holy shit

a three-digiter

quick, where's my bug-net, before it flies away

Your use of microbes in your argument is ironic since farmers are also a huge part of the problem of driving bacterial evolution for resistance through misuse of antibiotics.

Antivirals, antibiotics and pesticides should be used in the minimal amounts exactly where most needed. They should not be routinely used everywhere indiscriminately. That's the mode that these GMO crops are encouraging.

The GMO plants I was referring to were designed specifically accommodate increased usage of chemicals. Look up "Roundup ready".

Herbicide use in this country has skyrocketed due to the widespread adoption of GMO crops.

Making a plant manufacture its own insecticide is one thing. Modifying it so that it can withstand being soaked with ever-increasing quantities and varieties of synthetic pesticides is another.

Weeds are gradually evolving to resist this chemical onslaught. Most people would rather not have themselves subjected to such evolutionary pressure within their lifetimes.

The weeds are destined to eventually win this arms race anyway, so this huge experiment in chemical exposure to the US population is eventually going to be for naught.

Vernor Vinge wrote a novel in 1992 that referred to technology like this as dust motes.

Movie-Plot Threat Contest entries.

All the plastic helps with the incremental increments in fuel economy: approximately 2X better over the past 57 years. I also neglected to mention safety, which has improved a good deal more than fuel economy. That's all OK, but it's nothing like the dramatic changes that happened previous to the 707. After nearly six decades, today's planes still look very similar to a 707, are about the same size, and go the same speed.

I don't think that it's necessarily "inevitable". Take aviation, for example. There was arguably exponential increases in the capability of aircraft for 55 years from 1903 to 1958, when the Boeing 707 was introduced. Ever since, further progress on economically viable aircraft has been pretty much limited to incremental increases in fuel economy and marketing strategies to keep costs down by keeping planes full.

as have Canadians.

Disqus, and the comment section at The Atlantic.

Waiting to hear "stories" would be of no use if, for example, attackers choose to wait until a nationwide cold-snap and then simultaneously brick one million thermostats.

And then the one pilot pulls the breaker on the monitoring/remote control system. So the breakers are made non-pullable. And then, oops, an electrical short brings down the aircraft, because the pilot couldn't pull the breaker...

If the code can be executed, regardless of how obscure the keystrokes are to trigger it, then it's a potential security attack vector.

Easter eggs are supposed to be harmless. Essentially stealing 15% on a car purchase doesn't meet my criteria for harmless.