It's the old trade-off: Fast, cheap, good, pick two.

Do we really need that many more sophisticated RC rovers, let's start planning how to use what we've already learned...

Nah, it's a "Big Bagel

Actually DejaNews was the first to index Usenet, which persuaded Google to engulf/devour them.

Actually no, it was the "Tycho Magnetic Anomaly 1", which was underneath the crater called Tycho, which is the brightest crater on this side of the Moon. It has very large "rays" of lighter ejecta all around it, which makes it perfect for drawing attention to something inside the crater. Once the curious ape descendants decide to poke around the big shiny, they're bound to discover that the magnetic field there is screwing up their toys. But Tycho is definitely a near-side area.

My home wiffy is "Venture Labs", and my portable hotspot is "Central Dogma". Kind of sad, really...

The Jayne Cobb School of Leadership says, "the 'chain of command' is the chain I'm going to beat you upside the head if you don't do what I say."

Managers are like commissioned officers, tech/team leads are like sergeants and other NCOs. At least from what I've seen for the past 30-odd years.

'My prediction is that in the years ahead, we will see more failures than we have been seeing, because people have forgotten what we had to do to get to where we are.'

There are many aspects of our society and world for which this is true, not just data centers.

And this is why the "militarization of the police" is a problem. You're not a soldier, this isn't war, and you aren't an occupying force dealing with insurgents. If you think you are, and you treat all non-police as potential threats, you need to turn in your badge and gun and get psychological help.

The media have a role to play in this, as well. By not informing people that these kinds of abuses are happening, it prevents us from knowing just how bad the situation is becoming. If these things stay at the local level of reporting, or aren't even reported because the local media don't have the budget or the concern, nothing will improve. This is why Balko's reporting efforts are vital, and more people need to be involved in reporting these abuses.

There's also the insanity of "sovereign immunity" or "prosecutorial immunity" here, where basically the police and district attorneys can do nothing wrong, if it's in the execution of their duties. So, the police can break into a house (with no warrant), "accidentally" kill all the pets, attack the residents, "accidentally" shoot the owner, and when they find out it's the wrong address, basically get away without even apologizing or making restitution.

African or European?

Well, take your own stance in reverse, just because Manhattan is overly dense doesn't mean that Wyoming is overcrowded, and doesn't mean that Wyoming needs to concentrate on the issues that Manhattan does, such as public transportation and construction zoning.

To make a blanket statement about any country based on one region of that country is irrational. Even saying something "on average" or "per capita" doesn't work since reality isn't evenly dispersed.

Surprisingly little, if you're a Japanese citizen. There are fields going fallow because the children are not staying on the farms of their parents and grandparents, and Japan doesn't have the "factory farms" like they have in the US, ADM et. al. haven't managed to get a foothold there. There are likely plots of land becoming available through death or displacement of the elderly owners. I have seen ads for Western-style housing developments outside Tokyo. I also know of a couple from the US who bought a house and small plot of land in the countryside for somewhere around US$10,000, but on the condition that they repair it on their own dime. I think they were part of a Japanese government program, possibly experimental, and I don't know if they had been residents of Japan for any time prior.