You are promoting the idea that there is safety in a situation for which you have no data.

Only a fool would follow you there.

"We won't really be immortal, as humans will still die from accidents "

I call that 'Golden Sonic' immortality.

I'm not disagreeing with your premise at all. Not even with the original shaky evidence of the models. To some degree the more dramatic statements were more from the media reporting than the research itself. Or a university press release.

For every new bit of information we get the models get better. To assume they're perfect to start is silly. To assume that if it slightly wrong it must be completely thrown out is also silly. Incremental improvements!

I offer no evidence to my claims. I don't even claim them as claims, just idle speculation. Personally, I don't care who or what did it or why it's going to happen, but that it will eventually happen.

Your experience was much different than mine. I was in college when Carter was President, and he stopped food stamp benefits for poor college kids. I often went hungry. I'd voted for him, voted against his reelection.

Under Reagan I worked for Disney. Reagan slashed the capital gains tax, which unleashed an orgy of hostile corporate takeovers, one of which was unleashed on my employer, who took a big financial hit from its defense and cut everyone's hours. I had trouble paying my bills for a while. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these hostile takeovers and takeover attempts. Of course, a recession followed this but none of the pundits connected the dots and they treated Reagan like a demigod.

We moved back to Illinois when Leila was born, and it took well over a year to find a job. Thanks for the recession, Ronnie.

I got a job finally, in 1987, but half the people I knew were looking for work until the nineties. That was Reagan's fault, but Bush did nothing to alleviate the situation.

There was something about Clinton I just didn't like; he came across as a sleaze and I think I voted Libertarian that election, I don't really remember, but it wasn't a vote for Clinton.

I was wrong about him; he put 100,000 new cops on the street, and my crime-ridden neighborhood got a neighborhood cop and crime plummeted. He signed PWORA which ended generational welfare. I voted for his reelection.

As to Bush II, can you name a single positive thing he accomplished? I can't.

As to Obama, my opinion of his mediocre President went up a little when he started opening Cuba; it's long overdue. We've had relations with China and Russia for years, it should have happened when the Berlin Wall came down and the USSR split up.

Could it be possible that the lack of increases in droughts, hurricanes, etc are due to an unforseen buffering effect (or underestimated buffering capacity)? Once the buffer is overwhelmed a whole cascade of 'bad things' could happen in relatively quick succession.

I usually vote Greenie or Libbie unless one of the two majors is particularly offensive or I think the incumbent has done a good job (voted against Clinton his first administration, but voted for his reelection).

Today's programmers suck. Why in the HELL should holding a mouse over a control for a few seconds activate it? The mouse shouldn't do anything but move the pointer unless I click. And when I click the "file" menu, that's the menu I want. Why does the "edit" menu open if the pointer strays off of "file" after I click "file"?

Is it stupidity of maliciousness? Are today's programmers just trying to piss us off or are they all idiots?

No, I didn't claim anything of the sort. I only asked how you didn't know that was the case, which is something else entirely. You need new reading glasses. Or remedial reading classes. Or something.

Indiana will simply legislate that all superconductors are performance-invariant.

Problem solved. See how easy that is?

You don't know if they've solved (the last part of) Kryptos. You just know the public hasn't.

The difference between what you think you know, and what you actually know, is often quite significant.

As for the "magic" straw man, not worthy of a response.

Hysteria, eh? Well, let's just drag a few facts out. Here we go:

o Straight-up misconduct

o Botched paramilitary police raid data

o Judge, jury and executioners in blue: The death penalty -- without a court

o Warrants "not required" data

o Seizure of property without warrants details

o $2.02 billion dollars in cash and property seizures for/in which no indictment was ever filed

o Other illegal horrors

Just a little information -- what we know -- showing our government at work, cavreader. Now, I don't know how you will characterize this information, but I know how I do: Directly and unequivocally indicative of a systemic breakdown of respect, regard, and understanding of liberty and justice that extends broadly across all areas of law enforcement.

Now, you want to talk nonsense about legal protections in a system where the vast majority of defendants are pressured into plea bargains against a completely uneven scale full of extra charges, almost certain financial ruin, threats of extended incarceration, and outright lies from the police and prosecutor, where the police don't have to defend anything in court -- and which can be, and at times have been, followed up by ex post facto laws increasing punishment after conviction -- fine. But don't expect me to take you seriously, because you obviously don't have even the slightest idea what you're talking about.

In this context a legitimate law enforcement reason means a warrant would indeed be needed.

Are you mad? They don't even insist on warrants when they can't meet the requirements of the 4th amendment, preferring to focus cluelessly upon the word "unreasonable" and ignoring the litany of probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation that were put there to explicitly define what "reasonable" is. They just break your door down, and shoot you -- and your pets.

And you think a law that doesn't even say a warrant is required will somehow stumble in its application on needing them?

I don't think you understand how the justice system works here. Or perhaps you're not from here.

What makes you think the government has a polynomial prime factoring algorithm?

What makes you think they don't? What makes you think they even need one? What makes you think they don't hire, and utilize, some of the most powerful math-heads out there? What makes you think that something that can't be broken today won't bring you to the vale of tears days, months, even years later, if that's what it takes? What makes you think they don't have, or won't have, some kind of quantum computing device that obviates encryption entirely? What makes you think they didn't log every keystroke you typed, thus making encryption a complete non-issue? Wait, what, your system is "pure"? You know they can tell what you're typing by the sound, right? Finally, what makes you think they won't come right to your home or place of business or your favorite club, hustle you into a dank basement somewhere, and waterboard you or pound your toes to mush with a hammer or actually, eventually, read your mind electronically and get what they want that way? Got any relatives you treasure? What about the recipient(s)? Now there are (at least) two points of human weakness.

And... you do know that "they" have access to quite a few technologies that "we" do not, right?

I would seriously bet on the idea that if you demonstrate you think you need to encrypt your stuff by simply doing so, all you've managed to accomplish is get on a list of "we'll get back to this suspicious character later."

Right now, if you've got something secret that you don't want the government to become aware of, just don't say it or otherwise communicate it. That's your very best chance of actually keeping it a secret. It may be your only chance.

Further, the presumption that because it falls under the umbrella of law, it is somehow made "ok", is utter nonsense from word one.

hey y'all, watch this... gimme my transcranial magnetic stimulator -- you can have my beer.