It's a moon, not a planet, but since we're talking on your level... if you look on the other side there is a huge "MADE IN CHINA" sign and a big array of bitcoin ASICs that they used for their 51% attack. More hashing power than Uruguay. That's how they bought the fake landing sets off NASA!

Interestingly, this landing may affect NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer operation:

http://www.space.com/23675-china-moon-lander-trouble-nasa-ladee.html

I'll believe it when I see it here.

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html

I drive oil, but it's catalytically cracked veg oil.

The heating process for dewatering and then distilling excess Methanol off afterwards takes a fair bit of energy (16kWh) but over the course of a year and making 2500 litres it adds up to less in electricity costs than running a home server 24/7 (50W).

So I'm firmly in the 500-999kWh range.

Hand your movie buff card back - Tremors; that can only mean snakeoids about to pour from beneath the very dirt itself!

Less deeply cool if the mirror control software locks up and you burn a line/spot into your retina.

Trying, plasma TV style, to run noise/wipes material through it to reduce retina burn-in would not be fun.

On the other hand, nice to see another step towards the Snow Crash universe. Just need a depleted uranium hypervelocity railgun and people will finally start listening to Reason.

That's lovely. Where's my patented copper nail?

So if there was no commercial benefit, then it is OK?

How does tripadvisor get away with it then?

A quick google fails to reveal any detail about how it works, and TFA's explanatory diagram says very little (a drawing of a brain and some boxes - oh so that's how it works?)

We can only assume this stems from Qualcomm's partnership with Brain Corp http://www.braincorporation.com/

Perhaps an urban legend (I can't find a reference), but didn't operators of nuclear reactors used to sit on one legged chairs, so they couldn't nap at the controls?

In all fairness nothing is likely to go wrong unless a reactor is being experimented on, or an unusual catastrophic event/mechanical failure occurs (even a fully staffed reactor doesn't necessarily mean they'll be avoided). Lack of staffing should be the least of our worries!

Ironically racing is probably a better defined operating environment so easier to successfully automate.

I can't see everyday driving being automated because there will always be a scenario that isn't covered, an odd bug that no-one expected, or mechanical failure that the computer can't compensate for in a sensible way.

Commercial flight systems on aircraft must be so thoroughly tested, yet we still have pilots to take over if the machine fails. How would that work with cars? If you have to be there paying close attention in case you need to take over, doesn't that negate the purpose of the automated system in the first place?

Exhaustive Testing is Impossible.

Mine is updated by a cron job that randomly abuses my neighbours by name.

MPEG2 lingers because it costs a lot to replace millions of existing set-top boxes, however that's only for video delivery to the home. A lot of backhaul/contribution/distribution is H264 which then gets transcoded at the edge of the broadcaster's networks. All the modern delivery over the internet systems are H264 because there's no legacy technology to replace and bandwidth is at a premium. HEVC will both get adopted both within broadcaster systems, and also for new domestic systems (4k being the obvious one).