solid state *integrated circuit* tech was made for missile (defense and space) use first. Space program has indeed been a driver for that.

you are funny, how about most the USA where heat in the winter is mandatory? not viable?

eh, all that good old stuff is in a national permanent storage system called Usenet archives

No, I think a bad car analogy would be more helpful.

"If you can bore out the cylinders and hand fit bigger pistons and crank on the 1.4 Liter model to get a 1.6 Liter engine, why buy the 1.6L model"

You could say the same about any nice high rise apartment building or home in any hot city in any hot country. my home has AC too, other people in my state don't.

I went to school for 19 years to have job so I could afford nice things like HVAC. other people, didn't.

effective vaccine can be built from related virus, no need for specific strain of smallpox (and they are all sequenced anyway)

Being in a clade (ancestor and all its descendants) of Dinosauria is another matter, birds are descended from dinosaurs but are not dinosaurs

nothing, its runtime emacs is widely used

those are Rails weenors. Rails sucks, and attracts hipster wannabees. Ruby however is a good language.

Be grand to see office workers lined up before your tombstone in the wee hours of morning waiting for opening time, so yes, I think that's a good idea.

you are being silly, a dead child doesn't need anything and no one is entitled to put copyrighted or trademarked things on tombstone no matter how sad their story. it doesn't matter.

it's funny really, they did put in filters that cut emissions from coal plants in half, but also doubled the number of plants.

plenty of jobs that really could be replaced by machines haven't been on any scale yet. when it happens it won't even be a matter of buying such machines, they'll be rented for 6-8 hours per day but work 24x7 and maintained weekly or something like that; each one putting 2 to 4 people out of work. it will really suck to be a person without specialized skill

wrong, we don't know that

no they are not, don't get carried away by romantic notions of a geek cartoonist. http://xkcd.com/1211/

Several major physiological differences are: birds have very light skull relative to body compared to dinosaurs' massive one, birds have no teeth or tail