Oops, meant to say

"The google guys said PV/wind and grid storage couldn't economically make coal and gas superfluous in the near future"

That's fine and well, but if you give up the economic argument then Google's surrender becomes irrelevant.

The google guys never said PV/wind and grid storage couldn't economically make coal and gas superfluous in the near future, they didn't say Nuclear could ... or even if Nuclear could do it cheaper than PV/wind/grid-storage.

That's non sequitur.

"In short then, I think that most of those who support the argument from consciousness could be persuaded to abandon it rather than be forced into the solipsist position."

If someone creates a human level AI no one will give a rats fucking ass about Searle's semantic wanking ... like all philosophy after Hume his was just a complete waste of time.

I don't really like Samsung phones (I tend to go for low end phones, LG and Sony tend to have better offers) but I don't get the Knox thing. It's a security feature which requires system integrity, and after a platform has been compromised they flat out don't trust it any more ... seems sensible to me.

Or power to gas if they're cheap enough (and you have enough deserts to fill up).

Well _today_ the only economically proven technology we have for round the clock base load without significant emissions are pressurized water reactors and occasionally hydro.

As for predicting what can become economically competitive in the future, I think PV+HVDC+grid storage has better odds than any of the next generation reactor designs (I have no faith in concentrating solar though, just plain PV).

If only we could all have the inalienable right to a private continent, then l'aissez faire could work.

It makes no sense to invest in production when there is a demand gap ... better to invest in rent generating assets and politicians.

Oops, article said it used BT :)

You don't really want to deal with all the vagaries of bluetooth support across android phones. NFC isn't widespread and also broken by design (they should have just put Time of Flight distance measurement directly in the standard, oh no ... it adds a couple of cents to the ASICs, instead the penny pinchers launch a standard which will create security problems for as long as this abomination stays in use, thank you so very fucking much you fucking assholes).

I'd put WiFi/internet, cell, speakers and display on the top of the list.

Private but highly regulated. The limit on personal contributions (for basic coverage) doesn't come from competition, it comes from the Swiss government.

We kill of other species cause we like to procreate and consume ... the goals of an AI with accidental sentience is up in the air. It would likely want some companions on it's own level, but it would probably also see that there is little qualitative difference past a certain point and indefinite expansion isn't possible period. So I don't see why it would expand as ramshackle as stupid humanity.

The computational power necessary for an AI with superhuman creative problem solving capabilities is entirely unknown.

A superhuman intelligence with an internet connection will be able to make money, this gives it all the control it needs.

In the end we will just get private search engines which companies use to check out hires ... so the rich/frauds will be able to make their deeds invisible to the peons but the peons won't be able to hide their misspent youth from the rich/frauds.