The technology to pick and choose single chromosomes out of one nucleus to replace a chromosome in another nucleus simply does not exist and may not for quite some time since DNA does not wrap itself up neatly into little X's until cellular division. No, the techniques involved are far cruder than that.

Similarly, the technology to combine two egg nuclei into a single, viable diploid cell also does not yet exist.

When men can donate eggs, "unaffiliated" will make sense.

On the other hand, it will break physics so bad that astronomers will just throw up their hands and leave all stellar objects classified as "spatial anomalies."

Man, that German DRM sure is getting out of hand!

Presumably, they would rather go to work than shop for a new car.

Yeah, that's a common misconception. Most of the drafters of the Constitution were legal scholars themselves. That's why the Constitution has reference to all kinds of terms of the art well-understood in 18th century common law but not defined for the common man like "corruption of the blood," "habeas corpus," and "due process." (Seriously. What the heck is "due process," formally defined? Do you think the average citizen of 18th century America had the faintest foggiest clue?)

The founders knew the the courts would be the ones to interpret and ensure the fair application of the law. As Hamilton said in the Federalist Papers, "The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts."

You may rage and fume when said interpretation goes against your "common sense," but the public's "common sense" has just as often been terribly, terribly wrong. After all, Dred Scott was "common sense" in the South when it was decided. Plessy v. Ferguson, which gave us "separate but equal" was considered "common sense" at the time by many. "Common sense" is nothing but personal biases and confident ignorance wrapped up in the robes of wisdom.

Actually, that depends on how you define the lower 50% and how fine-grained the test results are.

Let's say (for simplicity) that 5 people take a 2 question IQ test. As with most IQ tests, we get a bell curve of results: 1 person gets both right, 1 person gets both wrong, and 3 people only get 1 right. How many people scored in the lower 50%? Is it 1? Is it 4? It's certainly not 2.5.

Even if you expand the test taking population and add more questions, you still run into the possibility that you won't necessarily hit 50%.

You know that more than one person expressing different opinions is not, in fact, hypocrisy, right?

"It became necessary to destroy the town to save it."

And the "intrepid imaginaut" can't imagine a world where people, I don't know, have a different experience?

What makes you think I haven't tried something else? I've got a perfectly good Kindle right here. It's fine...well designed, well made, nice piece of hardware...but I /prefer/

(there's the key word, everybody)

the utility of an LCD (LED OLED whateverthehell) tablet.

The farce here is that one person somewhere thinks they've got some kind of read about Immutable Truths of How Reading Works, and that's just silly. You don't. I don't. GP doesn't. It will be OK.

"the simple reality is that you can't read books or even lengthy texts as easily from a luminescent monitor as from an e-ink display."

Simply not true. I can, and do, and your wishing won't stop me.

"but you didn't have people selling their book collections when laptops became common"

That's a form factor thing, not a backlit screen thing.

eink/epaper is great. I happen to prefer the flexibility of an LCD. Neither preference should get you all hot n' bothered, because it's just that: A preference. For /my/ use case, an LCD is superior. For /your/ use case, do whatever the hell you want. It'll be OK.

Yeah, yeah Republicans said the same thing about Clinton sending cruise missiles after Osama bin Ladin in Afghanistan after the attack on the USS Cole. Look how pointless of a distraction that turned out to be! Good thing his successor didn't waste as much effort on it when he got into office.

That's what my roommates did at the house I live at. Keyless entry via numeric pad attached to a battery-powered* dead bolt. Simple, convenient, and no less secure than physical keys. It just replaces "something I have" with "something I know," and it isn't vulnerable to bump-keys or lock-picking tools.

*Lasts for months and gives plenty of warning before it goes out, so no worries there.