Yeah, that was kinda my thought too, but rather than, "arbitrary species that fell relatively in the middle between ancient primates and homo sapiens." I thought latest common ancestor - which would seem to still be valid as an idea. Obviously you'd never know if you were looking at the last common ancestor, but at…

I wonder if there is a structure that can be found 'responsible' for personification and how individuals would judge a Turing test as this modified.

The point you're making is valid, but I think the counter is putting pressure on Foxconn's largest customer is an effective way to push for incremental improvements without being reduced to a Little House on the Prairie level of technology.

Maybe their training program needs tweaking? I enjoy climbing and I know women who can out-climb me, and likely out do me in pull-ups across a pretty diverse height and (I'm guessing) body fat range (though they are all strong). Perhaps the way they physically developed by climbing was naturally more suitable to…

With a galvanometer.

I think you're making two points; let me respond to them in turn.

I'm with you in not understanding the appeal, but it always helps to keep in mind that, as with most matters of taste, there's a continuum of preferences. You'll no more be able to understand someone with different preferences on sex than differences in favorite color.

I'm reminded of a historical precedent; back in the late 19th century Catholic newspapers would print the identity of members of the KKK, which as you can imagine caused quite a scandal even then and caused a great deal of upset in the KKK's membership. In retaliation the KKK would print the names of member of the…

I just saw the video. It was hard to not burst out laughing at work. What a tool.

There's always growing a mustache in November, on the off chance that anyone will recognize it's supposed to raise awareness - because doing something to raise awareness that will only be recognized by the already aware is super effective.

Or the more prevalent (even more so than breast cancer) prostate cancer.

Well, comparing breast and prostate cancer, the latter receives significantly less attention, and the money going to prostate cancer research is significantly lower, to say nothing of the difference in donation volume, despite rapacious overhead in breast cancer fund-raising. One can complain there's no need to raise…

I'm pretty sure it looks like this:

For about 5 seconds I considered the possibility of buying it, wiping it, and installing Ubuntu just for the hardware that didn't look quite so utilitarian. I decided it was still a no go, but those 4 of those five seconds were pretty serious.

4. Everyone seems to love Jasmine, but I have yet to see her or Aladdin get a TSA patdown. I remain skeptical of how they manage, as it would help me a lot at the airport.

To say nothing of the fact that Lumière explicitly says, "After all, Miss, this is France," but that said, OUR world's France doesn't have enchantress cursing an entire castle of people who's only crime was working for a jerk, so perhaps, "it is not OUR world" after all.

A friend of my wife had a similar experience in the Peace Corps, though in this case it was her good friend who was raped by a local, and they were both terribly disturbed by the incident, evacuated, and given no help after that. It seems pretty obvious that there need to be some major changes made.

I've seen that list before, I think it does a good job of making the point that lists for women on how to avoid rape are pretty much bullshit. Sure the list uses humor, but a biting one to be sure and if it makes a man who thinks of himself as a good person reevaluate his actions or even how he treats the subject of…

What blows me away about this story is how many journalists are treating this like perpetual motion. Also, the number that have called this process carbon neutral is only a degree less staggering; some have added the caveat that renewable energy is necessary to produce carbon neutral fuel, but even renewables produce…

Did you get the sense this plant is using the Sabatier reaction, the Fischer-Tropsch process, or some other process?