Deep Space 9 addressed this. After Sisko and crew had their little adventure in the past, they had a visit from Starfleet Temporal Investigations. When they found out Sisko met Kirk they summed up Kirk's entire career with these words: "James T. Kirk? The man was a menace!"

What if the smaller iPad wasn't intended for end users but for another OEM?

With the announcement of "Eyes Free" and a Siri button for automobiles how great a leap is it to put an iPad in your car too? Instead of those pricey in dash nav screens that all of the auto manufacturers make, what if a few of them designed an in dash dock instead? It could come with a detachable iPad capable of replacing the nav, the entertainment system, and provide a platform for new apps. And you'd be able to take it with you when you parked. Or not--Apple could always make a non-detachable model too, but I don't see that as being quite as useful.

Either way, we'll know if there's a 7 inch model coming or not soon enough.

The Siri that exists for the iPhone is not the Siri that existed two years ago. I know, I had the app on my phone. The reason Apple gets the credit is because Apple's deep pockets made the current version possible. Apple saw the potential in the app and bought the company. They then integrated Siri into their existing built in phone apps. The new Siri is much better than the original app. Without Apple's cash that improvement might not have been possible.

I don't think you're looking at this in quite the correct way. Disrupting air travel in the US on a massive scale would be a serious economic blow. You don't have to actually kill people to do a lot of damage.

At what point do you stop thinking of this as a glitch and start thinking of it as an attack?

There's no way this can come back to bite America in the ass. No way at all. Just like arming and training the Mujahideen in Afghanistan all those years ago led to those weapons and techniques being used against Americans in recent years, these "stealth internets" can possibly be used against American interests in the future. You can't assume that the people you give these to will be idiots. They'll find a way to use these to set up secure communications channels to use for their own purposes, not just for the purposes America might wish them to be used.

That's not what "consensus" implies at all. But thank you for illustrating my point.

Individually we aren't. But collectively we've shown, time and again, just how stupid we are. And we'll never be able to reach a consensus on a new economic model because of it.

I can't speak for people in other nations (I'm an American) even though I suspect I know how they would react. But I have a pretty good idea of how Americans will behave. Many of them will scream "socialist" and want nothing to do with it. Many others will complain about having to pay for it, even though they themselves are already beyond broke and use more resources than they actually contribute back. Some will never want to relinquish the (illusion of) control they believe they have over the world. We can't reach a consensus amongst ourselves, let alone with people who have different political philosophies. In other words, good luck getting us to agree with the Chinese or the Russians.

If there's going to be an intelligent solution found it will have to be found by the people with the rapidly growing populations. The future really is up to the Chinese, Indians and Africans. Don't blow it guys.

Of course it's just as likely some pointless war will greatly reduce the population pressure before the century is out...

That's no building. I see through your nefarious plan, Jobs. You're building a giant transmutation circle. You'll fill it with 13,000 souls, perform horrifying experiments on them, and then sacrifice them all in order to create a Philosopher's Stone for yourself. You've pushed the boundaries of medical science and human alchemy is all that's left to you now...

Come on, people. Of course I'm not serious. Or am I...?

But other tunnel boring projects do anticipate this sort of thing. I'll point to the city of Seattle and Washington state, which plan to replace an elevated freeway with a deep bore tunnel. Not through solid rock, but through glacial till material that is the equivalent of mixed dirt and gravel. Apparently the tunnel engineers don't think it will be a big problem to drill through it. (It will be hard on the drills themselves, but they can do it.) I think they're more concerned about the tunnel collapsing afterwards. Which was likely the concern at Niagara Falls too had they gone through something other than solid rock..

My Macbook Pro had one of the offending NVIDIA chips. When it failed out of warranty Apple simply replaced it. They didn't send me to NVIDIA for a solution. I assume they hammered NVIDIA to get their money back for the replacement part. The OEM computer manufacturers are always going to have more leverage with their suppliers than you or I will. Responsible vendors should shield the end user from this sort of pettiness and finger pointing. After all, you didn't buy your laptop from NVIDIA...

I, too, have been conditioned to believe 7 impossible things before breakfast.

This is the problem with the stock market. Its fear driven. I *could* be afraid that Windows Phone or Android might make a big dent in iPhone market share. Or I can invest with confidence and wait for actual signs that this is actually taking place. Never mind the fact that 50% of Apple's profits come from products other than the iPhone...

Between A5 and its creator, Steve Jobs, who had to audacity to impress his own memory engrams on the new chip. Due to his ongoing "personal issues" the chip became unstable and slaughtered its opponents Motorola, Samsung, and RIMM. Jobs will remind A5 of how great they both are before playing dead and waiting for HP to join the fray...

Jobs also made a point of sending his regards to Captain Dunsel. AKA Steve Ballmer.

You have a unique negative outlook on this. OK, maybe not so unique.

See here: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014751898_shuttledecision13m.html

The trainer/simulator is one of a kind. People will be allowed to walk through it. The real Shuttles will be on view, but not allowed to be touched. I'll grant that people want to see the real thing, which is why the Museum of Flight wanted one. They didn't get one, but that's no reason to be negative or unhappy about what they DID get.