One of the best things about automated cars will be the ability to get home after drinking. Not much of an issue in built up areas with public transport, but being able to get home from the pub will be great for the social lives of people in rural areas.

I am going to assume then that you are one of those assholes who are so absolutely arrogant you feel you can do whatever you like and fuck the consequences for everyone else? Those people are usually labeled as criminals.

If you are talking about a major impact that does not cause human extinction, we could still be talking about loss of a significant proprtion of the species through a very very long winter. If we had a 20 year long global winter, we'd probably still be able to grow food in equatorial and tropical regions. Guess its a good thing we have invested in making sure the best infrastructure and the brightest minds are in places like central Africa, Equador, and south Asia. We'll only lose all the hangers on and lazy people in noerthern Eurasia and north America. Also a good thing that all the textbooks are in Swahili and Mara.

"Furthermore, we identify ve additional historical mass extinction events that might be explained by the motion of the Sun around our Galaxy."
Where is the claim to have explained everything? I think there is an inherent suggestion in the above that further investigation is warranted. The paper does propose more than one possible mechanism, and I would guess that it could be that there have been more than one respnsible for historical events. I see this paper as merely saying that interesting stuff can happen when you're in a more interesting part of the galaxy.

Did you get to vote on that then?

The amount of light from the sun is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the sun. For Earth, that would mean we receive at aphelion 93.533% of we get at perihelion. On Uranus due to its more eccentric orbit, that figure is 83.716%. Those figures are based on orbital data on wikipedia so may not be entirely accurate, but it does show that Uranus is more susceptible to change based on what part of its orbital cycle it is in than Earth is.

That isn't really even needed. Lots of advertisements on "legit" sites that redirect to dodgy ones, and pull images from those dodgy ones.

Stop making masturbation jokes, and stay focused.

Last I checked, you started your doctorate after getting a degree.

Ok, there are probably some places that are largely unchanged. But look at the Mississippi. It was at least a mile wide for a large part of its course, back in the day. Now it runs in a narrow channel to the sea, minus what we take out to purify for our needs. That is a major continental change in wetlands. Just that 1 river.

Never going to happen. These clowns (Comcast's lawyers), as soon as they saw the website was contesting it, realised that this particular line of bullshit litigation would be shot down in flames immediately by the first judge who saw it. Its one thing being creative with interpreting laws relating to technology and explaining it to old men with no idea what you're talking about, quite another trying to do the same with legal procedure to a guy who both knows damn well how the law works, and has the power to slap you down if he thinks you're trying to step on his toes.

Those are two entirely different things. Untouched by humans would indicate that the land is in its natural state, and if you use that definition it is a lot closer to 0% than 90%. It may be undeveloped and unused, but the wetlands have been mostly destroyed, and the megafauna slaughtered. These both have a massive effect on the ecology, sometimes for hundreds or even thousands of miles around.

Palestine GDP per capita (From the always correct and unfailingly infallible wikipedia, but I'll use it anyway)

$1924 (West Bank)
$876 (Gaza)

We're not talking orders of magnitude in difference.

I agree with the sentiment, but I am inclined to believe the "awkward choice of words by a non-native speaker of English" argument. It's not like that particular choice of words is even unambiguous to native speakers; if I said "I'm going to make up a batch of beer", friends will be calling around looking for a drink.

/sigh