Current thinking is that there were simpler life forms without DNA-based genomes (e.g. RNA) which then acquired a DNA genome. The first DNA would then be essentially a reverse-transcription of an existing, non-trivial RNA molecule, starting when that first primitive reverse transcriptase enzyme appeared. The same complexity analysis on the RNA would be MUCH steeper, as RNA is far more mutable and reactive than DNA. This theory, let's not even call it that, this observation of a trend, ignores the technology shift above and obtains this highly speculative conclusion. And, the extrapolation is still invalid.

A transistor isn't much of a computer, but it is a switch, and three of them is a logic gate. 3 nucleotides is not a genome of a living thing. There's no point in extrapolating the length of a genome below the minimum length of a viable genome if the question you're trying to ask is "when was the first genome?" The graph shows billions of years of very short genomes starting at 9 BCE.I don't know what the minimum genome is, but I'm sure it's not 1 pair, or 3 pairs. A good guess would be the 4 BCE mark on the graph, though.

" If true, this retro-prediction has some interesting consequences in partly resolving the Fermi Paradox."

A single base pair is not alive, not even in a primitive way. The extrapolation is invalid. A more interesting statement would be the minimum complexity of the first living things 3.5-4.0 billion years ago.

I'll leave the compilation of counterexamples to you.

Supposedly, there are elements of the tax code that makes it undesirable for people to hire self-employed programmers. Instead, they would rather hire from consulting companies. The tax code does not classify them as professionals in the same way as doctors, lawyers, and licensed engineers. Here is a possibly out-of-date article that may be relevant:

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/27/business/how-a-tax-law-helps-insure-a-scarcity-of-programmers.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

I cannot find the references, but the reason I remember this factoid is because there was a man who went postal, citing his inability to make a living as a programmer due to tax laws.

Actually, now that ;you mention it, this makes a lot of sense. I've been looking for the Crazy Cryin' Amazacrazy sketch for years with no luck.

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Citation needed. Here's mine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wffOhr9zo6o . Lot harder to find the retraction, which I found only because I already know it exists.

Since I explicitly stated that the copyright holder has not pursued legal action, I clearly do not believe that his is continuing his lawsuit, contrary to your first claim, and therefore, you clearly did not read my comment, and I stopped reading your rebuttal at that point, as you clearly have some viewpoint of your own you are trying to push and can't be bothered to form a cogent argument for it. Have a nice day. I will however, follow the advice of the insightful poster above you and review the judge's opinion.

Lest you forget, and I'm sure you have all forgotten, one of the universally-despised Righthaven's early major defeats in court occurred when a judge decided that a non-profit could use a news article IN ITS ENTIRETY as fair use http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/03/copyright-troll-righthaven-achieves-spectacular-fair-use-loss/ . Can this woman lose a similar defense over a single image (not that the photographer has yet sued)? Perhaps she can, if only through her own incompetence. Odds have shifted in her favor, and in the favor of 1000s other organizations you may consider undeserving. Yes, that's the taste of victory turning to ash in your mouth. Remember to vote Pirate Party!

There's already 250 comments so you might not even see this. I have spent hours trying to customize my front page. I keep finding stories I want to read, collapsed. The faq says I can customize my front page by clicking on something on the left bar. THERE'S NOTHING THERE TO CUSTOMIZE MY FRONT PAGE.

My front page has stuff I want to read, collapsed, and is full of stuff I don't want to read. If I open all those up, and then start reading articles, when I come back, they are all collapsed again. When I load more articles, they all are gone when I come back, and I have to load them again. But, ARE they loading? Did they start autoloading when I scrolled to the bottom? Do I have to click the tab? Mark Andresson knew to put a progress bar in his browsers, but I have no idea what your javascript is doing at any given moment.

All this trouble with Firefox...do you not support that browser any more?

Oh, and why do I have to decide if I want HTML capabilities before I start composing my comment? Choose wrong, and I'm adding markup just to get newlines. Why do I have to lose my comment if I try to change my settings?

There's been a 100 posts so probably nobody will see this, but I don't think Maximum Prophet understands copyright. What's the difference between a Xerox (TM) machine and a human with a memory and a pen? One is a lot slower

Paraphrasing is paraphrasing. Copying is copying. And tests are valuable only when they test what they are designed to test, and not rote memorization(*)

(*) Apologies to any pharmacology majors who have to memorize more than most people memorize in their life.

This nation worked very hard to elect a vice-president whose highest degree was a bachelor's degree in communications, and she had to transfer 4 times to get it. I don't think the people really care.

Press TV IS a web site set up for US citizens to read propaganda and it IS still up. You are an idiot.

Do you know what Bitcoin is? Duqu has been in the news and on the slashdot pages for four weeks at least. Sorry you're behind.