Probably showing my political bias here, but I don't see how the current government is ruining the country - luckily they are fairly ineffectual so while they seem to be doing plenty of stupid things, the results are all fairly minor and inconsequential. So I would rate them as "tolerable".

My concern is that if the opposition gets in they will try to "fix" everything and cause all sorts of problems. And I worry that MrRabbit will allow his decisions to be heavily affected by what he thinks the imaginary man in the sky wants him to do (like he apparently did when he was health minister re mifepristone).

At least the current PM is a declared (if not ardent) atheist. Which takes some balls to admit if you are a politician.

Nor the term 2nd World.

'merica! Fuck Yeah!

Don't forget that baseball has 3 strikes. A strike is when you don't hit the ball.

Which helps explain why they are going all out to crush Bradley Manning. Not just convict him, but totally destroy his life. This will set an example to potential whistleblowers - your life will effectively be over.

I disagree. Microsoft don't have too much going for them these days, but one of the few things they do have is the momentum of Windows being the defacto standard operating system.

However, if someone could develop a drop-in replacement for Windows which was compatible with all the APIs, and thus could run all the existing Windows software, customers (individuals, companies and PC manufacturers) wouldn't need to go to Microsoft any more.

That would rapidly be the end of Microsoft. And I think they know it.

I assume you are in Soviet Capitalist Russia?

Thanks for this interesting aside.

I assume since you are well informed about this, you are aware of the Canadian Mincome scheme. I think it is mentioned in the Wikiipedia article on Basic Income Guarantee.
I read about it in an article I found through instapaper. This http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4100 may or may not be the one I read.

I'm deeply concerned that if something like this isn't implemented, we are in for societal collapse over the next 50-100 years as more jobs are lost due to automation and wealth becomes further concentrated.

It would also be interesting to study the profit levels of each of those industries. I wonder if there is another correlation.

Problem is, can you trust those reviews, especially now knowing that they don't have editorial independence?

You're dreaming! 223hp maybe, which is around 165kW.
A typical small car with a 2L engine would produce 95-120kW.

I think there's another aspect to this. Any artificially produced intelligence will be totally alien - it won't think like us.
I also wonder what will motivate it, whether it will object to being a lab curiosity, whether it will be paranoid, or a sociopath etc.

Perhaps a new field will develop - Machine Psychology.

As a poster above said:

I think there is no need to bring religion into it. People should be free to do what they want for whatever reason they want UNTIL IT AFFECTS OTHERS.
At that point they need to justify why their need is the greater. And believing in fairies, spirits and other nonsense is a pretty poor justification.

But here's the thing - if someone else submitted this exact same patent application, and had it granted, you can be pretty sure that a lawsuit against Apple would come along pretty soon. So they are kind of forced into applying for a patent on everything they are doing (or may want to do).
I don't think this is an Apple problem, more of a patent system problem.

Except when they are litres.