Actually, I thought the whole idea of the "Goldilocks universe" was that life could develop anywhere without the need for a star at the right distance (otherwise there's no advantage). The problem then is exactly as you pointed out. There's no way for life to extract energy, no matter what the temperature is, because everything is at thermal equilibrium. The only way to get energy is through a star. And if you have a star, then having the microwave background doesn't help and is just likely to just make your planet too hot.

I use "nuclear fission" as a sort of "technological landmark". But I was thinking both in terms of "actively" wiping itself out (i.e. wars of some kind) and "passively" destroying itself just like we're currently doing by polluting everything and depleting resources at an insane rate.

A few things to consider here. First, I don't see a way any of that life at T+15M would have become intelligent before the background got too cold. Second, we do not know if it's even possible for life to actually colonize other star systems and even if it is, what's the percentage of intelligent civilizations that achieve that. Of course, the really interesting question is how long an intelligent civilization can last before either destroying itself or depleting all its resources. Personally, I would suspect the half-life of a civilization is less than 1000 years after discovery of nuclear fission.

Different use cases. Palm didn't care because nobody was going to carry around a PC to emulate a handheld device. The utility of a PDA was as much in its form factor as anything else. Not so for game consoles.

I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Most of these diets just make eating inconvenient in some way. Either because there's half the stuff you can't eat, or because you can't eat X with Y, ... I'm sure the "eat anything you like as long as you're up side down" diet would work too. The problem is that you can't keep doing it for years.

Which is a weird thing for someone to say about the UK university system. The RAE / REF count an average one paper per year. That is what counts towards the department's ranking (which determines its funding), and so that's what departments care about when hiring people for tenured positions. Will they have the four top-tier publications required for the top rank in the REF? (or fewer for universities that aren't aiming for the top rank). Someone who published 20 crappy papers will be far less attractive than someone who published four good papers, because they'll both have to nominate their four best papers for the assessment, and so the first person will look really bad in the next assessment.

The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is the ranking of UK universities. The REF replaces the older Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), which happened every four years. The last RAE was 4 years ago, and the current REF is just finishing. Established academics have to submit 4 research outputs since the last RAE / REF. These are usually papers, but can be other things (systems you've built and so on).

The REF is a really big deal in UK universities, because it directly impacts the availability of research grants. The CVs of individual researchers are taken into account, but the REF / RAE score of the department is the biggest factor. If you have 4 papers in top-tier publications (conferences or journals, depending on your field), then it's very easy to get hired in the run up to the REF, because a lot of second tier universities are looking to find people who will bump them up the rankings.

Conversely, if you don't have the 4 publications (or other impressive things), then it's very hard to get a tenured position, but if you're not averaging one good paper a year then there's probably something wrong with you as a researcher: part of the point of publicly funded research is that the results are communicated to the public, and if you're not doing this then you're not keeping up your end of the deal.

about the fact that vaccinated children indeed have a slightly higher risk of having autism... because those that aren't vaccinated have a higher risk of dying before they're even old enough to be diagnosed with autism.

The best anyone can really say at this point is that gut bacteria might play a role in some peoples autistic symptoms, but certainly not all. It's not a panacea by a long shot. Some autistic children do see some improvement through the use of specialized diets. Others see no change at all. I'm the father of an autistic child who falls into the latter category -- on a typical diet she shows no propensity to constipation, diarrhoea, or other obvious digestive issues, and on a gluten and dairy free diet, she isn't any different than on a typical diet.

Chances are there are multiple routes to the same sort of neural-developmental issues that cause autism in individuals. This research is promising for those whose autism does have a digestive basis, but that doesn't mean that all autism comes from the same source, or that no further research is needed into other possible causes.

Yaz

Sure, this was originally Skype, but Microsoft has continued to work with us even after acquiring Skype.

You will just need to update the firmware on your cables if you want to maintain optimal RDF (reality distortion field).

Pretty much. It's ineffective.

I don't see what's so novel about that, cash doesn't serve a function either. You might say it's to pay taxes but kings and lords knew how to take payment in real world goods. It's just a value token, there's no intrinsic value to small bits of paper in a post-collapse economy. If the price of something I like doubles, did it get more expensive or did my money become less worth? Potayto, potahto. Your money is only worth what it buys you.