Archaeum's comments

I think that would be the expectation of most non-engineers, assuming they set the new time zone before arriving and if they even considered edge cases like that. It's also how most alarms work, whether mechanical or digital.

Typically, I've managed to maintain a decent working relationship even with people others found virtually intolerable. My natural inclination is to let the more abrasive aspects of their personalities slide, but sometimes I doubt this approach, because occasionally what it means is taking them less seriously as human beings. Their idiosyncrasies can be predictable, so I'm tempted to think of them as machines. In one sense, it's convenient: I rarely get angry at machines, so why would I get angry at machine-like people? On the other hand, it's dismissive and lazy.

What you're talking about is rejecting cynicism, assuming things can change, believing things are worth changing, and being willing to put in the effort to call out the jerks. As long as you do it constructively, you end up humanizing people who probably need it--and you might even make a difference! So, for all our sakes, please keep it up.

Sokal notes, "While my method was satirical, my motivation is utterly serious," and goes on to describe his anger and sadness. Indeed, he doesn't describe his effort as a hoax, but rather as an experiment. He expresses the intent of exposing intellectual laziness and ideologically-driven reasoning (specifically by the Left, with which he self-associates), so the motivation appears to be more than humor, and I'm confident he would agree with your assessment of "more scary than funny."

Legally, freedom of speech is not absolute. Alito invoked the fighting words doctrine, which has been upheld (though in narrowing interpretation) by the Supreme Court on numerous occasions. I'm not saying it would quite apply in this case, or that I disagree with your sentiment, but there are limits established by precedent to the freedoms defined in the Constitution. Whether we agree they are valid is another matter.

I'm not sure the author meant stone age literally. I think it might have been a more long-winded way of saying, "Where's my flying car?" Flying car being a metaphor, of course.

The study claims to have "some interesting practical and theoretical implications, for example with regard to recently revived debates about single-sex vs. coed schools." Perhaps, but my impression is that the study consists of situations where the "confederates" are not previously acquainted, which would not likely be the case in a school setting.

If you're referring to Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness," I would propose that the Hainish universe's Ekumen and Star Trek's Federation share a similar flavor. Moreover, both bodies of work engage in speculative anthropology, although Le Guin's treatment has, in my opinion, considerably greater philosophical depth. This is not necessarily to dispute your contention, but just to point out that they share thematic elements beyond just the science fiction umbrella.

They said they began development before an iOS version of Osmos was announced, but if they were aware of the original game (and it sounds like they may been), a reasonable person would probably have concluded it wiser to choose a new name. Even if they weren't aware, I can't imagine settling on a product name without searching for it. Furthermore, instead of costs to rebrand their work (which would have been questionable enough), they asked for full development costs plus anticipated sales, which would suggest they had no intention of releasing anything.

Personally, I still hold out hope for cars that can (and are required to) drive themselves, at least on major roads. Get that figured out, and then we can talk about flying.

Some universities call their program "computer and information sciences," which I think captures the notion that there's a distinction between the technical and theoretical training. What I've done since leaving school hardly qualifies me as a scientist, but I certainly draw on the principles.

They still take a cut from the merchants for each transaction--though it's a good start, and living debt free is great.

The announcement includes a notice akin to a primitive open source license:

  The code is not strictly public domain: it is copyright
  CERN (see copyright notice is in the .tar), but is free
  to collaborating institutes.

Was it typical back then to release code while retaining the copyright as opposed to making it public domain?

My natural tendency would be towards patience, I think, so I would be in danger of letting things slide. Realizing that, though, I'd be in a position to do something about it. If the goal is to keep your name on the radar, it seems like you just need to get something into the contact's inbox. What about a note detailing new features or improvements you'd implemented in the past week or two? It could be a way to indicate continued interest without feeling like you're badgering. Hopefully the contact would reply and provide some insight into the progress. If not, a more direct approach would probably be warranted.

In most cases, I think one will find "unaffordable" to mean a lack of will. Except in unusual cases, shouldn't an essential piece of software effectively be affordable at any cost for a viable business? It might require a deeper initial investment, but one must spend money to make money, right? I'm inclined to view a company's promise to pay upon success as an indication of lack of confidence. If one feels strongly about the model, make the debt visible. Furthermore, if the software really is too expensive, doesn't that seem like a business opportunity in itself?

I guess I tend towards thinking of astrobiology as the subset of biology dealing with life beyond Earth--a convenient and arbitrary definition, perhaps. In any case, under this definition, with no validated extraterrestrial life, astrobiology would be a largely theoretical science or a line of philosophical inquiry. But if that's too narrow an interpretation, maybe this indeed is an example of experimental astrobiology. Hence, I may have overstated my position when I said this is not astrobiology.

At this point, however, I fear I'm drawn towards philosophical digression. It seems the motivation of the scientist comes into play because she could end up with the same results whether she is a) looking for insight into how life could exist elsewhere in the universe or b) studying life in extreme conditions on Earth. The impetus and interpretation become the categorizers (in practice, I don't think it's too cynical to link this to funding source). On the broader question, I should perhaps defer to the epistemologists--does the nature of knowledge change depending on why it was sought or what is made of it?

Back to the question, what would I consider astrobiology? Well, if life or its precursors were found on Mars or a comet, that might work for me. But what happens when it falls to Earth? I don't know; I've never been particularly comfortable with the blurry divisions between disciplines anyway, so if I consider the dividing line between, for example, psychology and sociology to be tenuous, how am I supposed to feel in this instance? The thing is, knowing what to call it doesn't really affect our ability to understand or use it, it just changes the way we talk about it--which may be important, I grant. But this brings me back to the communication aspect. And as far as that goes, I feel like I've gone through a lot of words without saying much. Therefore, let me summarize like so: I understand why they call this astrobiology; I probably wouldn't call it that myself; most importantly, I think many people will be expecting something else.

I'm surprised by the strong objection. I understand that the lead scientist is with the NASA Astrobiology Institute, but I still think that despite the important implications for astrobiology, calling it astrobiology is questionable. If neither NASA nor any astrobiologists had been involved, exactly the same results could have been obtained, and the astrobiology connection (though it might be played up because it is an interesting angle) would more clearly be incidental. In other words, I don't think you lose any accuracy or diminish the finding by referring to it as biological rather than astrobiological.

That said, I'm not sure I really want to get caught up on "biology" versus "astrobiology" as terms. I think the greater point (or at least the point I was trying to make) is about communicating clearly and managing expectations. When you say astrobiology or exobiology, invariably some people are going to cry, "What, no aliens? You tricked me!" If that indignance prevents them from trying to understand the importance of the story, should we even bother trying to cater to them? I don't have a good answer for that. Without raising the idea of extraterrestrial life, they might not have been engaged at all. It's just something for those involved in public outreach to be aware of.

I agree that this is remarkable, but I think it's valid to criticize publicizing the finding as an astrobiology discovery, which is exactly what NASA (or its public relations department, at any rate) is calling it--and which it is not, despite its implications for astrobiology.

If we care about engaging the public, we should be concerned about sensationalism that detracts from the solid work of the scientists. If you cause people to think you're going to show them extraterrestrial life, fairly or not, you run the risk of them tuning out when the reality is less flashy, even if it's groundbreaking.

When bio-engineered replacement organs become viable, I wonder what proportion of the market will be based on hedonism.

I guess that does seem a backwards to me, probably because I don't type all that much on my iPod touch. My inclination has been to wish there was an option for the autocorrection to be a little less auto, offering a suggestion but assuming I meant what I typed and requiring me to explicitly accept the correction. If I did more text entry on the device, though, I could see myself coming around on the matter.

That seems plausible (and the conventional wisdom), but I don't think it's a matter addressed in this study, which was rat-based. My understanding is that the difficulty in human birth is largely attributable to extra prenatal development that results in the baby being relatively large. So, even if birth pain is a factor in humans, there must be an additional driving force, a factor on which the research apparently didn't speculate.