Back in the 90's, for non-standards compliance alone I would have enjoyed seeing a random manager from Microsoft hung by their wrists and flogged. Daily. But bullets and bombs I'd reserve for the terrorists themselves, the bastards.

The Olympics is a large surge of incoming people, but consider that Rio receives 2.82 million international tourist visitors per year (source: Wikipedia). I'd imagine the tourism numbers have come down since the heartbreaking pictures of those microencephalic babies appeared, but even a 50% decrease leaves a mess of people who could carry the virus home with them.

Whatever is going to happen with Zika is going to happen with or without the Olympics. And with global warming proceeding apace, the mosquitos are going to be spreading out of the tropical regions in any event. Get ready.

As long as we have energy and technology, nothing is really garbage, at least not permanently garbage. We know where the landfills are so we can mine them later once we know how to convert their contents into useful items again.

What's the fastest way to get the plug pulled on the simulation you're living in? Convince a significant fraction of the population that their existence is pointless because they live in a simulation. This will corrupt whatever experiment that's supposed to be occurring and the outraged grad student will ragequit the simulation and start over. Or maybe he'll restore from decades-old backups and arrange bizarre and agonizing deaths for Tyson and that meddling philosopher Bostrom.

What I wonder is why the imbecile didn't just hide his fun box with its many antennas? You know, just keep it in a backpack. He'd been caught jamming once already, so if he was going to be an ass and keep doing it, he could at least be a smart ass. They could still figure out it was him using surveillance cameras and statistical analysis, but it might take more work than the local police would be willing to put in.

Not just the Soviets. Everybody tried this back in the 80's. And the 70's, 60's, 90's and 00's. We've never had a drug-free era in sport, not in any of our lifetimes, not in any country involved in the Cold War.

This Radiolab episode follows a ransomware victim through the tricky process of paying off the criminals and getting her files back.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/...

What will happen is the construction sites will change or go away. There's so much $$$ to be gained from autonomous vehicle operation that if it comes down to that or the continuation of confusing construction zones, the construction industry will be forced to change. Instead of hand signals, crews will either erect real barriers or come up with standard signage.

Google's self-driving car is better than some people right now. It is certainly better than me--- I'm blind.

Let's say that a fully autonomous car needs to be a better driver than drivers who currently hold valid operator's licenses and pay the highest insurance premiums for their liability coverage. I think the current Google self-driving car is there already.

Or by ISP's dropping packets claiming to come from a netblock the ISP does not route. That would end all this spoofing attacks once and for all and would involve fixing many fewer machines.

Greg Egan claims there are no photos of him on the Internet either, although I wonder how you could possibly verify that.

I think it equally likely that manufacturers will regulate themselves semi-voluntarily rather than be forced out of business. They'll make drones that refuse to fly in restricted locations. They'll make drones that land automatically if their batteries get low or if they lose the control signal or if ambient wind speeds are too high or any of a dozen dicey conditions in order to mollify angry legislators. Drones without the safety "smarts" will be banned.

> Dylan did it.

No, he didn't.

I'm not a child of the sixties so I missed his music the first time around. But I remember the first time I stumbled across the "We Are The World" video on MTV. All these great pop singers in a room together, so I figured it must be a benefit concert or something. Then in the middle of the song a guy comes on screen looking disheveled and singing like a cocker spaniel. I couldn't see what was wrong with him, but the contrast between his peformance and the others was obvious. So I figured the record must be for him and people like him. It was a long time before I realized who that song was really for and who that singer was. Imagine how surprised I was when I learned that singer was a legendary singer/songwriter.

Ah, well, the government will underwrite us all ex post facto. They paid out to 9/11 victim families, so why not?

How exactly do you prepare for a mag 9 earthquake? Have a backup plan for living without bridges, electricity, running water? There's so much concrete and steel construction that the cities probably won't burn to any great extent, but there's no protecting the basic infrastructure when the ground starts undulating like a Slinky.