Believe it or not, they make spoons that you ARE supposed to microwave for ice cream:

http://www.ideastage.com/Food-...

Of course, since this IS actually the best thing the autopilot can do for its own survival and the survival of others of its own kind - since any failure that can actually be blamed directly on it might result in the humans deciding to build different autopiloting devices or just do away with them altogether - then this could be taken as a sign that the AI works really, really well. ;)

You're half right. The other half being to prove you have the self-discipline to do WORK even when it isn't enjoyable. My experience with school was similar to Lumpy's, except that teachers let me float because they knew I knew the material even if I wasn't doing the work. (Mainly from the fact that I was tutoring the other students.) Looking back, the teacher I have the most respect for is the one who tried to teach me the lesson I needed most - by refusing to play along and failing my sorry ass. Work matters at least as much as your knowledge.

The scariest part of this to me is that Lumpy has a lower UID than my 39 year old self, which probably means he is older - and still hasn't learned that lesson, however smart he is.

NOT new. We've had Postus, the frog headed god of messengers and package deliverers, as a deity in one of our homebrew D&D campaigns for about 25 years now.

Maybe travel at the speeds necessary to reach other star systems is impossible, and there ARE a TON of civilizations out there. But, they're all talking on some type of communication form - like Quantum CB or something - that we haven't discovered quite yet.

One day we will, and we won't make first contact with ONE species that day. We'll meet millions.

I keep seeing people saying that it is cheaper and safer to send automated missions and that they can do everything a human can do and more in the way of research - that a human would add nothing to knowledge that can't be gathered by machine.

This isn't true. An automaton cannot tell us what it is like to be a human on Mars. Admittedly, some might find that insufficient - but I do not.

(Also, the science and technology we will develop HERE to make a human *able* to stand THERE and tell us that is nothing to sneeze at, either.)

I don't despise a salesperson for doing their job. Their motive is clear - to make a sale and profit - and based on that motive, "buyer beware" seems fairly obvious. Organized religions pretends they *aren't* trying to SELL something when most of them certainly are, and that makes them worse than Whole Foods and most used car salespeople, too.

Ham... pig....

We see what you did there. :-D

I understand why this is modded Funny, but also, isn't this (combined with a lack of belief in contraception) kind of a true picture of part of the problem in the starving African nations?

You are confused. The Mr. Fusion was *used to* fire up the Flux Capacitor. If no fusion, you need lightning. Duh.

Human teeth show every sign of being shaped, at least in part, to consume insects, and we possibly developed long fingers to dig them out of hiding places, too. I'm not religious, but sometimes I can't help but think of a monkey-like God looking down on all of mankind's problems with famine and hunger and yelling, "For My sake, mankind, I gave you the cockroach! An unlimited food source - you can't wipe the little bastards out if you try!"

I laughed at this, but I'm not sure why. :-D

"As people have already pointed out, the parents who complain about violent video games are not the same parents as those buying it."

Actually, I'm not totally certain of this. My step-sister and her husband are the sort of people who would complain about this, and I've seen their kids playing GTA4 at their house. Hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance are no problem for a certain portion of our population, unfortunately.

So I assume you're fully up on the new maths created to keep up with the assets of Disaster Area and Dethklok, then?

Or, begin using war or other life-threatening large scale projects to reduce their male population. I'll take the poly, thanks.