His whole argument is you don't NEED a definition of intelligence in order to build a replica. (Like you don't need to, I dunno, read German in order to be able to copy a passage of text written in German.) I mean, he's probably still wrong and crazy. But lack of a definition is not WHY he's probably wrong and crazy.

When AMD gave a presentation to my processor design course (not coincidentally about 10 years ago) one of the presenters said that one of the most surprising speed-ups for 64-bit code came from just having 16 real general purpose registers to work with. Even though register renaming lets you smooth over them, it meant all those extra load and store ops (that RR would identify as waste and work around) now didn't need to be in the code at all. It turned out to be rather non-trivial for one of their test apps.

So those 32 extra bits of memory addressing are nice. But don't forget about that 1 extra bit for identifying registers!

I imagine he'd be more pissed he was born in China. Crick was kinda racists.

The relationship between the money supply and inflation isn't quite that naive. While there are more dollars now, there are also more people doing more work producing more value; if there wasn't more money, there would have been deflation, which is much more crippling to an economy than inflation. (Which is one of the reasons gold didn't work out in the long run, and why bitcoin won't either.)

Fiat currency is sort of like the relativity of economics. It makes people uncomfortable, it doesn't seem to jive with everyday experience (although it does), and it pulls the rug out from under the idea of universal references (either reference frames or the valuableness of certain rare metals.)

I'll pretend that's not a rhetorical question.

Because a typical coal plant causes more dollars in health problems, and puts more radioactive material into the environment, than a typical nuclear plant. And then there's the carbon dioxide.

A statement emblematic of so many issues, but I'll choose to respond with snark:

What makes you think a clone would ever go out with you?

I'm not sure what to think about this. I enjoyed Ender's Game as a kid[.] On the other hand[...]

Why do people (geeks in particular perhaps) get so hung up on having to either agree with EVERYTHING or NOTHING someone says and believes? Do you like the Cthulhu mythos? Well, Lovecraft was an unrepentant racist. He still wrote some great fiction though! I love Tom Cruise movies. But, he's an unrepentant Scientologist. He's still a fine actor though! You don't have to reject every word someone has ever said just because you disagree with them about one thing. You absolutely should let that knowledge inform your thoughts. And you absolutely should not feel any qualms about participating in a boycott. But you don't boycott Card's works because they're BAD. In fact, the fact that he's a good author makes your boycott even more compelling, since you're probably missing out on a great story--you're cause some harm to yourself--in order to call attention to a cause that's more important to you.

Here's what you should think: Ender's Game is still a good book. Card is still a homophobic asshole. A better question is, what are you going to do about it?

As well as all of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island (the southwest corner of Vermont is the only thing keeping all of New England from being Constitution-free), New Jersey, and Delaware. The largest city that's safe, is Phoenix.

Money quote: "nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population live within this "Constitution-Free Zone." That’s 197.4 million people."

...exclude Pluto, other Kuiper Belt Objects, AND asteroids. Remember asteroids? They were "planets" too, for about a century, until there were too many to take seriously. Which is what was going to happen with the KBOs. Pluto had to go, or there had to be over 10,000 "planets." I'd hate to see the mnemonic to memorize them all...

Did you even read the study? There's a 23 year lag. If the study is true, China will become more violent.

24 FPS is the new vinyl.

From the direct effects.

If you're going to use a rhetorical question to make your point, you should make sure it factually supports your claim first.

By the way, here's the most-complete list of who's on the ballot (or registered as a write-in) where. Note: no Whigs. http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G12/President-Details.phtml

Probably because they're on the ballot in ZERO states, putting them behind at least FORTY other groups. (The four in this debate are on the ballot in enough states to theoretically get over 200 electoral votes each (they'll get zero, but the Whigs, from all appearances, didn't even try.)