Except that the average life expectancy you quote is at birth... Roy was in his 40's when he started reducing his amount of calories, so his life expectancy would have been approaching 80 regardless of what he ate.

Pass me the steak!

But the _Houses_Of_Parliament_ signals were stand alone. Just working at that junction.

The first traffic control system - were the signal were co-ordinated in London was ~1960s

Absolute rubbish. Change the "green lights", behind the jam/incident will slow the flow into the congested area. Making it easier to get relieve the congestion. This with the use of VMS, encourages people to take alternative routes. Also upstream from the incident long green times will help traffic get away from the congestion.

Guess what - it is complex, but computer system and good algorithm can handle complexity.

technically Transport for London..

Traffic Signals can be designed this way - it is called priority "Hurry Call" in the UK.

However, it is counter-initiative in that a crash change to the approach where the Emergency vehicle is heading may (for example) cause the middle of the junction to not clear - making it harder/long for the Blue light vehicle to get through and cause more congestion for subsequent emergency vehicles.

(Article Submitter)
The person who wrote the first Italian Job got the idea from London's first traffic control system.

A different model might hold the student back until they show proficiency. Once they have confidence in the material, the system "rewards" them and presents the next chapter. The student is motivated to get the next level of achievement, and their level of understanding is greater.

The Khan Academy uses this approach when one does the exercises: you start with the basics and gradually gain points and badges while you work through the various topics, using the video lectures when you get stuck.

All exercises are voluntary but the mentoring and statistics are very well thought-out so that student progress can be followed in detail. The next step up would be that only students that have shown their proficiency are allowed to take an exam.

I'm currently using the KA code to set up a similar academy for a local university (the focus of the content being grammar). The code is rather hairy but the concepts behind the site are very interesting.

In 75 years, should we survive, we'll look back on it with the same amusement.

Like most science fiction writing you mean?

I've always found this definition of 'space opera' a bit of a misnomer, as if true science fiction always follows the laws of physics or has a deep underlying message about the future of technology. If you look back at the works of Asimov, Heinlein, Lem and Clarke you know that this isn't always the case.

The reason Hamilton's works are lumped under space opera is because of the extensive focus on setting and characters. But there are plenty of 'hard sci-fi' nuggets in his work IMHO.