But they do have a resource consumption problem...

Actually, rats don't like cheese: http://www.victorpest.com/advice/rodents-101/myths

Their lobbyists were a bunch of stinking rats that took the money and ran.

Maybe you need to learn what "Re:" means. It means reply. In the context here, it means that I was replying to the parent poster, who was suggesting a system where the capsules would be lobbed 5 miles in mid air between each other. In such as system, a lot of acceleration would be necessary to hit the next station 5 miles away, and during that airborne vault, the user would feel 0 g.

The g forces of such a system would make passengers sick.

I think you put too much faith in these "needy" adults to do much of anything. There are many countries where people live in far worse conditions with far more unemployment and far less military and police technology to deal with these types of things. I also don't think you'll get very far with the government with a rising minimum wage, at least not in any meaningful sense.

Why do you thing the US G keeps printing money expect as a way to reduce everyone's effective paycheck even further than what it is now?

Who is "Bad Connections Dog" and why is he interested in the Mountain View Wi-Fi Network?

Wouldn't it make sense to teach this in the public school system? It has the same characteristics as math, reading, science, etc. It's something people aren't motivated to learn because it has no immediate benefit to them, but will help them out in the long run.

Damn straight! I've had it up to here with these so called scientists. If it's not hot out, right now, in the exact location where you live, we can all put this global warming fear mongering to bed!

Having a better idea of what the future will bring regardless of your control still should be something you think about. What if your doctor told you had incurable cancer and will die within 6 months? Would you continue to go to work as normal, because you have no control over it, or would you party like there is no tomorrow?

What if were studying advanced basket weaving in college and the job market soured in basket weaving? Would you not worry about it because have no control over the job market, or would you switch majors to something more potentially profitable?

So, then if there is a good chance that the environment will be get extremely fucked up (not sure of this, but just for argument's sake), would you put off that trip around the world 10 more years like you were planning to, or would you take it now? Would you have a family and curse your children to live in a dystopian future, or would you take the humanitarian route and have no kids?

I used to stay in cheap hostels and in Singapore there was one which was infested with bed bugs. I was getting bit every night until I found that if I sprayed a ring of high powered DEET insect repellent in a ring around the edges of the mattress, the bed bugs wouldn't cross the ring and therefore wouldn't bite me. (I had a DEET spray that was supposed to last 8 hours). Better than spraying yourself with DEET every night.

I have heard they can climb on the ceiling and drop down, but thankfully that didn't happen (maybe it's a rare occurrence?).

3.844 x10^8 meters, N. Armstrong

For a captcha for the blind, how about the question "Which sentence makes sense?" and grab a sentence from some out of copyright book or something with four other computer generated ones, that are grammatically correct, but otherwise are nonsensical. Something like:

A. He was a light, slow, and there is a small Saturn -- away from a high flame lying in the life within it.
B. This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp.
C. Its neck was a novel entitled "Kaleidoscope Vision," which is hat crinkle were like fresh glass domain key
D. He was shrill the world was a greenish drink at me that leads to allow the cold water

And that is what ultimately will carry this technology forward...