You're saying that Kwashie Senam Zilevu is not brilliant?

What are you? a racist?!

j/k

I have visited the ruins of a fertilizer plant in Great Falls, South Carolina. It was built in the early 1900s at the same time that the falls were dammed and a hydroelectric facility built. Without the fertilizer plant that made use of cheap electricity to produce fertilizer the dam might never have been built, because there was no pre-existing market for electricity in the area and therefore no customers to pay for its construction - and of course without the dam the fertilizer plant could not have been built. The plant only operated for a few years before the disruptions caused by World War I and the increase of other users of electricity in the area increased electricity prices and made it uneconomic and it closed down. Despite this industry being short-lived there is no doubt that the lives of people in the area have improved - and environmental impacts reduced - by having a reliable source of electrical power. Keep in mind that even coal-fired plants are cleaner and better for the health of the people than traditional sources of power such as wood-fired stoves and the like - and even so, China is already switching new construction of power plants from coal to cleaner alternatives, including solar.

In many parts of the world there is the same issue today - lack of demand means lack of supply, and lack of supply suppresses demand. By providing a short term demand that is not terribly costly to relocate once demand from other users increases, cryptocurrencies can support the construction of new electrical production. What is more, it can especially provide support for construction of renewable and intermittent sources of power, as the nature of the network allows for nodes to easily go offline and online at will. This could also be used to assist with load balancing, again making renewables more attractive options than they would be in the absence of cryptocurrencies. The relatively small size of the facilities and the ease of locating them anywhere likewise make it easier to develop energy production facilities in remote areas closer to where certain renewables can be most easily produced. For example, instead of installing long transmission lines across a continent, just build a few facilities in places where there is plenty of wind, and one only needs an internet connection to stay relevant.

Besides this, cryptocurrencies are more efficient than comparable traditional banking systems, and to compare the systems one would have to take into account the power requirements for all the people who would otherwise be required in the industry to perform at a similar level.

The authors of this paper have addressed NONE of these issues, and focused only on hypothetical examples that are unlikely to be the norm.

SLIGHTLY increase speed? This is L.A., where traffic is frequently lucky to move at walking speed.

The loop is not the hyperloop. They were always two different systems.

The appeal was always a single vehicle tunnel with self-driving cars, with the promise being the possibility of creating as many dedicated lanes as is necessary to bypass traffic. Just the fact that it can bypass intersections is a huge thing, and being able to travel more than twice HIGHWAY speed is a big plus too. A single vehicle, one-way tunnel with self-driving cars means almost no danger of head-on collisions.

The precise technology used for this is relatively unimportant. Tracks would allow very low-technology self-driving capabilities, but if the computer can handle it this way, that's good enough.

Of course, the biggest question has always been whether the price of tunneling can be reduced. If the tunnels can be built cheaply enough, they can be as cheap - or even cheaper than - traditional roads. Even if they don't allow trucks, such tunnels will take a lot of traffic off city streets. Small tunnels are much cheaper than traditional tunnels, but traditional tunnels had to be large to allow ventilation of fossil fuel fumes. If these tunnels are restricted to vehicles that don't produce toxic fumes, then they can be made one quarter the size which means a big reduction in cost.

If Musk is successful in reducing the cost, then we will have an all-weather, multi-level road system that will allow travelers to get around cities faster than ever, and eventually we'll be able to take most traffic off surface streets which will allow them to be used for pedestrians and bicyclists - which will have all sorts of secondary benefits.

If you want the talented students to have the connections to funding that they need, you have to let in the children of wealthy people so they can meet each other. Of course, the issue in this case is that these parents were wealthy, but not wealthy enough, and they did not go through the proper channels.

These were third tier rich. That type cheats because it's all they know.

The really big money funds the elite schools directly, and the bargain is that their children get to mix with elite students, and the elite students get to mix with the sort of people who will fund their great ideas.

For the VERY wealthy you are looking at this in the wrong way. The elite schools are a way to connect very talented people with money. The children of very wealthy people tend to be above average intelligence anyway, though due to reversion to the mean they are usually not the elite of the elite - but the reason that the children of wealthy parents should be at elite schools is to give the elite students the opportunity to network with wealthy families. This is how good ideas get funded!

Well said.

The bigger reason for elite schools is networking - allowing extremely talented students from relatively poor families (probably still upper middle class) to meet the people who can fund their ideas.

Elite universities offer prestige to the wealthy, and connections to wealth for the talented.

For a talented student from a non-wealthy family, the whole reason for attending an elite university is to meet the people who might fund your great ideas.

The talented students WANT the wealthy people there. That is the whole point of an elite school: to connect talent with funding.

Well said. It's also worth noting that the talented students ought to WANT the children of wealthy donors at their school, because that is a large part of the reason for going to an elite school in the first place: to rub shoulders with the sort of people who can help them out with funding for their awesome ideas at a later date. That's well worth the admittance of students who might not have quite made the cut otherwise. It also serves the interests of investors who want to form connections with the people who can best implement new ideas.

But these parents are mostly not that wealthy, or not quite famous enough that their fame can have a similar effect - and they didn't make arrangements with the colleges themselves, they made arrangements with individuals at the colleges who were not authorized to make those decisions. The victims of these crimes were the colleges.

Seriously, you know this is Slashdot, right?

Excellent choice with The Three Body Problem. The Dark Forest trilogy might just be the best science fiction of the 21st century.