I plan to join the roving bands of rapists and looters and will go full on canibal as soon as the first McDonalds closes.

I don't believe the tornadoes took the roads away. Anyone can drive a semi truck to OK with loads of supplies. What is a quadcoptor doing that a truck can't?

Same thing for Sandy. NY/NJ were not inaccessable. Small parts were for short periods. Still, those areas were so dense you'd need thousands of coptors to supply those people with supplies. A truck would still be a better faster option.

"Anyone with access to a modern metal working shop can produce a decent weapon."

I hate to pull the "think of the children" card but...

3D printers aren't common now. In a few years they may be and available at Best Buy for $399. When that happens many people will have them in their house. You usually don't have to worry about your kids printing dangerous items. Kids also don't generally have access to a modern metal working shop. Kids do have access to the home computer and the printer attached. If they can download gun blueprints and print out a few I'm sure they will. Assuming they can come up with some bullets you know they will end up testing their "toys" out. Just something to think about.

"- Fines, cost of repairs, and insurance premiums eat away at their citizens' bank accounts. Less money = less spending = less sales taxes, and a lot of angry, pissed off citizens."

When you have repairs, higher insurance, and fines you are still spending just as much. You merely aren't spending it where you want to. The state still gets to tax those repairs and insurance premiums and gets all the money from fines.

"A 90 year old grandmother can defend herself against a knife wielding rapist if she has a gun. Without it she is relegated to only being a victim."

I guess there is no way she could own a knife also. Or pepper spray, or a taser, or mace. Without a gun the elderly are generally helpless against a knife wielding rapist?

You are atypical. Most people would prefer to but less comfortable for maybe 2 hours than to be on a train for 21 hours. You could literally day trip from Chicago to Boston and back on a plane. Via train the way you did it, it would be 42 hours of travel plus the time spent in Boston. Thats nearly 4 solid days of sitting on a train! I also suspect you can get multiple flights a day to/from those locations while trains may be daily at best.

I ordered one about 3 weeks ago from Newark and it arrived in a week. Their site said it was out of stock but I did get one. I suspect they have a revolving outage. Even if they didn't, its only $35. If that breaks the bank then you shouldn't be playing.

I know Jabberjaw dates back to 1976.I didn't read the article, but are they implying there was marine life even before that?

Are you sure that wasn't Kalvin and Hobbes. That kid can think up some whacky stuff!

"What if the storage fails in a way that shows incorrect data and you do end up in an accident when only driving 50 but the device showing you've been zigzagging and doing 90 (which you were just before it burned out, but on a privately owned racecourse a couple weeks prior)? Or what if someone manipulated the recorder to frame you?"

What if someone murders a family and puts a pile of bloody hatchets in your shed and anonymously report you to the police? If someone wants to frame you they have plenty of opportunity beyond tampering with a black box on your car.

All it would take is one android/ios app to read/send encrypted SMS messages and this would be defeated. Of course the cops would then try to extract your keys but that couldn't happen near as easy.

Isn't that what BitCoin is for?

"helping people sell stuff they own, find a hotel, or a life partner – is that they represent a positive change in the lives of millions of people "

Lots of people use these systems for negative change. How many married people are on dating sites, buying things they shouldn't, taking trips with money they don't have. They do a lot of good, but there is always bad in there somewhere.

Not really, but if it looked like this he would definately have an issue...

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/4702368517_812af64a5a.jpg

If this were true, then aliens would have wiped us out if they had ever visited us.

As some others have noted, you could always hook into your destination and cause all those hitchhiking particles to be shot into the nearest black hole. Then no one gets huts unless that cross in front of that traffic while its heading to the black hole.