I say good riddance. I want the tv shows to go next. Anything that pushes Comic-Con back towards its original emphasis (comic book properties) and away from being a general pop culture event. I loves me my Fringe and my Dexter, but I don't go to Comic-Con to celebrate that love. And for goddess's sake, please keep Glee…

W10002 is right. It is a blessing. I hope it leads to a trend where the next casualties are the tv shows. At least the shows that have nothing to do with comic book properties.

As mkirkland pointed out, the generally accepted notion of "doomsday" is that nobody survives it in the location where it occurs, and that the event is devastating enough that the location itself is effectively "gone", wiped off the map, so to speak. Since that can only happen once, regardless of the raw odds of…

This sounds like a Euro-style take on Divine Right.

And recognizing that some things have an astronomically low chance of succeeding is not the same as fatalism. It is merely a healthy grasp of probability analysis.

I don't think it was a joke, or a misunderstanding of probabilities, so much as a clarification of the necessary logic. Doomsday can't happen twice (to a place) because said place would be, by definition, gone after the first occurance. Therefore doomsday can only occur in places it has never happened yet (that 100%…

Surely there are more noble ways to encourage the public to demand more education funding (from their taxes) than tricking them into thinking they could become millionaires over night.

You could be right. But calling it an "unproven" conjecture tells the reader immediately that it is a problem awaiting a solution. Its unproven state is "why" mathematicians call it a problem, no? This is so self-evident that I guess I really don't see why anyone would ask that, is all.

Re: Neuromancer — If any independent financiers collectively pony up $60M for Neuromancer, I'll be thrilled as all get out too. I think Natali's got it absolutely right in that it is all about texture and mood and tone. Of course, this property has been tossed around Hollywood for decades, to no avail (except to…

Agree 10000000000000000%!

In the case of The Hobbit and Mountains, development went a lot further than "an inkling". He spent years in funded development on those projects, only to have them pulled out from under him, usually for reasons of funding dilemmas. He has every right to be very frustrated by the studio process. You'd think, however,…

If you have ask what the point of math is, you're missing the point. Who says we need a reason for it?

If all the people dumb enough to buy lottery tickets threw away their money on this instead, it would get funded overnight. Surely there must be a way of reaching that demographic in this Golden Age of Communication.

Having a rule for generation simply puts it into the class of PRNGs. Last I checked, PRNGs weren't terribly newsworthy (or even interesting to non-math nerds).

This constant strikes me as no less random than any other arbitrary sequence with equal value distributions. I'm not quite sure I understand why this is regarded as a particularly interesting sequence.

Yes, exactly what I was thinking!

Oh, I agree with you about jealousy. I don't think it can be ignored or eradicated as some sort of social ill. It is, as you say, a component of human nature.

Monogamy is pragmatic from the position of someone lacking the confidence or resources to secure multiple partners (easily). It is not, however, pragmatic or desirable from the position of our species as a whole (and its strategies for optimal propagation). Monogamy is only convenient until it is tested, and then our…

Well, sure, but this article isn't talking about old fashioned values, but an idealized future in which a "modern" society evolves around "new fashioned" notions which are no longer based on outdated sexual politics. One aspect of those politics is the stupid double standard that says sexual promiscuity (which leads…

I like monogamy for my own reasons, but I am not the least bit convinced that it is natural for our species. The drive to mate with multiple partners is stronger than the need for emotionally stable relationships, at least during those periods in life when our hormones are flowing through us with the most urgency. The…