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[Dozebôm Lolumzalěs]

Terrors and tumors: the dangers of bioengineering.

That sounds fucking awesome, best title I ever wrote stole Englished. (English just got verbed, it means to steal words.)

Also, backward extrapolation of history to the level of detail of specific molecules is probably about as impossible as forward extrapolation. Heisenberg and chaos make the latter impossible, and the former is only merely incredibly infeasible to the point of effective impossibility.

As for why we can't just "make a new dinosaur" or "make some bacteria to do X": it's hard enough finding a gene in another organism to do what we want, but random mutation is a shot in the dark, and we don't have a good enough understanding of how genes turn into organisms to reliably predict what mutations/additions will do without observation. And that's just for a single mutation.

Remember, protein folding is part of the gene->organism thing. That makes it basically the hardest thing ever. Life is fucking complex.

[TheDarkStar]

Also, backward extrapolation of history to the level of detail of specific molecules is probably about as impossible as forward extrapolation. Heisenberg and chaos make the latter impossible, and the former is only merely incredibly infeasible to the point of effective impossibility.

It's probably not possible to extrapolate into the future, either. Any error whatsoever creates larger and larger errors as physical processes are iterated until the predicted future does match the actual future at all. This is why we can only model the weather about ten days into the future - not because we can't make somewhat accurate models of weather, but because non-detectable changes anywhere can easily cascade and change everything everywhere.

[Shadowlord]

Those meddling kids butterflies!

[misko27]

Also, backward extrapolation of history to the level of detail of specific molecules is probably about as impossible as forward extrapolation. Heisenberg and chaos make the latter impossible, and the former is only merely incredibly infeasible to the point of effective impossibility.

It's probably not possible to extrapolate into the future, either. Any error whatsoever creates larger and larger errors as physical processes are iterated until the predicted future does match the actual future at all. This is why we can only model the weather about ten days into the future - not because we can't make somewhat accurate models of weather, but because non-detectable changes anywhere can easily cascade and change everything everywhere.

I mean it depends on the what you are looking at in the first place. Predicting the location of the really small stuff with anything resembling accuracy is a strick no-no (we can't even know where the particles are and where the are going now, let alone in the future or the past). Macro-scale events depend on what you are predicting. Some things are more likely than others... You are only really talking about realms of probability, which gets back to the main point: you've got a rough max amount of predictability defined by the uncertainty principle, and the more precisely you attempt to predict an event (and while not a hard rule, how large the event in question is) the less-and-less further you can predict.

[Sergarr]

Welp, this is apparently happening:

Loyalty card schemes enable retailers to track customers’ exact behaviour and offer personalised discounts with the aim of getting them to spend more. Such discounts could even be withheld from shoppers who regularly buy a lot. Unsurprisingly, consumer watchdogs are not happy.

In September, Migros, one of Switzerland’s largest retailers, launched a pilot project in three stores (Zurich, Aare and Geneva), according to a report in the NNZ am Sonntag. Customers with Cumulus loyalty cards would receive “personalised discounts” – either at the till or on their app – based on their consumer behaviour.

[Shadowlord]

Taking the ability to vote for senators away from the people is a "reform?"

[Avis-Mergulus]

I mean, yes? I'm not sure why the word 'reform' has to have positive connotations on your side of the pond.

[Egan_BW]

I just don't get why it's so hard to make a nutritious algae that efficiently turns light into the calories we need, maybe even the protein.

Spoiler: XKCD, of course (click to show/hide)

[Rolan7]

Ah... wow.  Normally I'm pretty good at remembering and dredging up XKCDs, or so I and my friends thought.  Maybe not.
That is amazingly spot on!

Spoiler: Doz's was related but not *that* related (click to show/hide)

THAT SAID, the punchline actually doesn't work.  Google's HTML source is very heavily obfuscated.  Much as malware authors hide their work behind pointless or nested functions, or under a few layers of layman cryptography...  Except it's Google, so they do better than those jerks.

And yet ironically the beauty of Google's main page is literally it's simplicity, at least to the end user.  I'd say that's why it won in a crowded market of search engines, and basically became *the* search engine (besides Microsoft's Bing) (and China's Baidu).
It's actually lapsed in that sense, especially because of the... questionable foray into social media.  But then, despite the

Spoiler: mockery (click to show/hide)

it turns out that owning Youtube counts for a lot.
Not to mention all the other sites a Google account will let you into...  And that's all Google Plus, heh.

[Shadowlord]

That last one... There's no share button for 4chan. That is the problem.

[Solifuge]

I rather liked DHMIS.
What was your interpretation of it?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I got some kind of "Stop letting other people, particularly the media you consume, think for you and/or decide what your values should be." kind of vibe from it. With the whole Kids Show, Educational TV aesthetic, it seemed like a commentary on how folks are inundated with media (particularly television) which is designed to shape their opinions in ostensibly educational or pro-social ways, but sorta stunting their critical thinking as a side effect; note how every time the characters try to think for themselves, or propose ideas to the episode's "Teacher" character, they generally get shot down for "thinking wrong".

But it's also hard to parse some of that weirdness. Lots of disturbing, weird, cool, messed up stuff in that. WTF is fitting!

[Solifuge]

This too! ._.;

Mine involves physical violence and bedding-based emergency bandages.

[BlackFlyme]

Animation exam was to take a little ball with a tail and create a simple jump loop in three hours. It was supposed to be a squirrel anyways, but it's just a ball with a couple of bones coming out of its butt.

We were given only 18 frames to do it in. Hard to make a nice bounce loop in only 18 frames, I think. Hope I didn't overdo it with the squash and stretch. Tail looked nice though, I think.

[Eric Blank]

This too! ._.;

Mine involves physical violence and bedding-based emergency bandages.

Sensible and down-to-earth. Mine involves keeping an eye on the march of progress so that I'm first in line when it finally becomes feasible to outfit myself with a high-yield self-destruct device. MAD, yo.

I have a house full of dogs that bark really loud if literally anything (besides deer) can be heard that's slightly out of the ordinary.

Apparently deer aren't interesting anymore. They can eat all our saplings and loose hay and frollick with the horses and not a single fuck is given.

Also, my councilor has decided my depression is "major" and trauma related, not just a chemical imbalance. I don't know how to process that really.

[Parsely]

Animation exam was to take a little ball with a tail and create a simple jump loop in three hours. It was supposed to be a squirrel anyways, but it's just a ball with a couple of bones coming out of its butt.

We were given only 18 frames to do it in. Hard to make a nice bounce loop in only 18 frames, I think. Hope I didn't overdo it with the squash and stretch. Tail looked nice though, I think.

You probably did great, judging by the other stuff I've seen you make!