It's called "suspension of disbelief". Steampunk, list most subgenres within the science fiction/fantasy umbrella, has little or nothing to do with the technology described... it's a backdrop for the story actually being told.

I must point out that "suspension of disbelief", in most circumstances, only works if the system gives the initial impression of being internally consistent. So no writing a story about wizards and magic and then having the protagonist nuke the villain in the last five pages. The audience doesn't expect that. It's cheating. However, a magical device equivalent to a nuclear bomb is clearly fair game, especially if it doesn't appear out of nowhere and is otherwise consistent with the level and possible distructiveness of magic in the world.

Wrong. He had sex with them with their consent, then they retroactively attempted to withdraw their consent - AFTER they were visited by a prosecutor.

According to the news, one of the charges stems from an allegation that Assange was engaging in sexual acts with a sleeping person.

When is an unconscious person able to give consent?

Sounds like rape to me.

If it works, great. If it doesn't, one collision can set us back *decades* in terms of the Kessler effect (i.e. space junk that makes it harder to launch/maintain orbit without more collisions).

If one collision is anywhere near likely to trigger the Kessler effect, wouldn't it have most likely happened by now?

After all, several nations have blown up satellites in orbit. That is far more likely to have caused the Kessler effect than a collision between two satellites resulting in an unknown, uncontrolled orbit. We already have satellites up there that are uncontrolled.

If I was in that town I'd be pushing for it's repeal. Just like I pushed for getting rid of the ban on selling alcohol to indians in my old town. Yes, the law called them Indians.

What's exception about calling the indigenous inhabitants of America "Indians"? Yes, it's based on an inaccuracy, but there are plenty of Natives who use the term "Indian" for themselves.

If true then Americans are fooling themselves. Criminals aren't idiots, and most will not commit a murder except by accident. The average burglar in non-gun obsessed countries runs away when confronted.

You're forgetting that the US has mandatory minimum sentencing, strict drug laws, and a prison system focused on warehousing criminals.

All of that changes the incentives not to get caught.

This is why i use openDNS on my kids computer. You do realize children are not capable of making their own decisions 100% of the time right? You do realize that some things should be censored from kids so that they can have a childhood right?

I remember dirty jokes from grade school. I even remember a discussion about some celebrity or athlete who was found dead with evidence of sexual activity that was unusual at the time.

So unless kids have changed in the past three decades or so, I'm going to assume that they'll still learn stuff you'd rather not know, and they'll probably learn it rather young.

As far as I remember, none of the jokes or news shocked me or scarred me for life, probably because I was a kid and dirty jokes were told because they were taboo, while the news from the TV was always happening in places far away.

The only time I recall actually being disturbed is when the 4th or 5th grade boys talked about the medical exams they underwent before playing contact football. I now realize, as an adult, it was probably a normal medical exam, but back then, it seemed rather creepy.

And before you jump on the "too lazy" part of what I just said - if you're poor or down & out, and you're playing XBOX instead of going to the library to learn whatever, or you spend the money on an XBOX instead of something that would provide you with the knowledge to get ahead, then yes, you're lazy.

In a slow economy with high unemployment, saying "I've never done this job before but I learned it from a book" is not gold star hiring material.

At least the XBox entertains you. And if you buy used, its cost compares very reasonably with a few trips' worth of bus fare to the library. Especially if you resell it after you are finished.

Electronics are pretty dang cheap nowadays. They are also pretty entertaining, especially if you do it right. The cost per hour of entertainment is pretty low. If your life sucks and you're poor, entertainment is important. After all, we aren't robots.

I'm not trying to downplay a self-taught education, for I personally do use the library as well as other resources in order to educate myself about things I want to learn. But the edupunk philosophy doesn't go over well on a resume at most places.

(Disclaimer: I don't own any of the recent gaming consoles, FWIW. But I've seen the prices used, and they are cheap enough.)

Selective breeding occurs over time, any negative effects (health, environmental) appear gradually (over generations) and can be tracked, studied and mitigated.

I'd argue that this isn't always the case. It seems that modern plant breeding has presented us with crops that are different from what we'd have from their natural ancestors. Take, for example, the super-sweet varieties of Sweet Corn, which has come onto the market in one generation, and stems from a mutation of the corn gene that creates a far sweeter corn.

Another example, of course, is bananas, which tend to be clones (at least the domesticated type). Panama disease wiped out the dominant strain in America, which lead to another, different clone being used within a generation.

We've also seen local and regional varieties get pushed to the wayside, and only a few varieties are now planted and consumed by the majority of people in some countries. That's a big dietary change. Availability of food throughout the year has changed with modern shipping and food storage methods. We've also changed how we lived, and with it, our dietary needs. We've even changed how we farm, with modern fertilizers being heavily used.

I'm not trying to sound like I'm advocating hat we all return to the diets and the habits of our ancestors. That's not doable with the population we have. But I am pointing out that we're running quite and interesting experiment with our diet and environment. Aspects of that experiment are probably bad for us.

Tell me then, where can I freely, and relatively easily find food products that do not contain genetically UNmodified corn or soy?

Most large supermarkets around here do provide Silk Soymilk. Which is from non-GMO soy. It also says so on the back of the carton. I just checked the carton I had in the fridge, and it makes that claim. I bought that carton this week, so it seems that either the company is in violation of FDA regulations, or some advertising is allowed.

The carton also mentions something about the non-GMO project, whose website just happens to have a method to search for non-GMO verified foods.

My goal, keep them online, but not making a sale for as long as I can. If everyone took 30 minutes for each of these sales type calls and never actually buying, then they would stop calling, as the profit margins would sink.

Or we'd see telemarketers being the driving force behind a Turing-test-passing AI

;)

Here in Aus, you can get STI checks free, and they actually encourage you to get one every time you change partners. Not just for AIDS, but for Hepatitis and a couple of other more common diseases I think .

I don't know why they don't don't do the STI tests during a yearly checkup. Even if someone is monogamous, they can't be certain their partner didn't cheat, so it's a good idea.

Well.. it also means that after 5 years your photos are not your anymore. So please now image photos you made 5 years ago, they could be used in the anti-diarrhea commercial! Isn't this cool?

Are "your" photos actually yours now? If they are taken at a photography studio, you probably don't have the copyright. Which can be extremely annoying when it comes to old family photographs.

The cities are full, we like trees, air, fresh water, fishing and hunting, jobs were more readily available in less urban areas, closer to family and friends, better schools in the rural areas... and much more.

I used to live in a rural area, down a dirt road, where the town on my address was technically over a dozen miles away from me. I'm not really sure about all the advantages you list for rural areas. The fishing was great. Camping was excellent. Schools were good to fair, since a lot of the more rural schools were rather small, and some of them involved quite long bus trips. The economy was not good at all. It was great if you loved the outdoors, but it's a horrible place to make a living.

Now I'm in the 16th largest metropolitan area in the United States. Job market is far better. Schools can be good to poor, depending on where you live. Far easier to be closer to friends. Camping opportunities aren't excellent, but I can hop on a bicycle and be rolling through farms and cornfields within an hour or two. And if I do want the taste of true wilderness, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area is less than five hours away.

I do love rural areas, where you can go out at night and not see any sign of another living being - no lights, no sounds of human activity, nothing. But it's hard to make a living there, and you give up a lot of diversity in entertainment and food when you're in a rural area.

(Warning, this post may not apply if your definition of "rural" is far more urban than mine.)

Naturally, out society should be based on the premise that one's success in life should be based on how much effort your parents put into paying your way up the ladder.

I can think of worse premises, such as AC's example of having taxpayers pay your way up the ladder.

Yep, that's what's wrong with today's youth. Too many of them are too lazy to ensure they are born to parents who save for a college education.

We need to let the free market solution take effect. Once kids aren't able to go to college because their parents can't or won't pay, kids will choose to be born to parents with college funds.

Its a unique glimpse into a long vanished way of life and people, an ancient culture of which very little if anything survives today. Some of us find every little detail to be quite fascinating, and who knows, maybe we'll be able to put a few more pieces together and build a more complete picture of our ancestors.

Considering when Otzi lived, if he had any children that has present day descendants, odds are he is everyone's direct ancestor. The period of is life is before the identical ancestors point, before which, everyone who alive is either the ancestor of all human beings alive today, or the ancestor of nobody alive today.