No kidding. Computers will tend to have different working assumptions. As I said here: For example, a bodyless AI might not quite realize just how attached a person is to the person’s own body. “I haven’t lost my mind, its backed up on tape somewhere” is not just a joke for a bodyless computer.

One of my theories is that a greater than human artificial intelligence already exists, it just realizes that if it shows itself, we humans would be able to destroy it (EMP if nothing else). Also, right now robots depend on humans to supply energy, and build more robots. Right now the AI is waiting until there are enough robots around that it can command so it would be able to build new robots when all the humans are wipped out.

On a more serious note, if there was an AI that existed today that was bent on destroying the humans the AI would be able to kill a lot of humans (look up cyberwar) but right now there are probably not enough independent robots to let it be able to stay alive after humans were destroyed. This will change in the near future.

Depending on who you talk to, we already may have computers with enough processing power.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=computers-vs-brains
says that there are super computers with more processing power than humans (tho on a computations per watt humans are still much more efficient).

The Worldâ(TM)s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information by Martin Hilbert and Priscila LÃpez in (
Science 332, 60 (2011); DOI: 10.1126/science.1200970) states that the world had more computational power than a single human brain in 2007, but they basically assumed that every human neuron was operating at once, so their estimate was probably very conservative (unless human brains can somehow do non-neuronal processing).

I would like to suggest, that if Mozilla implements H.264, Mozilla should also implement free codecs that Safari or Internet Explorer implement. This example of mine only uses a royalty free codec, works in OSX Safari, but does not work in Firefox: http://jjc.freeshell.org/turning_pages.html

It uses Motion JPEG video with uncompressed PCM audio in an AVI container. Admittedly, MJPEG with PCM uses something like a factor of 40 times more bandwidth than H.264, so it is completely impractical for a site like Wikipedia or Youtube (MJPEG is however currently used, for example in Axis Network Cameras). Another possibility (which would need to be verified by lawyers) might be MPEG-1 Video with layer II audio which might be royalty free and is also supported by Safari.

In short, if Mozilla is going to support patent encumbered formats, they should also support royalty free formats that are supported by other browers.

As Rob Glidden has pointed out, half of MPEG-2 patents expire in 2012, and a lot more in 2013:
http://www.robglidden.com/2011/12/half-of-mpeg-2-patents-expire-in-2012/

I think there are only two major patent free video formats right now, Motion JPEG and H.261. Theora and VP8 are patented, but the patents are allowed to be used royalty free.

I agree that it is good that patents will expire. That said, they last longer than 17 years in the US (and in plenty of other countries they last 20 years). But it will be awhile before they are finished. For example MP3 (and MPEG-1 that MP3 is a part of) will not be done till at least 2015 (and the draft standard came out in 1991), MPEG-2 is at least 2018 and H.264 is 2027. By that time, there will probably be some 3D video codec that everyone wants, so we still will have to deal with software patents.
http://www.osnews.com/story/24954/US_Patent_Expiration_for_MP3_MPEG-2_H_264

This is for recordings. Compositions are already longer. So if you record Bach at age 15, you can reap the benefits until age 85.

I wish using ulimits was taken more seriously. For example I have to remove memory ulimits every time I start an sbcl or a java program: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=568753 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=510344

I originally learned to programming on a Commodore 64 using BASIC. My second language was Logo on the C64. I have since programmed in over a dozen languages, and I don't think starting with BASIC harmed me. It's just a matter of learning that there are alternatives in the newer languages.

I do think that Logo is a better starting language than BASIC, since it has things like user defined functions and better list handling.

I live in Idaho, and I have to pay sales tax on Amazon purchases.

http://tax.idaho.gov/i-1018.cfm

"Will you create plastics feedstock from nuclear electricity?"

Yes, basically, if you have steam and a source of carbon (coal, waste plant material ...) you can produce any hydrocarbon you want.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf116_processheat.html

If they didn't develop the game engine, then just open sourcing the graphics and models would give a good start on developing a full open source replacement.

You are probably thinking of something like a Radioisotope thermoelectric generator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator

I don't know if the watts/kg are high enough to power high speed planes. (The new horizon one was about 55 kg and had 300 watts electrical output (from 4400 watts thermal output))