Less cynically, Air Force brass have been burned over and over again by companies who lowballs bids and can't deliver. It's human nature to try to steer contracts to companies that have made good on promises in the past.

My was in the Air Force and worked on big contracted projects. You would not believe how often the AF has to deal with companies taking progress payments and then declaring bankruptcy.

Of course the really big contracting decisions are all made on Capitol Hill *cough*F-35*cough*.

Oh, I'm willing to grandfather in people who are already retired, since finding a job at that age isn't a trivial undertaking. But I don't see why someone who is 60 gets to retire at 62 just because that's what he was planning.

I'm suggesting people who were planning to retire at 62 should work until 67 like I'll have to. What kind of planning do you have to do? So they didn't plan to work longer? Boo hoo. I don't want to work longer either.

That's what pisses me off about the way they raise the retirement age. Here in the US you always hear "yes, it's going up, but it's going up slowly - only five years (or whatever) over the next thirty". If I'm set to retire in thirty years it didn't go up slowly. It went up instantly. And since I'm going to have to work until age 67, the people who are fixing to retire at 62 this year can damn well work until 67.

The latest infrared goggles actually integrate infrared and normal vision. Probably be awhile before we can fit all that processing into contacts, though.

Roads. Of course they had some bureaucracy to work through.

In the actual real world (outside of your worker's paradise) having companies lay their own cable works better, because otherwise there's no incentive for the company that owns the cable to keep overhead expenses down. That's the way it was done in my town, and it works quite well.

Can you imagine a scenario where an FBI informant would be able to lead a principled gun control advocate down the path of importing machine guns and rocket launchers? Can you imagine a scenario where a clean politician is even associating with the head of the SF Chinese mafia?

Is anything real? Are you?

it's wild. Apparently the guy running the show was the "Dragonhead" of a tong in San Francisco. Seriously? They still have titles like that? It's like a freakin' Bruce Lee movie.

We should use the ability of our medium to show players the issues first-hand, or give them a unique understanding of the issues and complexities by crafting game mechanics along with narrative components that result in dynamics of play that create meaning for the player in ways that other media isn't capable of.

No. I do not want to be preached at while I'm gaming, and if you put that kind of crap in the game I won't buy it.

The problem is while the java platform is extremely important to you and me, it costs money for Oracle to maintain and they don't see much benefit from it. I don't blame them for trying, in some small way, to monetize it.

The Nazis started in with the anti-Jew stuff long before they had the opportunity to take anyone's freedom away.

Do you think the North Koreans have health scares like the antivax stuff or allow news exposes on doorknob bacteria? They may natter on about foreign threats, but I doubt as a Nork you hear anything about local threats like crime, disease, and environmental contaminants.

Several civilisations have had dominant concept of communal property, and every civilisation has limited concepts of communal property: air, grazing ground, sea, health service, roads, etc.

Sure, but the idea there would be no private property just doesn't work. Even the Soviet Union backed of of that piece of silliness within a year or two, if not de jure then de facto.

And sure, there have been civilizations with a "dominant concept of communal property". Failed civilizations.

My question is: if your {AI | robot} can't be distinguished from a real human, why can't you just use a (cheap, ubiquitous) human?

Where did you get the idea humans are cheap? Robots will only become household items when they're less expensive than servants. That's the whole point.