Exactly. In 1983 computers were slow and awkward (might take 15 minutes to boot up, and required special skillz to operate), transmission rates were slow (I knew someone in 1981 who would use his 90 baud modem to check if he had email - but then would drive to the university where he worked to read the email if he had any - it was faster), and in many areas phone service was expensive and by the minute even for local calls. Add all these together and there simply wasn't enough demand at the time - such things were toys for the rich.

Thanks to the rich people for paying the R&D for today's internet, however!

"The criticism from the Chief Inspector of Nuclear Installations was withering: “The Plant was operated in a culture that seemed to allow instruments to operate in alarm mode rather than questioning the alarm and rectifying the relevant fault.” "

Anyone who actually works for a living will understand how common this is. For most workers, every new safety procedure is one more opportunity to take a nap on company time, or one more annoyance to be worked around or ignored. I've had jobs where other workers complained if I wore safety glasses because it made them look bad for not wearing theirs. The only reason I don't face significant social pressure to ditch my glasses is because I need them to see - even though they have successfully protected my eyes from flying debris on numerous occasions.

There is no solution for human carelessness, laziness, or obstinacy, except to remove the humans entirely - or at least human decision-making. Changing to equipment and materials that are inherently safer works, but safety guards on equipment will be hastily removed the first moment a worker has an excuse - even the appearance of a malfunction will do - and they will not be replaced. In fact, they will be discarded immediately to ensure that they cannot be replaced. A very strict safety program may reduce such things a little, but the pressure must be constant.

If systems can be fully automated, and put under the supervision of a perfectionist, that may be sufficient. Otherwise, it is a good thing that nuclear plants and most everything life critical is over-engineered.

"There are 313 million people living in the US as of 2012. Maybe 30 million live in NYC (and that's being generous) so that's what ~1%?"

It looks like the education majors finally found Slashdot.

No, warrants aren't required to weed out flimsy cases. Warrants are required to protect people from official abuse.

Imagine a waterbed with baffles: the baffles prevent the water from sloshing around the moment the mattress bears a new load. Without these baffles, when a person lays down on the bed there will be waves going everywhere, and depending on how full the mattress is the person may even bump on the platform beneath the mattress before the water evens out and the load is supported. On the other hand, if the baffles prevented water from moving at all, there would be limited compensation for any load - the water could only spread out within the limits of each section, and the mattress would probably seem hard and bumpy. The mattress might be too hard in one section and too soft in another.

Baffles work because they allow water to pass from one section to another, but not too quickly. They exist in that sweet spot between the two extremes of too many connections and not enough connections. Air mattresses are similar. So are networks.

Got some mod points, tried to mod this up - accidentally hit "off topic". Hopefully posting in this thread will reverse it.

Also underwhelmed. About the first three quarters of that junk I could fit inside the front chest pocket of my Massif Inferno jacket, without even starting on the two zippered handwarmer pockets, the two inside pockets, or the sleeve pocket - and my jacket has the added advantage of being a warm, durable, nice-looking jacket, AND fire resistant (Nomex fleece).

I also found that incident very disturbing. People who would boo the Golden Rule can only be sociopaths, cowards or imbeciles, and I suspect they are all three.

A little different than the U.S., where it's either jail or Congress.

I agree. Climate skepticism is not the same as creationism, because climate skepticism (right or wrong) is based on skepticism about the quality of the evidence and analysis of the facts, whereas creationists simply assert that the Bible is 100% correct, that their understanding of the Bible is similarly 100% correct, and that opposing evidence does not count. Climate skeptics could be convinced if they see compelling evidence. The climate believers are the ones more likely to reject contradictory facts (though many of the actual researchers are more willing to consider contradictory evidence), and are more like creationists in that respect.

In case you hadn't noticed, everything is a felony these days.

But I agree that a second conviction for theft should carry a very long sentence. Many crimes are crimes of passion, committed under circumstances that are unlikely to be repeated - and many more "crimes" are not really crimes at all - but theft has real victims and thieves have a very high recidivism rate. If there is one crime that we should punish with very long vacations from polite society, it should be theft.

Those beliefs are certainly one factor in home schooling, but many of the original pioneers actually were hippies, and there is still a significant non-religious contingent.

I guess you're saying that Richard Stallman is the modern day Thomas Paine?

Maybe they haven't been around the sort of guys who honestly believe the magical theory of business, by which businessmen make huge profits by buying expensive equipment because the "tax write-off" is greater than the value of the equipment. Coincidentally, of course, this makes it ethical for these same guys to steal/neglect/sabotage this equipment, because the boss will just make more money by paying to replace it.

If you've never actually heard these cretins who believe you must be a sucker to believe otherwise, you wouldn't believe they exist.

I was thinking the same thing. Using "miraculous" in the sense of "extremely unlikely to happen", the miracle is that this piece hit a house at all in an underpopulated region such as Siberia, not that it missed the people living in the house.