I think frequency would be slightly more important here...you would want to maintain a suitable blood-alcohal level constantly, but then you could always spike it higher for those pesky 'dealing with the public' occasions. ;-)

You obviously are not familiar with Oklahoma.

Oklahoma is a firm Republic state, and past experience tells me this will be legislated.

The same reason that space vehicles and meteors burn the atmoshere when they encounter 'air' at high velocities.

The same thing that destroyed the space shuttle "Columbia"with damaged heat tiles on the wing edge when it re-entered.

I have wondered that same thing from the beginning.

I was thinking they would only be used more along 'line of sight' ranges.

"Line of sight' very loosely defined here! It would still have high velocity at ranges that are occluded by the 'over the horizon' ranges.
Maybe more accurate to call it 'follows Earth's Curvature', or something.

It would be useful info to know what the projectile's velocity is at the stated 100 mile range, to enable calculations for remaing energy.

I know from long range target shooting that projectiles slow down fast.
ex:
a .308 Winchester firing a 150 grain bullet at 2750 feet per second will be travelling less than 1000 fps after only 1000 yards, and remaing energy is far less than at muzzle velocity.
With a 100 yard 'sight in', that same bullet is striking the target about 10 feet below point of aim at around that 1000 yards, and a 10 mile per hour crosswind will deflect it around 2 feet, IIRC.(fuzzy on that memory)

The flames/fireball are similar to the the effects of say, a meteor entering Earth's atmoshere at high velocity...no fuel involved.

No trick here, just super heated air and plasma caused by friction, and maybe some 'fuel' from ablation of sabot and possibly projectile.
Similar principals enable deisel engines to combust fuel without a spark plug...compression causes friction, friction causes heat, ...

And how often are those fighter pilots confronted by pedestrians stepping out in front of them, or a traffic light turning red, when they are flying in the air?

Having flown and with many hours riding[1] in various planes, I can assure you that when flying, there are usually far less obstacles and distractions while cruising aloft. You can safely spend several(or more) seconds for a touch screen or other controls, unlike driving a ground vehicle.

Take-off and landing, as well as intricate manuevers/formations can be another kettle of fish, but these usuall take up a very small portion of most flights, even fighter jets.

And while they may have touchscreens, there is also a very good reason fighter jets almost universally have HOTAS(Hands On Throttle And Stick) systems in cockpit for actual combat when stress is high and attention is needed on surrounding conditions/threats/targets, and the touchscreens are mostly ignored.

[1] I have spent some hours(40-50?) only piloting a plane, and those hours were in Cessna 150's and 180's.
I have had the good fortune to be a rider in an F-4 Phantom(1974) piloted by my neighbor who was a US Marine fighter pilot with two combat tours in Vietnam(4 kills, 2 assists), and then again in 1989 I got to ride in an F-15C with an air combat vet(no specifcs where given). I observed very little touchscreen interaction, but a lot of attention paid to gauges and controls, once take off happened, it seemed maostle Mark 1 Eyeball looking around at the sourroundings and instruments, and interactions with HOTAS.

WAAHOOOO!!!
I pride myself as being an adrenaline junkie, and salivate at the prospect of riding the most outrageous rides available. I was Airborne in the US Army, and had over 1000 jumps(static line, HALO[my favorite!], HAHO) before an accident left me with Teflon kneecaps, and relearning to walk. My only regret is that I can't jump again.

But, none of that compares to those two fighter jet rides!
In the F-4, I think I creamed my jeans. I certainly fired up a Camel back on the ground, and with a grin the undertaker could not have taken off my face upon death...

With the F-15 ride, my little brother got some payback...sort of.
He was Chief Avionics Tech boss(I forget his actual rank and title, the US Air Force system never made sense to a ground pounder like me), and a Colonel was taking it up for a 'training flight'(he needed 'air hours' to maintain his flight status), and my brother told him that 'My brother bet me you could not scare him.'

Apparently that was 'a challenge issued' that the Col. felt duty bound to take up.

I certainly creamed my jeans, but I'm afraid I also pissed myself, and came close to soiling my drawers, all while clutching the 'barf bag' in a death grip. I did not have to use it, but it was REAL close several times.

And I would love to do it again.(I've also been a passenger in two Huey copters that had engine failure and autorotated down...no sweat)

I question the need to connect if it is truly automated, but I think I understand what you are getting at. (jumping to your third para)

What I see as a goal is a 'master computer' controlling your home, and applicable contents.
You communicate with the Home Computer, and then it controls the individual appliences and equipment. (fully automated)

So you are connected to the home comp and communicating your commands to it, and it takes things from there.

Is this what you had in mind for 'fully automated'?

Hacker's Paradise.

What happens when you are hacked, pwned, 'gamed' 12 ways from Sunday, and have to disconnect to clean up and straighten out the mess?

Is it really worth it at this point in time? Not for me, no way!

Ahhh, the sock drawer...

So, it has come to this.

If you give your sock drawer access to the internet, it will hack it's way into the means to put the Large Hadron Collider into turbo boost overdrive, all in order to rip the fabric of space-time to open a portal into Demon Murphy's demension/domain(of Murphy's Law infamy), have a Massive Black Hole FedEx'd into our solar system, and Earth would get sucked into Demon Murphy's Domain, making Hell look like Paradise.

All to hide the true facts about all of those missing socks that we always blame on the washer or dryer.

The upsides are a lie, to answer your questions...but remember to be especially wary of the sock drawer!

I don't think 'hsmith' was refering to networks as a fad, but this 'Internet of Things' as being a fad, similar to 'web 2.0' and 'cloud computing'.

I agree wholeheartedly with all of that, but I take particular note of the portion in parenthesis, which describes the afore mentioned 3 fads:
1)Internet of Things
2) Cloud Computing
3) Web 2.0

All have been basic, core functions of networks from early on.(mid and late 1970's)

Based on the quote from your comment(above), I suggest that you and 'hsmith' are saying about the same thing, just different wording.

At least that is my take...:-)

You apparently overlooked the '...' around 'empty', and the note[1], where I said that 'empty' is a deceptive description of space to astrophysisists.

What I was alluding to was the average Joe picturing vast volumes of space as being empty of stuff that can be detected with the human eye in context to TFA talking about using the human eye and brain in searching out these particles collected in the aerogell.

As far as space being actually mostly empty, that is not true. it is chock full of stuff, mostly requiring dectors that far exceed human eyesight.

Quarks, gluons, nuetrinos, leptons, dark matter, black holes, most wavelenghts of EM radiation, gravity, the 'fabric' of space time, many more are crammed int the volume of what would look to a human using the good old 'Eyeball, Mark 1' as a mostly empty void.
Most layman/people only beleive in what they can see, but that is only the barest 'tip of the iceberg' to what's actually out there.

'Tenous gas', various EM radiation, sub atomic particles, 'dark matter, etc. and ad nausem and quantam foam, and more are all presented as theories.
Taken altogether, 'empty' space is actually more crowded than a Tokyo subway during rush hour, and busier than a one-armed paper hanger.

I do actually agree with you, but I was trying to play to a more 'layman/mainstream' crowd, and tried to give the more knowledgable here acknowledgement that it was far from 'empty'

Sorry I failed to make that clear. :-)
But then again, because I like to stir the mudpuddles....;-)

Look at how 'empty' aerogel is: 99.8% 'empty space', and how much 'empty space' there is in an atom.

Sorry to double-reply, but SoylentNews underwent an announced shutdown for maintainance last night, and apparently something went arwy, the site is currently down as of a few seconds ago....

FTA:

Well, not quite ready for 'Night at the Improv', worth a grin anyhow.

Only two particles out of only seven impacts, over 200 days shows just how 'empty'[1] space really is.

[1] 'empty' space can be surprisingly a deceptive statement in astrophysics, though...:-)

Gah, slashcode mangled the double parenthesis again!
When do we get proper unicode support?

You can do what I just did:
1.) go to pref's, and assign a '-5' modifier to your foes, then mark those spam-post authors as 'foe' and reload page.

Or:

2.) join in the discussions at SoylentNews.
I have been spending more time there than on /. lately. The discussions are more like /. was before Dice took over, and it started as a direct result of /.Beta.

The the SN community is still small(but growing), and the SN team has been extremely responsive to community feedback, unlike here.
As a side effect(of the above statement), the community has a large influence in the shaping and direction that SN takes...again, not like here.

Just some suggestions....:-)

Thanks for the info, I'll check into it.