Even if on average, fewer women could meet the military's physical standards than men, that doesn't justify restrictions against those women who do meet the requirements. I agree that such standards should be based entirely on the military's real-life needs. But if a woman can meet those standards, there's no…

I agree that this software seems ridiculously overpriced, generally speaking, but I can't really agree that the inconvenience of submitting a mail-in rebate constitutes moral justification for software piracy.

I was suspicious of Dragon's price — how awesome can it really be, to justify an infinity-percent price increase (okay, so I cold say that if it cost $1, too :P) over competing software?

And the version on Tiger is "11.5".

Windows has dictation built in too, Mr. Mac User.

Curse those volcanoes on the sun! They strike again.

Is it? I mean, is something like the integrated solution they offer actually available? Or do you mean that anyone with access to a home computer could probably build a similar set-up themselves? If the latter, then I think you're probably right, but I, for one, am both too lazy and not knowledgeable enough to do this…

I agree. I can never decide whether I should be mad at Lucas because HAN SHOT FIRST, or whether I should think he's cool for his attitude to stuff like this. :P

It's... cute. I mean, I liked it, but I kind of felt like the 3-4 minutes of it that I just watched was pretty much enough of it for a good long while.

Ah, yes, it does, I think. I think the painting looks pretty good, actually — and I think the method by which a work of art is created does, indeed, contribute something to that art. If all I wanted was an accurate picture of something, a simple photograph would suffice. Artwork is supposed to be about something a bit…

Total energy expended over a lifetime may be the best indicator of all.

Well, they aren't talking about feelings, but bringing up specific examples and similarities.

Oh, I always found that bit so very disturbing. Presumably (and especially if you have access to all sorts of fancy sci-fi super-tech :P) a person could be brainwashed into chanting "eat me!" — while genuinely believing that they actually want to be eaten. Would that make it morally okay to eat that person? After all,…

Sometimes when I need to write something quickly and just can't get started, I'll close my eyes, and literally just touch-type the first thing that comes to mind without even a glance at the words appearing on my screen. I type like this for a couple of minutes, then I go back and edit as needed.

In mah day we hand-assembled our own welders and cotton candy machines, uphill, both ways, through the snow, and that's the way we liked it, doggone it!

I'm not sure why the ability to build campfires should have a direct impact on whether a creature deserves to be given some basic right to not be eaten. Heck, if that was the ethical standard, I'm not sure I'd avoid ending up on someone's dinner plate myself. I've never been much for camping or wilderness training...…

Well, now you're arguing against a claim that isn't being made — no-one is saying that these animals are human, or that their minds are exactly like human minds. It's a question of extent. There is a middle ground between "a program with three lines of code that prints 'I am self aware' " and "a human being that can…

I'm not sure how generally applicable it is, but there are indeed several species of animals — dolphins, chimps, parrots, elephants, and even crows and ravens spring to mind — for which there is, indeed, some evidence to back that "bigger claim" of abstract thought, meta-cognition, etc.

Well, I think they're arguing our consciousness is a lot more similar to that of a raven than we may have thought in the past. (Ravens especially are actually pretty darn clever birds. :P) I mean, there's an awful lot of ground between "animals are capable of abstract thought on a human level" and "animals are crudely…

Of course, this isn't really an argument that we ourselves shouldn't treat animals better than they treat each other... We can accept that other animals have conscious minds, and at the same time accept that our human minds are still a bit more powerful. Perhaps a predatory bird can have a mind sophisticated enough to…