I think it's more a function of them having access to those tools and being about to act out on all those fantasies and wishes. I knew lots of people growing up that would have loved to have access to this stuff to do the same. Most of them don't, even now that the tools are available to them. I suspect that it has more to do with them having matured and getting a better view of the reality surrounding them.

Most of these kids streaming and whatever will eventually give up on it when they realize it's not getting them anywhere. Some of them with stick with it just because they find they honestly enjoy it as a hobby even if it ends up being a net financial loss. And some select few will manage to make a career of it. We'll likely continue to see this happen as younger generations try to emulate the successes that they've seen come before them. Just look at how many people turn out for those televised talent show auditions. I'll bet they have hundres or thousands of applications to every act that they actually even put before the judges, let alone show on air for 15 seconds or less.

Honestly I could care less what those people are doing for the most part, or even that they are doing it and possibly making a living. It doesn't affect me by and large, I watch a couple youtubers because their stuff entertains me. I could just as easily watch some TV, read a book, or practice my own incredibly bad singing or something. If someone wants to put themselves out there for everyone to critique and fawn over that's their deal and it's no skin off my back.

I'm not sure what you mean by, extort honesty. I'm guessing you mean that the demand from the person holding evidence is that the other person come clean and reveal what they have done, thus negating the evidence? If that is what you mean, I don't know if it'd be considered blackmail or not, though I suspect it still would be. If the evidence being witheld is not directly related to whatever they want the other person to reveal then it would definitely be blackmail.

Examples of the above in order:
A. I catch a friend's spouse cheating and threaten to reveal their discretion to their spouse unless they do so on their own.
B. I catch a friend's spouse cheating and threaten to reveal their discretion to their spouse unless they admit to something else that they have done wrong.

I'm not sure that B makes any sense outside of a movie plot. For A I'm not entirely sure it would be called blackmail, but I suppose it still could as the outcomes of being outed for something, and coming out on your own terms for the same thing, usually bear very different consequences for the individual involved. Generally the judicial system looks very poorly on blackmail, even if it's done with good intentions, because keeping evidence of wrongdoing secret from it prevents the system from doing its job properly, or at all.

No, blackmail is when one person of group has evidence of another person or group having done something either illegal or otherwise embarrassing that they would prefer to keep private, the person with the evidence has to threaten to release that information unless their demands are met, usually some personal profit is the demand.

In this case the person holding the evidence passed it along to other parties for use in legal procedings and possibly to the media. They did not try to use it to extort anything out of the person who was the subject of the video.

Sealed bids is still haggling, you just only get to make the one offer instead of constantly going back an forth.

In the case of London real estate you're still negotiating, you're just on the other side where you need to offer better terms to out compete other offers. In markets that are slower people will very often take less than the asking price because they are under various pressures to sell. A house is a very large and unweildy asset, typically when people are selling a house they are still making mortgage payments on it, so the faster they can sell it the less money they lose to mortgage interest. If the house is unoccupied the risk of it being vandalized goes up considerably, which will end up devaluing the property as well as adding costs to repair it. Houses are definitely one of the purchases that you should negotiate.

Some of the indigenous people of South America did a remarkable job of building structures out of stone which are very earthquake safe. Not that it's a very cost effective method of construction. Although, with modern technology perhaps we could produce generic blocks with enough precision cheaply.

Bullying is really just dressed up harrassment. And the states have all had their own various definitions for that for a very long time. Like much of the body of law they all depend heavily on what a jury of your peers or a judge might find to be reasonable. So far as harrassment and bullying goes I haven't seen much concern regarding whether or not it's constitutional. Revenge porn is treading a pretty fine line in regards to whether or not it is harrassment. Building a business around it is a pretty foolhardy thing to do, though I suppose if you came out on top legally it could make you pretty wealthy.

My understanding was that cargo vessels have very small crews these days and they spend most of their time doing maintenance type stuff. The ocean is a pretty hostile environment for things made of steel. I imagine we will eventually replace those crews with robots, but for now it's cheaper to pay people to do it.

True but not worth crying about. Most people are selfish to some extent and of course that will play into everything they do and even more so when it comes to big purchases like a car.

The solution is to continue improving the state of the art until you get to the point that the electric car is priced similarly to an ICE car. Or until the feature difference is so large that consumers will pay for it regardless, just look at the success of smart phones as a good exmple.

Luckily that seems to be just what Tesla is working towards. They started at the high end making sports cars and luxury sedans. Next is an SUV, and after that hopefully we'll be getting a family sedan. Although I'd love to buy a Model S as my family sedan for now it's more important to build my retirement savings.

When you say "3000 charge/discharge cycles before being degraded to 80% capacity" what kind of cycle is that? Does partially draining the battery and then recharging it count as a full cycle? My understanding was that for lithium based batteries discharging them fully was more harmful than multiple partial discharges and recharges.

If we can get more than half a million miles out of a Tesla battery pack and still have 80% capacity that would be awesome!

Another question though, and this is showing my ignorance. I'm assuming that the Tesla's use Lithium cells. And I thought that Lithium based batteries degraded over time even if they weren't being used. If that is still correct what kind of loses would we expect.

I had much the same thought about the size of the toxic lake. That said the city doesn't really look like it'd support the quoted 2.7 million workers either. I wonder if google is displaying older images or something.

It is also a lot easier and cheaper to recycle the batteries for an electric car than mine for all new materials. Those worn out battery packs are far from a complete loss. And while an electric motor may wear out it's likely that the rare earth parts can be re-used as the just don't wear out.

That is currently the largest privately owned system. DHS is obviously unhappy with the hodge podge of such systems, and their relatively small size. It wants one big system it can own and not have to ask to access.

It's also fun to fill such profiles with obviously false or inaccurate information. I'm always amused by the birthday wishes I get on New Years day, when I'm supposedly turning 114 or some such.

As someone else pointed out far above, there is actually a variety of legal uses for flamethrowers. I've seen them used by landowners to conduct controlled burns to keep underbrush down and help prevent wild brush fires.

The vast majority of people who have accounts get hacked aren't getting physical visits from the attacker. Hell keeping your pass phrase on a sticky note under your keyboard isn't that dangerous either unless you are specifically protecting against an insider threat.