Have there been any studies regarding the climate impact of solar installations themselves? Cities, with all their concrete and glass and whatnot, affect their local climate. It seems like adding a crap ton of shiny things across huge swaths of land would have a similar impact (or, when in an urban area, exacerbate the effect).

I'm neither a climate scientist nor particularly familiar with the research on the effects of urban areas, and while CO2 emissions have a global impact, I'd be interested in the tradeoff of a lessened global impact alongside a stronger local impact.

I tried a supermassive diet, but it didn't work out so well. Turns out metabolism doesn't work that way.

That depends on whether the plastic in the oceans retains heat. It could count as an assist.

It's just different grammar than you're used to.

Apple and Blackberry at Tanagra. Darmok and Jalad, their cellphones wide.

Does it also simulate how viruses propagate amongst passengers? Can you simulate the scenario where all the toilets clog and the decks are awash with filth?

I demand realism from my simulators!

Which is exactly why Batman would win.

I call conspiracy. This all sounds like what the intelligent computer overlords would want us to think.

I for one welcome them.

This may not be what you intended, but I really like the idea of a modular solar farm. I pay up front for one or more solar panels to be installed in a desert somewhere, managed by a third party, then get dividends from the power that is produced and sold. I'm not directly affecting my local power bill, but I'm contributing to a solution and offsetting my bill from the power generated. It would work a whole lot better than trying to capture sunlight during my 6 months of winter (or fighting the neighborhood covenant that believes all solar power is an eyesore).

Notably, depending upon how HCF is implemented on any given hardware, this also addresses the underlying question of whether the robot could decide to kill the human. In this case, we apparently default to true.

Based on his prolific works on Slashdot, I'm wondering where frequent contributor Bennett Haselton is on the list?

1. Make bad game
2. Add landfill waste
3. Simmer on low heat for 30 years
4. ???
5. Excavate and sell to collectors (Profit!)

Questions about government overreach and whatnot aside, the analyst's manual is quite a nice read on how mundane intelligence analysis can be. They've apparently got a very nice application for establishing persons of interest and automatically creating a directed graph of who knows whom based on address books / calendars, but the rest is still human analysis. I particularly liked the pictures which clearly showed location information as being "somewhere in this two block radius".

So, the punchline is now reality? "Assume a spherical driver."

I don't see the need for a tinfoil hat here. If my phone is actively searching for a network, and the airport is using that information in a way that doesn't identify me, doesn't make my phone think it should be sending any other data, and generally makes my experience better, I don't see a problem. They're even letting me know that they do it.

I love my privacy, but this use seems perfectly sane. Yes, they could hire a Walmart greeter to sit on a stool and watch the line, periodically holding up a chalk board with an estimated wait time. But then we'd be decrying the creepy guy who keeps staring at us in line.

How about we actually see how some innovations play out before deciding that the airport is going to stalk us?