I skip a day though, I immediately start to get scaling skin (primarily on the cheeks right under the eyes, and on the upper lip). Once it starts it takes 4 or 5 days to get it back under control. If I go a day without showering my hair also becomes greasy enough that it starts to give me headaches.

Overall though the whole "back to nature" thing just doesn't make sense to me. Back when most of this stuff was common people typically didn't live more than 45-50 years. We're now increasing lifespans to lengths never before seen specifically through medical practices that are not "natural".

No - actually my parents bought it new when they built their first house in 1987 - no clue what they paid for it. They gave it to me when I moved out in 1999. It broke shortly thereafter and I paid $50 to have it fixed. It broke again a number of years back (2008-ish IIRC, though I'm not positive) and I paid $75 to have it fixed again.

Meanwhile my parents are on their THIRD new washing machine since they gave me their old one. The newer model ones don't seem to last nearly as long and are harder to repair. No clue what they paid for the replacements but you generally can't find a new washer for under $300.

Really? I find them invaluable. My machine is a 30-ish year old Kenmoore. Its had to be repaired twice in that span. $50 once - $75 the other time. Heck of a lot cheaper than buying a new unit that is likely of lesser quality and would break within 3-4 years.

Kinda off-topic but I think I society needs to get back to higher quality items that are worth repairing rather than the concept of literally everything being disposable.

Look at how easy it is to jailbreak an iPhone. Do you really think that the criminals wouldn't either a) acquire guns without these features or b) simply disable them?

Gun control always assumes a perfect world - that the criminals will simply comply with whatever legislation is passed. In the real world, it doesn't work that way.