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Comment: Spanish vrs English (Score 1) 185

by ZombieBraintrust (#48655055) Attached to: Argentine Court Rules Orangutan Is a "Non-Human Person"
I would suspect that the ruling was in spanish and did not use the English word person. Perhaps it was persona? These ruling are somewhat about what words mean. Or what they meant to lawmakers when they wrote laws using those words. Argentine law is based on Spanish legal tradition and things like the Napoleonic code. (as opposed to English common law in the USA)

Comment: Freedom of assembly (Score 0) 341

by ZombieBraintrust (#48526247) Attached to: New Effort To Grant Legal Rights To Chimpanzees Fails
Freedom of assembly is in the first amendment. It allows groups of people to be involved in politics and speach. If a group of weathy people want to promote canidates they are allowed to do so under freedom of assembly. You can't argue that the CEO and board members of corporations are not people. They are people, They have the same freedom of assembly as everyone else.

Comment: Re:I believe forking it is still possible (Score 2) 274

by ZombieBraintrust (#48507639) Attached to: A Mismatch Between Wikimedia's Pledge Drive and Its Cash On Hand?
Forks of wikipedia already exist. There are also other wikis that carry stuff wikipedia doesn't. The forks don't have the same pagerank as wikipedia. Your not going to find results on the first 10 pages of Google. The other wikis show up in results because they don't compete with wikipedia. (because their content is considered non notable by wikipedia editors)

Comment: Re:A Reasonable Person (Score 2) 436

Neither Snoop Dog or Katie Couric. The guy choose a specific audience. He was posting these for his wife to see. He wasn't posting these in a rap forum. He wasn't on the today show. He was posting these to his ex-wife. (I think, it was also possible he was posting to his public facebook. If so then that is different.) The jury just had to decide what that meant.

Comment: Re:In the news today (Score 2) 436

He isn't selling music. After his divorce the defendant started posting quotes of violent rap lyrics on Facebook. Lyrics that were about harming women. His ex-wife reported him the FBI. The FBI only stepped in when things were a little to on the nose as a threat. Basically this guy was trying to be clever and protect his threats by being vague. He was dancing on the line and the FBI stepped in when they perceived he crossed it.

Comment: First 5 billion (Score 1) 307

by ZombieBraintrust (#48452205) Attached to: Complex Life May Be Possible In Only 10% of All Galaxies


Wouldn't that also imply that for the first 5 billion years planets in general would be low in metal? So you would have very few planets without iron cores and similer density as Earth. There would be a different chemical mix in most of the universe.

Comment: Halting Problem (Score 2) 335


The article misunderstands the halting problem. You could replace robots with humans and murder with any descision involing other people and come to the same conclusion. AI does not try to create perfect solutions. Instead you try to create solutions that work most of the time. Approaches that can evolve with trail and error. Ethically you weigh the positive benifits of success against the negative consequences of your failures.
