If it succeeds, then he got lucky. Doesn't mean it wasn't risky, or that doing this kind of thing is a good idea.

That doesn't matter. The whole point of technology is to get things done, and Android phone manufacturers have been able to get things done more easily and cheaply because Android exists. Incidentally, the phones also enable people to get things done - even if that *is* mostly doing something or other with avians in bad moods.

Your post is funny, but your argument equates an addiction to a completely unnecessary substance with an absolute biological requirement. We couldn't exist without water, but we sure as hell could without nicotine.

Better yet, give self driving cars a "park anywhere nearby" feature, and let them drop you off and then go find a parking space wherever they can. No more need for big parking lots at stadiums, airports, and the like; there'll be a parking space somewhere within half a mile or so, and your car will come back to you when you call it.

That's not you being better; it's the culture you were born into being better - just as the parent post said. You're "better off", not better.

Most of the time, satellites are much more than 143 kilometres from their nearest ground station; even if they're orbiting at that kind of height, they spend nearly all of their time somewhere other than directly overhead. If you need further enlightenment, allow me to refer you to my esteemed colleague, Mister Pythagorus.

We humans have for at least a little while now been working on overcoming some of the less desirable aspects of our nature. The tendency to kill each other, for example - or the tendency to just take stuff from others by force. Sure, not all of us are there, but as a species we're heading in that direction. You might think that we'll never succeed in overcoming our tendency to make war, and you might be right. Or you might be wrong. One thing we'll certainly never overcome, though, is human fallibility. We make mistakes. During the cold war, there was at least one incident in which we nearly set off MAD through human error. If we rely on MAD to save us for a long enough time, it becomes a statistical certainty that it will get us all killed one day.

Actually, the failure of logic is today's claim - generally made by the very rich - that taxes on companies and on the wealthy are currently very high and are somehow preventing the economy from working well, and that in order to help everyone, the rich must be "rescued" from having to pay so much tax. The fact that the top marginal tax rate was very high during some of the USA's most prosperous times is simply being presented as a counterpoint to that claim; taxes on the rich are actually much lower than they've been for most of the country's history, and a high top marginal tax rate simply does not prevent prosperity from happening.

And if you can, go to the bathroom on a different floor, and use the stairs, not the lift (translation: elevator).

Whichever language you choose, I recommend going to Stack Overflow, clicking the tag for your language, and sorting the resulting list of questions by number of votes. This will give you a concentrated collection of very useful practical knowledge about that language, nicely arranged in a Q&A format. Here it is for C++:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/c%2B%2B?sort=votes&pagesize=15

and here it is for Python:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/python?sort=votes&pagesize=15

I've been reading a few C++ questions per day over my morning cuppa for the last few years, and the difference this has made has been fantastic. You learn about pitfalls you had no idea existed, tips and tricks which can be of enormous benefit, and fun and interesting quirks and corners of the language - which can help keep you interested and enthusiastic. You'll also find the community is very friendly and helpful, which I'm sure will provide some much-needed encouragement. Good luck to you, mate. :-)

"Facebook won't collect any of the personal information with which it interacts."

"Whoo-ee," said Crowley. "Where have you been?"

Wouldn't it be more efficient to store the energy as, say, natural gas, which you can burn in a natural gas generator to create electricity when you need it? I mean, given that it's already stored that way to start with...

It's worth pointing out that millions of people watched some of the least interesting humans on the planet do nothing more than share a house for a few months, a dozen at a time, for over a decade. At one point, the UK devoted an entire TV channel to nothing else, even while everyone in the house was asleep - with a second channel showing exactly the same thing but delayed by an hour. You know, in case anyone missed any of the really good bits, like snoring.

I'm excited to think we can go to Mars, but at the same time, I'm a little depressed that people will watch every minute of it for decades.

Perhaps, but when it comes to human activity, driving is a special case. Driving brings out the inner idiot and the inner asshole in people. Also the inner absent-minded easily-distracted "oh it's only a ton of metal moving at 60 mph, no need to pay any *real* attention" fool in many cases. The sooner computers start doing driving for us, the better.

I've been on a treadmill desk at home since November - even got a brief mention in the news as apparently I was one of the first in the UK to give it a try. I can't recommend it enough. I walk at 1 kph, which doesn't detract from my abilities at all as far as I can tell. Even if it did, the increased alertness and mental stamina (no more afternoon sluggishness) would more than make up for it - no contest. And then there are all the health benefits that come with the extra physical activity, even though it's really, really gentle exercise. I just wish I could have this at work for 8 hours a day instead of just evenings and weekends.

There's a recipe for making your own walking workstation on the cheap in this thread on Office Walkers.