As someone who enjoys tinkering with the hardware, it would be even cooler to have one team develop the robot hardware and the other develop the software. The software should be designed such that it can easily be ported to a new robot platform using the same inputs/outputs.

They are likely doing both. The full body scanners and X-Ray machines are probably meant to detect these types of non-metal weapons.
It does make sense though that they ask legitimate manufacturers to include a metal slug since it doesn't harm legal users and could increase the detection of illegal users.

 

Well, I could see it being a problem simply because they are plastic. Think of all of the places where you have to pass through metal detectors for security. This "gun" will not set off a detector (unless the maker was kind enough to include the chunk of metal designed to set off detectors).

Desperate people may not care that the gun isn't very safe or usable; all it takes is one bullet to assassinate someone, one bullet to kill somebody in a prison, one bullet to hijack a plane (maybe not quite doable on a plane, but maybe with more than one person with these plastic weaposn?). It also would make an excellent untraceable murder weapon. Build gun which just has to fire one round, do your business, and then toss the gun into a fire where it can be completely destroyed.

Yup.. the more I think about it, the more gimicky and stupid this "invention" seems. They just want people to buy it so that they can say to friends they have a high tech sci-fi gun.

Better yet, why not make it so that there is an iris scanner in the barrel... just point the gun at your eye and it will disable the safety.

I was working under the assumption that once "unlocked", the gun would continue to fire until "locked" again.
Not sure if this is the case, but I would imagine while hunting you would unlock it when you first enter the woods, and lock again when you're leaving for home.

Presumably because people buy guns for security, not just for entertainment at a range.

If you're about to be attacked/killed by a burglar and you reach for your gun and pull the trigger you want to make sure as hell that the gun works. If it doesn't work, for whatever reason, you're in a worse position than you started because now the burglar has reason to incapacitate/kill you.

I cant see this being useful for a security gun. If you reach for your gun you'll have to very consciously "unlock" it with your fingerprint. If your nervous, it's dark, or whatever, it might not recognize you. Even in the best case scenario, this unlocking will take time. Couple that with requiring a battery, and it could be trouble.

However, if this is just being used to secure less crucial weapons such as hunting rifles, or the kind that you might only ever use at a range, I could see the fingerprint being scanner being useful. It would help to prevent children or thieves from using your weapon and when you're hunting or at the range, you presumably have the time to check the batteries and swipe your finger a second time if it fails to register you the first go.

I suppose it is opinion. It just doesn't make any sense to me that our purpose is to have no impact on the universe. Not only my quoted above statement an opinion, it is also ambiguous as there is no great consensus on what it means to "improve" the world and universe. Just because the basis of my argument is an ambiguous opinion doesn't mean that my argument should carry no weight.

In my opinion, an engineered reef is better than a dead one. So it makes sense to try provided that we can have some reasonable assurance that any human engineered reef isnt going take over the entire ocean or squeeze out native reefs (or other species for that matter). This is not a trivial problem, but I don't think its worth abandoning all-together simply because anything we make is not "natural".

Also the definition of "natural" seems up in the air. Humans naturally evolved on the earth, and have naturally adapted the use of tools, and farming, and using the natural resources available to us. What makes us any less natural than any other animal? Also the idea that humans are no longer subject to natural selection seems a bit silly to me. There are plenty of things that influence a humans ability to reproduce. Children born with crippling disease often dont go on to reproduce, therefore evolution of humanity selects against crippling disease.

The goal of human existence as a whole should not be to leave no trace, but to improve the world and universe. Granted, this does not mean that we should rape and pillage mother nature for her resources, but the goal should not be to put the entire planet on "pause", preventing any further change or adaptation, but to try and live harmoniously with whats here. If that means attempting to repair corral reefs, or even genetic engineering change in those reefs, then whose to say that is wrong? The only risk is that if we do something like engineer a better algae, we risk missing subtle properties of the current algae for behaving as it does that could have even worse effects somewhere else in the ecosystem.

Also, if reef A dies due to whatever factor, does another area in the ocean become more compatible for supporting a reef? Perhaps the corral migrate on their own over long periods of time. Maybe the solution isnt to attempt and fix existing reefs, but to spawn entirely new ones in water that was formerly too cold to support a reef.
 

Also, farming sugar beets and corn takes a lot of fossil fuels to run the tractors, ship the beets, process the beets, etc... I'm sure its still a net gain or they wouldn't be doing it, but all of that will still shave their margins a bit.

The only advantage to burning crops for energy (essentially what they are doing) is that it can be carbon neutral if only ethanol based fossil fuels are used in its production since any carbon released when burning the ethanol is carbon that was captured by the plants that grew to produce it.

However, I'm sure they aren't using just ethanol for the production, and also they are using fertilizer that requires lots of fossil fuels. The real shame though is that it is a waste of farmland that could have otherwise been growing useful food crops, which we need as much of as we can get, and will only need more in the foreseeable future.

I would LOVE a new Warcraft RTS.

But not like warcraft 3 where they put too much emphasis on "legends" which were single irreplacable units with super powers that the game revolves around. Too much like a pre-cursor to WoW.

   

Maybe it's like a fake alarm permit or the blinking light people put in their cars. If you get an NRA sticker and slap it in your window maybe a would be criminal will think twice about hitting your house and move on to the neighbours.

Please estimate the size of the strongly worded memo in libraries of congress so that it makes sense to the lay person. Thank you.

Canadian here. The way our cameras work is that they only issue a fine to the registered owner of the vehicle. It is the owners responsibility since they are the ones registered and paying insurance. If the car was speeding or ran a red light, then the owner consented to allow the driver to use the car, and so is responsible for any infractions while driving. If the owner knows who was driving at the time, then they can try and collect the fee from the person driving (visible in the photo), or they can choose to not let that person use their car in the future. That being said, since it does not prove the owner was driving, it does not affect the owners driving record (ie, no demerits, no effect on future insurance rates, etc..). The owner is allowed to plead that the driver did not have consent, in which case the car was considered stolen and proper police work can be done to determine if the car is in fact stolen, or if the owner is lying. If it was indeed stolen, I believe the owner is not responsible for the fees resulting from infractions.

I find it very annoying that they are banning traditional bulbs. Especially in Canada, where I am. First off, there are many situations in which the CFL bulbs simply don't work. For example, outdoor lights. Sure, they work fine most of the year, but when winter hits they either take forever to turn on, and when they do are incredibly dim. LED bulbs are also not generally available yet in Canada, and if you do find them, they are ~$30 each. This leaves good old incandescent bulbs. And in the spring, fall, and winter months, the heat given off by the bulbs is hardly wasted. It helps heat the house; any heat given off by the light bulbs is less energy the furnace has to expend. Given these issues, I would much prefer the nice warm glow of an incandescent bulb to the harsh colour of the CFL (although they are improving). I do have some CFLs in my house for general purpose lighting, but there are many specialty bulbs that really just cant be replaced by CFL.

Agreed. Purchased a new Nikola Tesla coffee mug for my desk at work. Great guy, great comics, shitty thieves.