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Comment Re:Really? (Score 1) 349

Dude, the people with BBs are the most social people I've met. Whether it's email or facebook messenger or BBM or WhatsApp, the unified messaging interface and the fast typing is the sole reason to use them... If "ahead of the game" means the same iDevice as your grandma - well, let's just say you are welcome to your hires.

Comment Re:carriers = projected air power (Score 1) 718

The saber rattling is not about cruise missiles that can be shot down by R2D2. The saber rattling is about ballistic missiles, 15-ton kinetic energy penetrators that are repurposed ICBMs and reach Mach 10 or so. Even in the unlikely case that a Phalanx or countermissile can hit it directly and destroy it, that will only mean that you now have 15 tons of supersonic tungsten/depleted uranium shrapnel incoming...

Comment Re:Seems fair to me (Score 1) 626

Zuck's success came entirely and exclusively from his access to the Harvard student community. If you have any familiarity with the spread of Facebook across the networkers of the world, the fact that the early adopters were high status Harvard friends of Zuck rather than random high school students from Armpit, Nebraska was the main factor for the fast spread and wide geographic adoption.

Comment Re:Hard to see how this could happen (Score 1) 648

Do we have driverless trains?

Yes, quite a few, starting from 40 years ago. Interestingly, the train drivers' unions managed to keep staff on many of these trains - even if the train drives automatically, there often is a person who checks tickets or pushes the door-close buttons even if it is entirely unnecessary.

Comment Re:DUI's and balance sheets. (Score 2) 648

Well, it would eliminate some traffic police, traffic lawyer and prison industry positions. But that would be small fry compared to the amount of taxi drivers and truckers that would be out of jobs.

In the end, whether you see it as utopia or dystopia depends on your confidence level in human nature -- whether you think society can find useful ways of make-work or self-actualization for all the unemployed people made obsolete by progress.

Comment Re:Sounds great (Score 1) 648

If you can ferry one 7am commuter and one 9am commuter with one car, you already halved the cost. If you allow automatic carpooling with 3 people for each of these rides, you're down to less than 20% of the cost of having your own car.

Another way of doing it is to have a light rail system like BART and combine it with short robot-taxi shuttles from the home to the station and from the station to work. This also allows the robot-taxi to pick up 4-6 rides per rush-hour period.

Comment Re:GW (Score 2) 1181

Don't be a horse, then, and mention the real number... Of course, the real number is 97.4%, and still supports his point.

Anderegg, William R L; James W. Prall, Jacob Harold, and Stephen H. Schneider (2010). " Expert credibility in climate change". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 107 (27)

Doran, Peter T.; Maggie Kendall Zimmerman (2009). "Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change". EOS 90 (3): 22–23

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