I'm sure I'm being incredibly naive, but what's wrong with a plain old popular vote? I don't know why there's always this obsession with districts, electoral colleges, all of that bollocks. If you get the most votes you get the job, why must that be complicated? I'm not trying to be facetious here I'm honestly curious.

Demoblicans would be a great name for the bad guys in an 80s video game. "Commander Keen versus the Demoblicans!" just sounds right.

At 35,000 feet "what's going on outside" is nothing. You could just record a panoramic view once and play the passengers a looped tape.

I think that generally speaking, Atheists respect the scientific process because it is the same one that leads them to conclude there probably isn't a god. A good scientist is always ready to be proven wrong and the null hypothesis is central to the entire process. These principles are anathema to Theism which is, by definition, based on claims without supporting evidence - aka "faith". From a personal standpoint, the idea that anyone could actively oppose the ideals and principles of the scientific method seems completely insane, but then I'm not American.

Ah yes. "I have no ethics and would do this if I could get away with it, therefore nobody has any ethics and would do this if they could get away with it."

Good logic! The next part is where you try to deflect by calling me naïve.

Yeah how inconsiderate, don't you know they need that money to blow up some tents in a desert somewhere.

I like the quote at the end of TFA: “Things that are hostile to China, or not in conformity with the outlook of China’s government, won’t be allowed [under the new rules]” said Ministry of Culture head Cai Wu earlier this year. “We want to open the window a crack to get some fresh air, but we still need a screen to block the flies and mosquitoes.”

I like how they're worried about cracking the window when - given that actual PCs are already widespread - the door is basically wide open for anyone who cares to turn the knob.

Not the same thing. Porn 'stars' sign a contract before they appear in films or magazines or whatever, just like models or other entertainment professionals. Thus there is a legally binding agreement covering who owns the rights to the resulting media preceding any photos or videos being created, which is a very different situation indeed to the one we're discussing now.

People who have no idea what a URL is are a dying breed, just like people who know what a skipping record sounds like. Designing things with them in mind is counterproductive.

I like this post, because its being snarky at someone for not reading things fully while at the same time failing to notice that someone else has already posted the exact same response to GP as this one.

In any given round of RPS, one particular throw will win that round and two will not. That looks like 1 out of 3 to me, but of course I'm no mathematician!

Most early voyagers to the New World knew they were basically heading to a vast mass of untouched wilderness. People going to Mars will be heading for a cold, barren desert with no oxygen, and there won't be any natives to bail them out when they starve either.

So... you're in favor of this sort of thing? I can't quite figure out what you're upset about. Do you even know?

Maybe I'm a simpleton, but the one page letter linked to seems to suggest fairly explicitly that NASA was selling the fuel at "full cost" not at any kind of loss, and therefore the claim in the article that tax payers are somehow out of pocket is a load of crap. Please do correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm no expert on Star Trek so I may well get crucified for this, but I thought the story went that the first attempt - Lore - was fully aware that he was superior to humans in every way, and turned out to be a complete and utter bastard. So, they went back to the drawing board and made a new android - Data - that believed being human was awesome (and by extension that he was ultimately inferior).

In other words, you better make damn sure your hyper-intelligent robot has some sort of hardwired mental failsafe in place before you turn it on, or it'll take about 0.01 nanoseconds to figure out it doesn't need us and it sure as hell doesn't need to do what you tell it.