being able to lock a person up for 6 months as opposed to 30 years and getting the same result might be a good thing.

I hit Submit too soon. I should add that this would absolutely need to be completely voluntary. You can't tinker with somebody's brain without permission, especially as punishment. That's just wrong.

That's ridiculous. If we wanted to cause as much damage to the criminals as possible, why not simply reinstate torture?

You missed part of it. "Is it really OK to lock someone up for the best part of the only life they will ever have, or might it be more humane to tinker with their brains and set them free?" Yes, you can inflict longer sentences for more severe cases, but they have more of their lifespan left when they get done serving their sentence. Don't get me wrong, I think 1000 year sentences are both cruel and unusual, but being able to lock a person up for 6 months as opposed to 30 years and getting the same result might be a good thing.

They are fundamentally unverifiable as long as you are inside them. Of course, if you can ever escape your simulation, that suggests duality... On that note, Descartes did not believe reality was an illusion and yet he believed in duality. They seem mutually exclusive to me.

I believe you are thinking of 6 * 9.

I moderated a really controversial article once and as a result I stopped getting moderator points (as I expect did anybody else who moderated in that discussion, because I promoted comments on both sides of the issue). Since I can't mod you up, I'll just say "good point" in hopes that you get modded up some more.

Taking your comment a step further, this is "Good news, everyone!" because when we know these chemicals are bad, we avoid them. Not all of them are regulated, but manufacturers know people care about their kids safety so they avoid using chemicals shown to be bad (like BPA). That doesn't mean kids are no longer exposed to all of them, but I'd wager they're exposed to significantly fewer of them in smaller amounts than we were as kids.

But numerology... Now that's science!

Thank heavens!

My original UID was in the 100,000s (I think, I seem to recall being disappointed it wasn't 5 digits). Anyway, the point is... I've read slashdot for a long time and most of the people here seem to fit the nerd stereotype pretty well and seems they still do, as long as you ignore the trolls and flamebait. The heated arguments here are always about data and empirical evidence and formal logic and the like. We don't really get passionate about everyday life, so I was basing my observations of nerds on people I know IRL. I really can't speak for your average /.er, on this subject because the subject just doesn't come up too often.

I have three kids. I haven't paid taxes in 9 years. The year we bought our house we actually got a refund of $12,000 from all the tax credits we qualified for.

Loneliness in nerds is usually self-inflicted because we choose to socialize remotely (Iike slashdot). I think the typical nerd doesn't "wife the first woman that gives them the chance", but that, unlike your average Joe, they don't typically pursue relationships that they know wouldn't work out. In other words, it's not just somebody who'll give a geek a chance, but somebody who actually loves them enough not to turn around and divorce them after a year. Maybe that "never married" statistic contains the lonely geek stereotype, but I know a lot of geeks (IT, math and music) and most of them are happily married (and most of the ones who aren't are still in long-term, committed relationships). Mine is just anecdotal evidence, but the fact that census data shows both married and never married are above average makes me think nerds stay married.

I don't think just working with tech makes you a "tech worker." Working on tech does. But you're right about it not being computer geeks. The people I work with aren't really nerdy, like you say, and most of them are women. Can't forget that it's not just guys in IT anymore.

It's encouraging that a higher than average number of IT workers are married but a higher percentage also have never married because I interpret that to mean IT folks don't just commit, but they stay married too. (I am by profession in IT and I know I am completely committed to my wife and that it's reciprocal, but of course I'm just one person.) There's the term "geek chic" which I guess means nerds are more attractive than they used to be, and I guess that in the end "nice guy syndrome" works to our advantage.

Stop and think about that for a second. With the exception of Office for Mac, how many cross-platform apps from Microsoft can you name? I don't really have a big problem with MS like most /.ers do, but even I know that MS is not a big fan of cross-platform development. One OS to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.

Unless the new site runs on ReactOS, please shut the fuck up about slashdot beta.