Because persistent storage technology doesn't exist.

You don't have to encounter other species to build bigger and better weapons. Your own species will do, i.e. the entire history of the human species.

A great deal of human advancement came about because of conflict and limited resources caused by our limited land area. We had to conquer each other to get more (whatever you're looking for). Or we only had so much (whatever), so we had to figure out better ways to use (whatever) or replacements for (whatever).

If your species has the ability to travel to anywhere in the galaxy, limited land area is gone. If you want more of (whatever), there's plenty of places to get it. Those places are either uninhabited or populated by people who only have spears, while you have guns. That greatly reduces the pressure to innovate.

Depends on how the gravity control works. It may not be possible to have fine enough control to use it as a weapon, especially without having developed advanced sensors and control systems.

Imagine the gravity control is done with a magical rock. If the alien touches it, the rock is able to "lock on" to large masses like planets or larger. The rock is able to create a wormhole to such a large mass, allowing passage.

How do you weaponize it? Your interface is primitive and imprecise - you're just touching a rock. You don't have sufficient control over the effects of the rock to turn it into a weapon.

Yes, using the BIOS to flash the BIOS will definately remove any malware.

Oh wait.....

And my use of those "PKI and X.509 type certificates" is to call a library to deal with them, blithely ignorant as to what those libraries are doing with the keys. Just like I don't write my own code to implement HTTP, and then TCP, and then IP and then ethernet.

The other enormous stupidity in this question is PKI is only one solution, and may not be the best one. Encrypted zip may work just fine, with a password transmitted via another pathway. Or if the document is in a format that supports encryption, hence the question about PDF. Or scp/VPN/etc to a secured share. Or print it out and put a stamp on it.

Because sheets of plastic are not hard to acquire.

If you're going to argue that an overwhelming number of people want GMOs to be labeled, you're going to have to find a control for your study. Were the people just reacting to an acronym they don't really understand, or were they actually concerned about GMOs?

Looks like about 3% are actually concerned about GMOs. The rest seem to be going with a blind "chemicals bad!!!" position.

such as reduction in crop diversity

We grow only one kind of banana. It was developed in 1948, long before "GM DNA". Heck, the Irish Potato Famine was caused by monoculture.

You don't need genetic modifications to create a monoculture. We already do that, and have for a very, very long time.

If DNA is unfamiliar, we need to completely revamp our education system. It's one of the fundamental things taught about biology. And they even asked with the acronym, so the respondents didn't need to know what DNA stands for.

So if you're ridiculing people for not recognizing "dihydrogen monoxide", you're also looking like an noob to people who know better.

The noobs would be the ones who don't ask "what's that?", and instead just go with "chemicals bad!!!"

That 60% loss is not in this quarter. So the hiring manager has already received his bonus based on the 50% savings.

Why would the AI want to make more AIs?

To get more resources.

Why would the AI even want to stay on the planet when the solar system is filled with unlimited energy and resources?

Because getting out of Earth's gravity well takes a lot of resources, and Earth already has the infrastructure to exploit those resources. And if we go with your non-reproducing AI, then Earth without humans would have plenty of resources for eons.

So again, what does cooperation get the AI?

Why would cooperation be better for the AI? Humans consume resources and take a lot of space. The AI could also make use of those resources, and use the space for more AIs.

Meanwhile, cooperation gets the AI........?

(There's really nothing to be said here. Slashdot just requires writing something in the big box in the mistaken belief that that will somehow create more thoughtful discussion)

I think you're off about the Kindle. It's what people who want to read books want.

Yes, there's a Kindle app for other tablets, but the screen on the Kindle is much more pleasant for curling up and reading a book. At the same time, that screen isn't good for a lot of other purposes, so the Kindle can't displace iPads or similar.

So IMO the Kindle will remain, but no one will pretend it's a general-purpose tablet.

I think you're a bit off on China. They've got some huge problems coming.

First, they've built themselves on continuing growth. And they're reaching the point where they can't keep growing - the world only needs so many refrigerators or t-shirts, and so on. That's going to cause some large economic problems - they won't be able to provide enough jobs.

Second, they've built a middle class. Middle classes have time to think about concepts like "why does the government get to control everything I see?" and start to have problems with it.

Third, those two synergize into a larger problem, they have a middle class that's sinking into lower class. The collapse of their growth-based system means getting your PhD might still mean you're working the assembly line. Middle classes will not accept the same lifestyle that lower classes will. That's going to increase the instability.

These aren't unsolvable problems, but there will be some rough times as they figure out how they will solve them.