I very much agree with your sentiment, and sincerely hope you are right in this, but with world oil consumption still on the rise and peak oil production having occurred sometimes in the late 70's, I just can't manage to be optimistic about this.

I guarantee that we're going to stop using oil frivolously, but I fear it's not going to be because we can, but rather because we will be forced to, through the sheer economics of the situation.

I get the sense that you're being sarcastic here, but I honestly believe you're on to something.

After all, it is getting more and more expensive (both in terms of money and energy) to retrieve crude oil. Once the energy cost of producing a barrel of oil exceeds the energy we can retrieve from it, there is going to be a huge market for alternative sources for oil.
If the cost of recycling plastics back into oil becomes lower than pumping up new oil, this becomes a viable alternative.

Why is JBIs solution supposed to be a better alternative than the UN sponsored machine made by Blest (founded by Akinori Ito)?
IIRC, /. reported on this earlier this year, but no-one mentions a comparison between these solutions.

Check out the article and the video about Blests "plastic to oil" solution.

From what I can see, two of Blests major advantages, is that the equipment is so small that it's portable, and that it requires no chemical additives to do its thing.
That's going to be a huge factor when it comes to introducing this to the developing countries, which we most definitely will need to do in the long run.

It's a shame you posted that as AC, because that truly deserves a "5, Funny".
Well, perhaps with a "but slightly distasteful" addendum, but what real comedy isn't?

Not true. At least not everywhere.
The AnsaldoBreda Driverless Metro is already in operation in Copenhagen, Denmark.
It feels strange to sit in the front seat of the first car, with a completely undisturbed view of the tracks, but (at least for my part) it still feels completely safe.

Troll? Seriously?
Come on! It was a direct reference to the nature of the quote being discussed.
I would have thought the ";)" was implied.

Are you calling me stupid? Because I'm sure you're not implying that I misquoted that on purpose.

what can be attributed to stupidity.

1) Microsoft cheated by optimizing Internet Explorer 9 solely to ace the SunSpider Bechmark. To me, this seems like the best explanation.
2)Microsoft engineers working on Internet Explorer 9 could have been using the SunSpider Benchmark and unintentionally over-optimized the JavaScript engine for the SunSpider Benchmark. This seems very unlikely to me.

I see no reason why explanation number one is more likely than explanation number two.

You gotta love the page source comment for that site :)

If they can make it open enough (and dialing the censorship back to a bare minimum) so as to harness the incredible creativity that's seen in all the Minecraft videos online, then they may be onto a winning formula.
Because that game is more than a little bit addictive.

Pardon me for choosing the wrong word to describe that webpage, but what is the practical difference in regard to my original point?

Not only is Wikipedia aware of the concept, but they have an article devoted to why they're no longer using them