Mercedes isn't in financial trouble, not at all; and, Tesla is not going to have any measurable impact on Mercedes sales. That's not what I'm referring to. The curtain is hiding the fact that Mercedes themselves are using Tesla technology.

yes, yes they did. Mercedes released a Euro B-class car using a drive train jointly developed by and supplied by Tesla. In addition, Mercedes is reported to be buying batteries for other projects from Tesla. Me thinks the Mercedes salesman is trying to protect his sales numbers and trying too hard to not look behind the curtain.

I do... I've seen large industrial machines that use what are essentially soft robotics techniques and soft manipulators. The examples given in the article are all small and target search and rescue apps. That's great. I've seen a 4 story structure lifted on airbags and moved across a smooth surface by an automated system. Point was you can't assume it scales to industrial scales and assume everything will be soft and harmless. When the "soft" robotics moves up to the larger scales, as it is just as likely to do as it is to move to smaller scales, you can't discount the energy involved. I hate to see someone make the assumption "They're soft so they're harmless" and let that idea get promoted as gospel regardless of scale.

Funny you should mention that. I happen to be an engineer working in a manufacturing plant. Absolutely safe... No. As safe as we can make them, yes. We put all kinds of safeties like light curtains into the systems, to protect human workers. The summary above says they are meant to work "cage free" and the worst that could happen is... Well, they're working with small scale and underestimating the damage potential. That's all I'm saying.

One could argue that it can be modelled with thermodynamics...

damn /. parser. What I meant is 60 less than 600 (parser stripped the symbol)

In your 60600 analysis you're forgetting the shielding and cooling requirements.

Sure.... attacked by a 500 lb Kevlar reinforced pillow that can wrap around a body and sqeeze it until it pops like a zit.

OK, some of the search and rescue applications using the soft robots are a great idea; and, robots, in general, are useful tools. But a robot is a machine. Machines break. Computers malfunction. A small S&R robot has a small but measurable risk profile. If it's in a med-surgical application then it has the ability to do damage to the body of either the patient or the attending medical staff, should it malfunction. If it can perform industrial tasks, like lifting a car, then it can equally as well crush a person. One cannot say, "Look, it's soft and squishy" and ignore safety factors.

Yeah, I'm aware of the isobutane and isopropane blends. Problem is that the Chevy's from the '60's and early '70's use a POA valve to regulate the system. Rather than cycle the compressor, the compressor runs 100% of the time and the system is regulated by a pressure control valve (the POA). The valve is pre-set for a pressure set point based on an R-12 curve. You have to adjust the valve to match the curve of the refrigerant. Said valve is not externally adjustable. Once you're in there, it's just as easy to convert the system to R-143. For what it's worth, I've already pulled the entire front of the truck apart. Everything forward of the firewall is currently off the truck; Doing a full overhaul of brakes, suspension, steering, drivetrain and body rust remediation. So, I'm at a point of converting it anyway.

See, this is where it goes all sideways.

I have a 44 year old truck. I get the collecting cars thing. I understand the collecting old guns thing. I get the being creative and building your own furniture thing. But he's not collecting old computers and keeping them alive. He's making a copy of the old machine using a new one, that acts somewhat like (but will never behave exactly like) the old one. The guy's creating yet another emulator using an ARM processor board.

Car analogy again: my truck has the original engine castings. It's basically an 1970 LT1 engine, tuned for truck use, which makes it doubly cool; but, it's still the original castings. It's still carbureted. It still has the mechanical voltage regulator. It's as original as I can make it, reasonably speaking (the A/C may need to be upgraded because R-12 is damned hard to find and expensive). If he wanted to do it right, he'd start with an actual C64 or at least with a 6510 processor, which might require he make one...

OK, I learned on the Apple ][, PET, VIC-20 (all 6502's) and a C64 (6510) as well... I also owned a Tandy CoCo (6809). And I remember how things were back then... But what's the point of all this nostalgic development effort to recreate the old machine, again? Hell, there are emulators that run on Linux that would work fine on the Raspberry Pi. Unless you're trying to recover some fundamentally necessary data or program, I just don't see the point. Move on man... Move on.

Go back and look at history... People fighting with flint-locks and percussion cap black powder muzzle-loaders often had to resort to the sword (or the bayonet) once the enemy was within a few feet. You just don't have time to reload...

Intelligence is part of it. Immediately after the "event" that results in an apocalypse, skills you currently possess will be the ones that help you survive. Being intelligent means you can learn new skills, once you have the time; but, first you have to survive.

I missed something that others have mentioned... People need water, food, shelter, warm clothing... Meeting those basic needs will be the first and foremost in importance. I missed clothing. Anyone with knitting, weaving and sewing skills will be important to post apocalyptic survival. the scientists and engineers will only be important initially in support of meeting those needs; the rest follows later (building and fixing things).

post apocalypse, the most important profession is going to be farmer. People got to eat. Skilled trades will be in demand, post apocalypse as before: carpenters, bricklayers and blacksmiths, for example. People need shelter and safety. After that, scientists or engineers who can make things happen, build things, fix things...