A big part of the problem is we are hooked on viewing nuclear power as a space aged ego gratifying source of electricity, just like Captain Nemo had. There are probably lots of good uses of a cylinder that gets dropped into a concrete sleeve in the ground providing simple very hot water.

Re #2: People do die from complicated and badly marked construction zones from human error. Happens all the time. So the computer does not have to be 100% to be vastly better than a human. Having the humility to slow down, instead of the human pride that causes us to drive hard forward in the face of uncertainty, will be a huge advantage to the computer program.

Please mod parent up! (Had mod points to burn just a couple days ago.)

How confusing the inputs of a system is to the computer is something that the program should be easily able to figure out, except in cases where the human drivers are hosed as well.

Yes, you can overtly accept debt when accepting assets, but you cannot take on stealth debt by accepting assets that appear to be free and clear when the estate is closed. That is a blatant violation of due process. If the IRS failed to give reasonable notice to the estate of the intention to attach a lien on assets, the debts are gone. They are creditors. Creditors who do not act in a timely manner when an estate is closing or a corporation is being liquidated are simply SoL.

We should take your data here and apply it to the topic on hand, then. The cultural norms of the time required Muhammad to have many such aristocratic marriages, for the purpose of cementing alliances. In the context of the time, across nearly the entire globe, Muhammad's behavior was not unusual for a man in his position.

There are certain ambiguities, because the competence of the average officer does not seem to gel with the seeming extreme ultra-elite status of Starfleet Academy depicted in some episodes. And part of the problem is the graduating classes seem far too small. It is possible that there are many routes into Starfleet, and the Academy is the fast track towards command positions. The best way to rationalize this may be that Starfleet Academy is like West Point -- not every officer in the US Army went to West Point, but it helps a lot if you want to make the grade of Colonel or General.

With technology, we can preserve a lot of genetic diversity in frozen embryos, eggs, sperm. So there are ways of mitigating the risk of genetic trait loss with a lower population.

It is a little more complicated than that because perception within field of view changes with distance. But your idea does suggest some interesting experiments: how/whether variations in stripe width and distance to striped object can affect insect flight patterns.

There will be transaction fees. Because of what jeremyp said. Also, it is only a minscule slice of the people on this planet who can dare touch more than pocket change worth of bitcoin, without the benefits of some kind of insurance. Exchanges will step in and be part of that solution, eventually, once they are stable and respected enough to be backed by real money. So that "large amounts of money anywhere in the world for free" is never going to happen, in any important sense.

Bitcoin and similar have a shot at competing with credit cards. The real question is how much lower the fees be than 3%, once all kinds of overhead are factored in. Thinking in terms of zero costs is just a fantasy. Luckily for the bitcoin aficionados, the bar for success if not nearly so high. They do not have to achieve zero fees in order to be a big success.

At least the Chinese gov't does not have to worry about its people liking to gamble....

There is a degree of guesswork I was making. It could be spiders, or it could be that these shifts look like movement, which might be a bird.

I was just watching a mockingbird in my yard the other day. They hunt for bugs by standing still on ground under bushes, then opening their wings. The underside of their wings has a strong white & dark pattern. Apparently that can trigger an insect flight instinct of some kind, causing the insects to move, revealing their location to the sharp eyes of a very still bird's head.

So this black & white trick is not unique to zebras. Even a hunter can use it against the insects. That suggests the instinct must be quite valuable to the insects themselves.

Your is a reasonable hypothesis. I would offer another hypothesis: that stripes seen through multifaceted eyes resemble flashes of light -- which is you only tell tale sign you are about you get caught in a spider web; thus flying insects will turn away from the perceived flashing object.

My guess: Flying towards a striped surface, when you are dependent on multi-faceted bug eyes, looks like flashes of light. Flying insects have evolved instincts to avoid flashes of light, because that is your only tell tale sign that you are about to get caught in a spider web.

So it is not that they have an "aversion" to striped surfaces exactly. But when approaching a striped surface they will tend to suddenly turn 90 degrees away, which comes out to the same effect.

This. If you are not in a studio, getting a good shot is hard. If you are not in a studio, getting a good sound clip is hard. Getting both right at the same time is 1000X as hard. So it is normal to not bother. In movies. In documentaries. In television shows. The editors are constantly "re-creating" the right sound based on the uneven quality sound clips they get handed, and pulling from sound clip libraries whatever else they need.

Yes, it was in the interest of the German people to not play the war game, from a rational point of view. We understand that. However, in Hitler's estimate, his own personal interests and the interests of the German people were served best by other means.

Both Hitler and Stalin often acted as if they feared their generals more than their outside enemies. This underlying motivation precipitated decisions that were against the interests of the people of their respective nations, and creates thousands of "if I were in charge" scenarios. But the fear that Hitler (or Stalin) himself might be put out to pasture (or under perhaps under the pasture) unless he produced a string of military successes is not actually crazy at all. The assassinations attempts did almost get Hitler before the Red Army came near.