Is that really true?

How about two "infallible" coders who write the same function (let's say, in Perl) in two different ways - both of which produce the exact same result, processor usage, and runtime.

Could they not disagree on coding style yet remain infallible?

If you're a fan of a particular [insert sport here] team, you tend to be interested if a big change of leadership occurs in an opposing team.

If you're an atheist or just an enlightened citizen of the world, I reckon it's newsworthy when the leadership of a 1 billion-strong team is about to change.

They're not great though - my experience on a Macbook Pro with Windows 8:

• Two-finger scrolling is so sensitive it's almost unusable.
• Keyboard backlight always comes on at startup, have to hold the dim key down for 2-3 seconds to get rid of it, EVERY time you restart.
• Screen backlight intensity is unreliable, especially after a restart. The max available intensity seems to vary.

These are known issues for a long time now, and there are even 3rd party drivers written to fix them (but they only work if you put Windows 8 into devel mode). It's almost like Apple wants your Windows experience on a Mac to be slightly imperfect...

Desktops won't go away, they'll just become a more niche product, and thus more expensive.

It could happen very quickly though, as it will act like a positive feedback loop - with prices going up, fewer home users / enthusiasts will buy them, thus they'll get even more expensive.....

I agree with your post, but I think there can be a little bit more to it than probability - namely the feeling that you have control over a situation.

e.g. you might feel that it's much easier to avoid being hit by a car than surviving an attack from behind in the dark by a guy with a knife.

What about lifeforms with lifespans of 1000's of years?

Their perception of time could be vastly different to ours - maybe a few hundred years travel time wouldn't be too bad for them?

Or dual boot.

Well homicide is already illegal, so I'll leave that aside...

But ban accidents and suicide, and you'll immediately drop that number by 66%.

Are you saying that doesn't make a difference then? Four seconds sounds like a very significant amount of time for a gunman to drop his defences - both for the possibility of people escaping, or attacking the attacker. Plus, who's to say he won't fumble the reload, especially if he feels someone is about to fight back?

By the way, when people speak out against high capacity magazines, perhaps they also include 10-round ones. Reduce magazine capacity to 6, make it harder to reload... your argument gets weaker again.

Cool, then I can afford a flight with Golden Spike!

Wow, I hope that's not true.

I, for one, have absolutely no interest in funding a passenger ride for one of my countrymen for no reason other than to tick off a box.

Of course, if there's a high chance of them not coming back, I might reconsider.

Yeah, that made it into F1 via the Brabham BT46 in the 70's, only to be quickly banned, probably for the very reason you mention above - possibility of death.

It is definitely worth coming back... I've been watching since 1991, and 2012 has been one of the best seasons I've seen, if not the best.

I did say level the field "at least a little bit," and it's inferred that it's in a financial sense. :)

Of course they're not trying to equalise everything - it's a team sport, not an individual one. No matter what people think, it is fair that some drivers have better cars than others. And people often forget that one of the developers of the car is the driver himself.

But reduce the financial gap between the back and the front of the grid, and you have a more reasonable barrier to entry, a chance for mid-level teams to make a dent on the bigger ones, and avoid the bigger teams spending each other into bankruptcy.

Thing about F1 though is the incredible g-forces, under turning and especially under braking. These are dependent on the extreme downforces that can only be generated at high speeds. So I wouldn't say that speed isn't important.

Rallying, 100% agree.

Touring cars I just can't get into, though I am certainly not blind to the appeal. For me, it seems too easy to get away with driving like an idiot, bumping other cars, out-braking yourself and taking the guy in front out - you just don't see the same disciplined racing as you see in open-wheel categories. (of course those guys can be idiots too, but they tend not to get away with it without damaging their own car, and so learn quickly).