Of course a state can enforce its laws against the Feds.

Local police can issue parking tickets to or tow Federal vehicles, even those with Federal plates.

Federal vehicles must be registered to some state, and must meet the safety/emissions inspections laws of that state (e.g. Federal agencies can't buy non-California certified models to be registered in California). Similarly, states have sued and won Federal agency compliance/cleanup of environmental hazards per state, not Federal, standards law (federal laws may have an impact when it is "federal/military property" such as a state park or military base, but not, say, an FBI Bureau office in a commercial building)

Note: the above apply to Federal agencies (legitimately called "the Feds"), but the same general principle applies to Federal agents ("a Fed")

While a homicide committed by a Federal agent in the commission of his/her duties has Federal implications, it is also a local crime; local police can detain/arrest and interrogate a Federal officer, pending further disposition. Other felonies, short of murder, are more clearly handled by state law, without any question of jurisdiction: drunk driving, theft, etc.

I found myself asking the same thing, so I checked Alexa (I'm certain there are better sites to check these days). It was rated #8546 worldwide (#9215 in US) in a fairly steady decline since its peak around #4250 in November of last year. Those are "okay" but unimpressive numbers, and it's pretty much been steadily dying. By comparison, a specialty news site like torrentfreak.com is #3808 globally (#3012 US) and reaches the top 2000 when stuff is hitting the fan.

Sharebeast's user base (by IP) was 25.7% US, but 21.4% Indonesian. UK (5.3%), India (4.7%), and Saudi Arabia (4%) also had "significant" shares. The most popular search terms leading to it are not English terms.

Source: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/...

As I said, I'm sure that there are better sites for domain metrics these days, and I can't even see most data Alexa lists because I don't have an Alexa Pro acct. I'd welcome better data from anyone who monitors domain metrics regularly/professionally.

But it really doesn't look like the Feds took down any sort of powerhouse, more like a dying target of convenience (unless they were really worried about Indonesian piracy)

(Incidentally, I was surprised to see Alexa report that slashdot.org (#1672 globally, #1272 in US) gets 40.6% of its visitos from India (where it ranks #302) but only 29.4% from the US)

Alas Redshirts is already being made into a limited TV series for FX.

Equivalently: "How may I [consort with] a brothel of multiply infected hookers who have graduate biomed degrees, practical research in communicable infection and a fervent INTENT to infect their customers?"

As WOPR said in "Wargames", 30+ years ago, "Interesting game. The only way to win is not to play."

I know Gui Cavalcanti and the merry band at MegaBots, and while I never asked directly about the specifics of their their business plan, it seemed like their relocation from Somerville, MA [Artisan's Asylum makerspace] to the SF area earlier this year was permanent "for the foreseeable future"

As a former molecular biologist who happens to be in the middle of a course on the design/synthesis of biomolecular electronics (biological semiconductors, conductors, LEDs, solar etc.), I wonder if the solution isn't as simple as this:

Essentially all biomolecules are synthesized by enzymes. Most are acted upon by enzymes or have some enzymatic activity during their functional life. Quantum criticality could be a useful property to enhance binding and catalysis at enzyme clefts (or other active sites) by enhancing charge/electron transitions in/on a molecule. Criticality may allow transitions and thresholds to be sharper, snappier, more selective.

"Quantum criticality" is just a label we give to a group of mechanisms (and the structures that encourage them) based on some test. I might label the many things that scare my friend's neurotic but otherwise imposing German Shepard as "Fido-phobic". This category might even be scientifically interesting -- if pulling pranks or stealing from my friend were major scientific goals at this point in time. That doesn't mean that squeeze toys that groan, rubber cubes that bounce erratically, and electric toys that "awaken" at random or after a delay share a fundamental property. They simply have properties that have interesting effects toward a certain goal (keeping her dog from interfering in our hijinks)

They can't validate a scale using unintervened progression or existing treatments, then pretend it says ANYTHING about a new/unknown treatment. The whole point of a new treatment is to alter the progression of the disease in a new/different way; the whole point of clinical trials is to determine the NEW course of the disease using the NEW treatment.

The claim made here is: a better tool to predict the time progression of headaches treated with aspirin (or beer or sex) can better predict the time progression of a headache treated with some yet-uninvented drug, so we needn't test the new treatment as thoroughly to characterize it. That's like saying "the more predictable sex with your partner is, the more you know about sex with a different partner"

And yes, I AM a physician and molecular biologist.

When I was in medical school (decades ago), we had a lecture by one of the pioneers of endoscopic gall bladder surgery (cut some 1-2cm slits and use long-handled tools and a tiny camera to cut/remove/etc) which I well knew was already preferable to the "open procedure" that slashed the patient open (classic surgical proverb: you can never have too much exposure) so you could have the working space to reach in and do it with your big mitts)

I was a big fan, but as a student of both philosophy and the history of science I had to ask how he justified performing the procedure *before* (until) he got the complication down to the level of the standard open incision. He was outraged (as were my classmates) and tersely stated that he had gotten consent (not knowing that I'd done a thesis on the inadequacies and inherent ludicracy of getting "informed consent", especially based on information from the surgeon who wishes to do the procedure).

It was a sincere question, one that I felt could not answer to my own satisfaction (his answer didn't help; he'd simply been looking to "the medical advance" and had never been trained in genuine ethics), but despite that, I feel that he had done the right thing, and that tens of millions have greatly benefited since.

Though not all would-be 'medical advances' end so salubriously, the sad fact is, we don't know any better way -- and I'd wager that we'll have workable fusion generators long before we have a better usable method for making medical advances. "First, do no harm" was a simplistic principle suited to the era before Christ when a doctor was as/more likely to do harm as/than good. (Note that the Hippocratic Oath forbids surgery outright)

We are now skilled enough that some of our advances seem "too good to deny to all comers" without full data -- but where are we to get that data, except by trial (and error). We are not yet advanced enough that MOST of our attempts at medical advance are so beneficial, nor are we advanced enough to have a much better alternative to "try it and see".

This isn't as hard as you make it out to be.

If your driverless car hits another car, your respective insurance companies pay for it unless it can be shown that you showed negligence. There is no liability for anyone. It goes from a case of assigning blame to treating it like getting cancer. Your medical insurance doesn't assign blame. It just pays out. You pay enough so that the insurance company always makes a buck. End of story. If a car company showed gross negligence, maybe someone could take legal action against them, but if occasionally shit happens and that is life, the simple and easy solution is just to have insurance be no-fault unless someone did something stupid, like modify the software. This is how most insurance works. Car insurance just starts to act like normal insurance.

In the case of your car killing someone, again, it is simple. Your insurance just acts like normal insurance. Your insurance company just pays out unless it can be shown that the pedestrian did something stupid and is own their own (like dive in front of the car). Again, if the software really bit the bullet, maybe you could try and hit the car company, but for the most part your insurance simply pays out and that is the end of the story.

The real change would be in insurance price. Your insurance price will probably swing based upon how good the car is at avoiding accidents. A car with a slow stopping speed and 5 year old software is going to be more expensive to insure than an agile car that can stop quickly and has the latest software. It is a boring numbers games that actuaries will have a field day with. You will probably have lower insurance rates regardless because the cost to insure for insurance companies will bottom out. You will have fewer accidents and blow less money on trying to determine liability. It will mean that they can score the same profit doing a whole lot less work, It is a win for everyone.

People are over thinking this trying to apply a world of liability to a world where there is little to none. If you break the speed limit, the cops might pull you over, but it will be just to check that your software and sensors are not screwed up, and maybe a warning to get your car checked out, not to give you a ticket.

No, "critical mass" is defined as the amount that can create sufficient runaway escalation of the fission rate by capturing the energetic byproducts of fission to stimulate more fission in a positive feedback loop.

I'll tell you what: I'll give you 1 gram of the radioactive isotope of your choice, if you can stop its fission. You can't. You can only moderate its rate somewhat. Clearly it's self-sustaining on every level down to the individual atom

...and get drugs. Seriously. BitCoins have value. So long as they work as an exchange medium that is more or less untraceable, they have very real value. You can decry it as glorified monopoly money, but so long as you can covert from dollars to BitCoin and back to dollars with dollars in roughly equal to dollars out, BitCoin has value.

I wouldn't invest my life savings into BitCoin, but so long as "and get drugs" works, it has value.

Um, money well bet? When you use the Google voice features it asks if it can build a database based on your voice so that it responds better to you. You can say no and it will just default to a standard attempt at voice match. Say yes, and it will start learning... like what most voice software does.

The charge is stupid, but you kind of have to be a dumb ass to run from 1 year of prison in Sweden. Sweden is not exactly known for their harsh prisons, and a year in jail sounds a lot better than being forever on the run.

I can only assume that you are from Britain or the US (or some nation with a similar system of law) if you think this matters. Sweden's legal system is different. If he was on the run from the US instead of Sweden with the exact same charges and they held the same legal weight, he would have an arrest warrant out and have been charged. The US, Britain, and other similar legal systems charge someone formally and then try and capture them in most cases. The suspect is rarely present when charged. The Swedish system captures them and then charges them. Successfully running when they initiate the "capture and question" part of the Swedish system doesn't mean a get out of jail free card. It is of the same severity and holds similar legal weight to being charged in the US or Britain and having arrest warrant issued. This isn't the voluntary phase where you can talk to the police or not. He is in the "we are going to hold you and question you" phase, and there is a legal warrant to detain him which he has run from, which is why Britain is willing to extradite him.

Whether or not the charges are legitimate and is this a secret plot by the US to snag him, I'll let other people argue. I'm happy Wikileaks exists regardless of whether or not Assange is a douche bag.

RTFA, which was a study done in Radon, and cited confirming studies with other isotopes.

That said, I personally think it is AT LEAST as likely that both solar processes and terrestrial decay rates are being influenced by some outside factor. This is supported by other decay rate correlations with e.g. the Earth position in it orbit relative to the galactic center.