Well... that plus decades of experience.

Surgeons are basically engineers with a specialty in human engineering ... a lot of cross pollination in required training.

Water's water - given the diffusion time we're probably all drinking King Tut's piss today (not to mention plenty of other peoples/animals).

It'd be a lot more newsworthy if it was a journal with an extant impact factor. Neither of these even show up on search.

Yeah - Scratch is designed by the MIT media lab for this very purpose.

Don't forget that the "lens" flares move independent of either the camera position or light points.

Yeah ... that shit is pretty fucked up.

I'm thinking of when the kids are just old enough to start being latch-key. Myself, I'd set it up for passive data while only sending an alert if the difference is something like three to five standard deviations off the average. I specifically moved to a place where I feel comfortable about my kids (eventual) ability to run around until dinner time, but at least for quite some time yet, they'll be young enough that missing a bus transfer on the way home could be a time when my early intervention would really be appreciated.

Yeah - but does it work on children?

I think the concern was more about when the power is lost when the mowing is in progress. "Ho hum, I'll just mow until I hit the line..." - three miles and a gas tank later.

I don't know - with the research they've done over the past few decades about circadian rhythm, I can see a lot of benefit from lighting that responds in both intensity and color to time and or motion. Likewise with HVAC. But neither of these needs the outside 'net.

Where I really see benefit from external communication would be mostly Boolean data such as whether the kids made it home from school, is there a break in the dog's underground fence line, is moisture pooling where it's not supposed to, or whether the CO/smoke detector has alerted. For information that goes in instead of out, I could also see a benefit for automatic storm shuttering when NOAA issues a severe thunderstorm warning and an automatic disabling of the sprinkler system if the county passes a watering moratorium (i.e. save me from fines if I'm absentminded and forget about turning it off).

Yes there is. It's called the Equal Rights Clause, which is contained in the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. See Wikipedia.

Here is a link to a paperback translation of all three of Augustine's commentaries on Genesis. It's actually pretty interesting to read how his thinking developed as they were written at different phases of his life. In english the titles are: "A Refutation of the Manichees", "Unfinished Literal Commentary on Genesis," and "The Literal Meaning of Genesis." Of course it was all originally in Latin and, if you read that (which I don't), the original texts are archived several places on the internet.

I enjoy driving my six speed stick on a nice windy country road, but it was less enjoyable whenever I had to drive in stop and go for an hour or two each way from work. I'd have paid for something which would let me read a book the same way I usually did while taking public transit. As adoption goes up I'd expect improved transit times as inter-vehicle communication should be able to significantly ease congestion problems. Eventually I can see non-automated cars prohibited from freeways, at least during commuting hours.

Where's a better place for a discussion which may introduce truth and actual intellectual debate? Maybe someone there will point out a real conservative viewpoint such as Augustine's from around AD 400 which by using the text of the Bible alone came up with the conclusion that a strictly (simplistic) literal interpretation was impossible and also never intended. Augustine also pointed out that some of the greatest damage that can be done to the Church is by scientifically-ignorant believers who attempt to lecture scientific experts about how the experts are wrong in their views.

Unfortunately for Christians, and just about every other group ever organized with a human membership component, ignorance at the adult stage is usually manifest in a self reinforcing mindset and not one welcome to instruction.