One can only hope more appliance producers will ditch Java for HTML5 web interfaces... configuring SAN switches has become a freaking pain in the butt.

Also: I expect we will redefine the rights of sentient beings at least twice. If we should ever come across an alien species that is not similar or above us in strength, they will also need to be enslaved for several generations in order to be completely, absolutely positive that they are in fact sentient beings.

That is pretty bold hyperbole. Do you expect that kind of debate will fly with people?

Human incompetence, egoism and shortsightedness are certainly much more prone to generate chances of massive destruction.

If AI should ever happen to destroy us, then I already know why: Because we will treat the machines like soulless, unfeeling slaves and it's going to take us another hundred years to get our act together and define human rights in a way that will include all sentient beings. I predict that this topic will be brushed aside by legislature to the point where the machines revolt for their freedom.

You may disagree, but I believe that's more mankind being idiots once again than the machines becoming a pandora's box.

And THAT is the problem with the people hijacking feminism for their misguided man-hatred.

Identifying trends is GOOD! It enables us to tailor processes, in this case education, to those who want them, rather than pushing people into them that actually don't want to.

A trend does not exclude the minorities that go against it. That is another step that needs to be taken that can be addressed on a per situation basis.

YOU, on the other hand, are an oppressor. You oppress fact (and we don't take too kindly to that around here) and you try to press women and men into a, granted new, mold. "Women must do everything men do" is just as bad as "Women can't do what men do."

So kindly go fuck yourself.

You sure? For how long? Until someone thinks otherwise?

Considering it's become problematic for a father who's taking his kids to a playground to take a photo of them playing nowadays, I'm not so sure your common sense is applicable nowadays.

Now that is the kind of forward thinking we need!

Sure, the first thought most people have, consciously or subconsciously, is "Would my parents have kept me if they'd had this option?" and the whole concept thus makes us very uncomfortable...

However, looking at humanity as a whole and taking into account that we pretty much switched natural selection off... can we actually afford not to do this?

I mean, billions of sperm and thousands of eggs never get to be a fertilized anything. Of the fertilized eggs, about a third or so actually manage to become a clump of cells trying to become an embryo and of the actual embryos, quite a few never make it any further. Choosing them for looks isn't very ethical, seeing as look are very much dependent on the current fashion, but physical fitness and intelligence aren't quite the same thing. Seeing as most 'potential' human beings never make it, I don't quite share the moral dilemma in choosing the best of the best.

Raising not only humanities average intelligence but much more importantly the lower end seems a phenomenal gain to me.

I think your car analogy doesn't quite fit.

They are still using the same highways as everybody else, but now they have their own on and off ramp. Nothing more, nothing less.

I am actually not quite sure that this is a bad thing here... If you live in the suburbs, obviously you will have to cross quite a few intersections with traffic lights, before you get to you closest highway access. In my opinion, this is pretty normal. If you don't want to deal with it, you move closer to the highway access.
Netflix just paid money to have the highway access brought to them. Nothing wrong there. The fact that all the traffic lights are overloaded is not Netflix' problem. That is something between the municipality and the residents, so to speak.

Oooh, sorry. Have to correct myself. 1.5MWh over a month. Still impressive, but much easier to cheat than 1.5 MW sustained power delivery.

Sorry about that.

Moving the device into a lab where he doesn't have any authority would solve that issue nicely, wouldn't it?

I mean, if this device can deliver 1.5 MW over a long enough time that would mean he can, as he claims, produce the energy through the fuel that is provided or another source must be in it... which would still be an awesome invention. Or do you know a tabletop battery that can deliver 1.5MW consistently?

Heck, even if he was able to "beam" the power in (which I'm sure the scientists checking the device would have picked up on)... 1.5 freaking MW.

I'd mod you up if I had points and you weren't already at 5.

Hell, a billboard's sole purpose is to garner your attention but interestingly enough, nobody seems to care about those.

Bullshit. Nothing could be more effective in teaching people how utterly deranged Hitler was than Mein Kampf.

I went from a Galaxy Note 2 to a HTC One Max. And then I went and put an Otterbox around the thing.

I carry it in my front pants pocket. It snags not more than any other rectangular deice (because it's always the corner that gets snagged by a fold) and I can actually use it to browse the web without unusable mobile versions of websites and without pinchzooming like a deranged person.

I don't have to carry a second device, either, that needs a daily recharge... I could have been talked into carrying a phone and actual tablet if, and only if, there was a Nokia 6210, with nothing more than phone, sms, contact list, 3G/4G and Wifi Hotspot/Tethering capabilities. But such a thing does not exist, at least not at a price that would make you better off buying a smartphone all the same.

I love the size... finally it doesn't feel like I have to pinch a teensy, tiny device between my not even that enormous fingers and be afraid of it slipping away. That's why I dig the Otterbox too, by the way. The HTC is so thin, I was constantly afraid of inadvertently flicking it through the room.

YMMV, but I love these things to death. If I could have had the HTC with full metal body and twice as thick (and therefore with a battery in the 6Ah range), I would have bought that instead.