The grey goo apocalypse has already happened. Bacteria are trying to do it for billions of years, and have had some nice accomplishments:

http://www.dinosaurapocalypse.org/the-big-oxygen-event.html

I really doubt we could do better than billions of years of evolution iterations.

Biological warfare, though, is another beast, since it targets human specifically.

I think there is some truth in his "head games", but your argument is good too.

One thing that helped me get through bullying was martial arts; after a few months of practice, I wouldn't be able to outright beat the bullies, but I would at least be willing to put up a fight.

The boost in self-confidence that martial arts gave me made me a tougher target and they moved on.

But I was an easy target also because I didn't really belong there, with those people. I was naturally isolated.

It doesn't matter how tough you are, if you think differently, you will be a target.

Nobody said martyrdom should be easy. By its very definition, it is not.

Bradley Manning did break his oath; he is guilty and will be punished accordingly. But what he did was, in the end, the right thing to do: he is a martyr of truth.

Petroleum Engineer here, working with research.

I can tell for myself, engineers don't have much reason to strike. Why? Because it's usually pointless, there's no short-term damage to the employer. If an engineer doesn't show up, work simply goes on.

An engineer on the field has to strike for a few weeks/months to even begin to be noticed. In my case, working with research, I would have to strike for at least one year to do some real harm to my employer.

Engineers aren't useless; the most I know are well worth what they earn. But they influence mainly the future profits of the company, while blue-collar works have a direct influence on the daily profits, not to mention the quarter results.

Striking just isn't a nice strategy for white-collar workers. Threatening to go to a competitor is.

Now if people could threaten to move entire work groups to a competitor... that would be a negotiation I would like to see.

CO2 filtering is indeed tricky. Maybe ammonia fuel production would be more viable.

Ammonia as a fuel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia#As_a_fuel

Production process:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber-Bosch

This process requires pure hydrogen, which could be made with high temperature electrolysis. I think this setup could work very well with solar thermal plants.

Other than the trouble that your fuel would really stink, it could be easier to produce than gasoline.

Ammonia is also extensively used for agriculture, so this process may be important even if fuel production doesn't take off.

It's easy to forgive a war that you've won.

Recirculation patterns are pretty common when the fluid flows through an expansion, specially if it's a sharp cut.

You can see it clearly in this case because of the gas bubbles, but this happens everywhere: next time you walk behind a building on the shore, watch the huge recirculation that the wind forms. This is usually how people with umbrellas end up wet "because of the crazy wind".

In a medieval warfare analogy, the modern aircraft carrier is not the sword and shield, nor the spear and horse; it is the whip, best used not to obliterate but to put your slaves in their proper place.

That's why you don't put a sell value triggered on instantaneous value. Use the value of closure at end of day or end of week; you can also use a daily or weekly average.

It also helps to not buy (or leverage yourself into) stuff that can pop like a corn.

That's right, the raw material isn't the problem, but energy. Fossil fuels just happen to be the cheapest source of energy for that.

In fact, many, many problems can be solved if there is free, clean, abundant energy. It's possible to just vaporize any piece of land, separate each atom individually and produce pratically anything out of it.

Of course, that's insanely inefficient. But an even crazier idea is to manufacture the atoms you need with nuclear reactions, and it would be viable with infinite energy.

Energy is the ultimate resource. Fossil fuels are just the easiest source to tap, which would be best used to develop the next not-so-easy energy source, if we were wise.

The patent claim includes any image generated by the user, not only facial images.

I wonder how many people already use, um, other body parts to unlock devices.

Quick googling: Peter F. Paul was extradited from Brazil to USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_F._Paul#Securities_fraud_conviction_and_jail_terms

I'm a brazilian, and I can say that, though Brazil has matured politically in recent years, Assange is not entirely safe here either.
The current government is leftish, but if the political climate swings back right, the relationship between Brazil and USA will change and Assange would be a good bargaining chip.
Corruption in Brazil will still be a problem for the decades to come.

In important industrial applications, a set of 3 sensors is used.

If they all agree, fine.
If one of them disagrees by a certain margin, use the information of the other two and light up a warning.
If they all disagree, turn it to manual and blast the alarms.

In really important stuff, like nuclear stuff, it is used up to 5 sensors, each with a different functioning principle.

What's the problem with that? Put a speed cap on each user, limit the number of users, drop the connection and rename the wifi every 30 minutes... there's a number of tricks that can be used so that people would be able to check their e-mails or check a map but not torrent 24/7.

And this stuff isn't free, you would be paying it with your taxes. Remember, taxes buy civilization.

The way I see it, the cause of the housing bubble was the excess credit then, which increased only the demand for houses. To get a matching increase of offer, the prices had to go up. That alone generates inflation, and when the credit dried, prices dropped back to normal, and people got stuck with the debt.

One way to avoid that is for the government to work on both ends of the market, both demand and offer. The president can lower building taxes, outright subsidize building, or the government can just build houses, though I don't see that last one happening in USA.

When the credit dries, taxes go back up and prices stay the same.

The same goes for education, if there is too much credit for the population floating around, there should be more funding for public schools and universities.

It is possible to counter these market movements that generate bubbles. When they happen on such a large scale, they are easy to spot too.