It's a relatively new currency using a new model that takes free market ideas to a new extreme; there is no central authority to ease the peaks and troughs - and no long term consequences as a result. It is going to be bumpy to start with. If it is still all over the place in ten years (assuming it lasts that long) then I will consider it a failure. Meanwhile it is for speculators to have fun with. Kids these days are so impatient.

"Alas, having the machines do all the work liberates the working man to abject poverty and crime or starvation. Economies function on scarcity, and if you don't have natural scarcity, you invent artificial scarcity." The economic system is something that almost has to change for many other changes to happen. There is no reason why it won't. The free market isn't a god, just a system that has worked well for a long time, but it is in need of a a major overhaul as the globe connects up, resources deplete, jobs dry up and computer automation make the stock market a joke.

I made a 3D model of the first level. I had too much time on my hands in those days. I was going to make the whole set as a cube, but I never finished it. Probably got hooked on the next game to come along.

You're right, in that the OP pointed out that they could not attend this, but I didn't know the book was used in the class, so the info was useful nonetheless.

Except you don't want to boot up one day with an urgent task to perform only to discover that your user interface has completely changed. There are pros and cons to this.

Have you been living on the moon or something because over here in Yorkshire I can see them just fine. http://www.google.com/+1/button/ You only see the buttons if you are logged on to your Google+ account.

Except when it comes to defense. Which is a very large part of the budget.

Still less than 10 here. I must be a philistine.

"And one of the big problems we’re working on today is car safety and efficiency."

Regarding efficiency, they are clearly oblivious to Jevons Paradox. I''d say this development is more likely to increase car use than decrease it, even if it increases car sharing.

I'd love to have one though.

I didn't have an overly clean childhood. I am a very sensitive to gluten. Does my anecdotal evidence disprove your position?

Human psychology is much more complex than that. The reason it tends towards this at the moment is very much a part of the environment of the social structure we find ourselves in. For example, if you look at many tribal systems, you find that people tend to be much more co-operative, with a gift economy being the main means of exchange of value.

Wrong. They would be drilling in both.

The free distribution of information on the internet is challenging the fabric of a meritocratic society. This is why the copyright question is so difficult to answer. The judge makes perfect sense from a meritocratic perspective, but do we want that? I would prefer we moved towards a new set of values (probably peer based anarchism), but this would ultimately involve overhauling our entire politico economic system, pretty much in the same way that the renaissance and scientific enlightenment moved us from an autocratic/monarchist system to the meritocratic one we have today.