There is no chance of a hydrogen economy. The production of hydrogen by electrolysis is then followed by a compression stage to 5000 psi (now there is a bomb for you!!!). This energy of compression is mostly lost, about 30% could be recovered by letting the hydrogen for the fuel cells de-compress (expand) via a small turbine. This electricity can be stored in a battery to assist the fuel cell electricity storage. The production of hydrogen by electrolysis or from coal/coke is very inefficiecnt
Hydrogen has the widest known explosive range of any gaseous fuel, so any leaks will constitute a great risk of explosion - far worse than the Tesla. A car full of compressed hydrogen, refilled and used again and again, is sure to leak. Sure they will put some sticky tracer in the hydrogen so you can smell it, but it can still detonate with the tiniest spark.
Lithium or other future batteries will block any chance hydrogen has of success. They might get fully swappable lithium batteries in quick swap battery cases, so a battery change takes a minute or so - much like a fill up of gas.
Capacitors will never work, the energy density is too low, Capacitors are the functional equivalent of a spring - fast, but not large enough.

By the action of the ratchet of science, gains are made, promulgated and further gains built on those gains. The time between gain is variable, but gains are inevitable, as are forks with some growing faster, some slower and some withering or merging back. That is how radio and TV and all physics grew, and so will AI knowledge grow. The people without clean water choose their corrupt leaders, as we chose clean water. They are free to copy us, but they prefer to spend their money on faction fights and not on sanitation and clean water. We do have cures for cancer. There are many types of cancer. 100 years ago = all fatal. Now we can cure some and slow others. Every year we make gains on curing each of the disparate types of cancer, and hopefully solving the jumping gene viruses that seem to be responsible for many of them.
Oil will not run out. We now grow oil, not fossil oil, vegetable oil. Another 50 years and the Tesla type battery cars will rule all vehicles. Internal combustion engines will pass into history as the CO2 grows and the arctic ice all melts, and solar gets above 50% and most combustion processes will not be used for power or transportation.
The Lithium batteries get better year by year. They are now capable of gasoline range, another 10 years = 2-3 times gasoline range or smaller in size to suit the weight/cost needed to give 300-400 miles per charge.
The government does not have the power of will to eliminate corruption in construction. These unions need curbing.
We also need to make 500 year or 1000 year bridges. The Romans used iron reinforcing that were lead dipped to prevent rust. We can galvanize all steel used in construction. The concrete can also be made to endure. Just add 30% to the cost = 1000 year reinforced concrete. We do not do it now because the politicians are concerned with it lasting until the next election, not with endurance.
http://simplesupports.wordpres...

http://www.redorbit.com/news/t...

Bright lights, like this loon, are all part of the "man is not ready......." pseudo religious bullshit".

In fact, we will progress to artificial life and artificial intelligence in erratic steps - some large, some small - some hard, some easy.
Easy is logic, easy is memory and lookups, easy is speed - hence Watson as we start to climb the connectedness/co-relatedness/content addressable memory ladder. (Content addressable memory {CAI } is like a roll call in the Army - "Private Smith?" - "here"). A lot of the aspects of intelligence are ramifications of CAI, and other aspects of interconnectedness. Add in the speed and memory depth and more and more aspects of an AI emerge. As time goes, step by step, intelligence will emerge. It might be like an infant that needs to learn as we do, but at a far higher speed - zero to 25 years old in 5 minutes???. Experiential memories - can they be done at high speed, or must that clock take longer?.

The precise timing of these stages elude me, but I believe they will emerge with time.

As to whether or not this AI will be a malevolent killer, or one of altruistic aspect??? It seems to me that this will depend on how is is brought up.
(until an AI can reproduce sexually - no he/she). Can a growing AI be abused - mentally, as in children are abused?? I suspect that with no sexuality that there will be no casus abusus. That is not to say that ways to abuse a growing AI are impossible to find - they will emerge in time.

As these AIs emerge, how smart will they be? and IQ of 25 or one of 25,000,000?? This might bear some relationship with how these AIs treat mankind, as a student at man;s knee, or as something that looks down at man with an IQ of 100 and also sees bees and ants with with a group IQ of 25? and muses - what's the difference and thinks of other things...

Ah yes, smart trained cashiers = too costly for Walmart
minimum wage dummies have additional costs. In addition the cashier might be in on it. Just get a friend with a few thousand bucks to buy a 20, one after another as discrete sales.
Sell on Ebay for $300 - repeat as needed.

I expect the plug was soon pulled on this scam because it has such a high degree of viral amplification inherent in it.

Well, Coal is very high in carbon, little hydrogen. Natural gas has a CH4 has 4 hydrogen to 1 carbon. Thus one CH4 burns to CO2 and 2-H2O
The heat from the H combustion adds no CO2 to the air and coal is over 90%(varies a lot with hard/soft coal - google that). In addition, the combustion of hydrogen makes more heat per mole than the combustion of carbon.

In fact, it is the AC who is in denial and delusional in his belief that this is a doomed area.
The limiting factor is the fact that the projectile is discharged into air, with huge drag.
If you look at the rail guns made by the US military, you can see the plasma created by travel through the air after it exits the vacuum seal = huge drag. Even a 20 KM vacuum tunnel at a 45 degree angle that discharged at 14 Km above ground would still have a lot of drag to battle, however, we must also realize that every rocket launched must pass through that same regime..

Thus, you might be able to launch a multi stage rocket from an equatorial mountain at 45 degrees to reach a fairly high velocity at about 4 miles up, fulfilling the role of the first stage and the second subsequent stages ignite in the atmosphere after exiting the launch tube.

Would there be a net saving that offsets the cost of the tube? With no need to limit the acceleration to human limits, it might be well suited to supply missions.

Now, Will US workers revolt when they are set to India to be paid $1.21, in accordance with local laws and scale? Or will they quit, solving a problem.

For the explanation.
I expect the feds to rule on the fraud aspect once word gets out, to prevent the burden going to cardholders.
I expect all these new systems will indeed reduce fraud. The USA is the last to use chip and pin cards (we have had them here in Canada for 2 years). Chip and pin has stopped most frauds.
I think competitive forces will cause people to avoid shopping at those places for a year, and CVS etc will find it costly to deny both Apple and ANdroid NFC systems, once their competitors get on board.

The credit card people - where are they in Apple Pay? Are they out and apple pay is between you and apple and apple provides the credit and take the fee? Or is there an extra fee overlaid on the credit card fees that the retailer pays?

These added fees now reach over 4%, which is a lot.
No wonder Rit-aid and CVS are against it.

These officers should be fired because they know better than to be a bunch of giggling school boys, and should be judged accordingly

Buy an industrial aluminum external mount box with gasket sealed top and bottom you bolt on and seal.
It must also have sealed power and monitor data entry/exit and whatever on-off/reset switch is needed.
You need to transfer heat from the CPU to the walls. The standard CPU cooler is fine, it transfers the heat to the inside air - but you also need to couple the internal air heat to the wall. So you mount a few aluminum fanned heat sinks flat to the aluminum walls by screws to the brackets that the case will have because you chose such a case from a catalog. For a typical system that dissipates about 300 watts, and the heat sinks will need thermal grease to the walls.
A sealed oil filled case will also work, remove the fan and rely on bulk convection to the low viscosity oil that fills the case totally. This will also need power, data, reset in/out.

There might be cases that fit your needs off the catalog floor = $$$

Some egg laying related chemical change causes the female octopus to die after the breeding cycle is complete.
I have never heard of any of the many assorted species of octopi to be long lived - please correct me if another know differently?

If this process can be halted, there seem to be a number of species of octopus that might develop intellectually to rival man, since they already seem as capable as many lesser species like crows and monkeys - to a degree, as the life media differs so.

I wonder if there have been any training trials with octopi? I suspect there have been. some links
http://bit.ly/1yFZ4Vk

I think there is a need for some research into the life cycle to see what can be done?

once the issues are clear and a position is taken and the movement gathers steam, then a campaign of obfuuscation will be created to muddle the minds of a lot of weaker minded voters.

How can this be guarded against?

Yes, the facts should be checked and once the truth is known, the proper action taken. This can range from full re-instatement of the job offer to confirmation of academic fraud. As it sits, it appears that someone who lost out on that $350,000 job decided to poison the waters, and it worked. Be a good idea to inspect those on that short list...

many companies all over the world hear as their business goes down the drain.

Traders in the distant past found good far far away, in distant lands and imported them to USA/Europe etc and often made huge profits. By control over sources by distance or contractual right or a royal decree, these traders became the huge mercantile traders of the olden days, when stuff went by camel or sailing ship etc.

Fast forward to the era of the container ship, computerized customs clearing and full information via the web. You can now order a 10 pound amount from Alibaba for $10 a pound, delivered to your door by UPS for $100 plus local freight and the small duty (under 5%). The local guy who used to buy 10,000 pounds and import it, store it and break it down to 10 and 25 and 50 pound lots to buyers is totally screwed. He can no longer ask for $30 per pound - or more. repeat this with the 5000 differnt products he imports to his warehouses and sells and hie reason to exist vanishes, along with his employees, his warehouses etc.
All that remains is a container yard and each container holds hundreds of pre-sealed and addressed boxes, with all import papers done online, with each imported earning the complete trust of US customs by never making an error in prior inspections of random boxes = very low cost and delay in the process.
This is part of the great commercial leveling that is underway (and has been underway for the past 50 years, with electronic communications and container freight and relaxed trade barriers).

So stuff gets cheaper, jobs here go away, and jobs in other places happen. The only way to fix this it we all get the same wages for the same work all over the world - which is slowly happening. After all, why should guys in China work for less than we do? we are all men and women of equality?