My biggest concern with AI is the same concern with automation: our economy is built on the assumption that labor is a scarce resource. With increasing automation, that assumption is rapidly breaking down. As higher and higher level tasks require less and less people society is in trouble unless we can somehow modify our economic system to account for that breakdown.

Now this is where formal education has a place. Anyone with the necessary abstract reasoning abilities and problem-solving intuition, etc... can become a self taught programmer. Formal education can help foster those skills in students that may have less aptitude in those areas.

The VW touareg and Porsche Cayenne share the same platform, albeit with different a few different parts and tuning (and being built in a different factory). So, why is this a surprise to anyone?

In case the casual reader is unaware, google scholar picks these up from many university personal pages and links them to its index of the paper. It's not that you just have a bunch of personal websites with papers and no way to find them.

Companies' fear of large fines from regulators: incentivizes companies to skirt around regulation
Companies' fear of class-action lawsuits: incentivizes lawyers to pursue cases without actually benefiting victims much
Companies' fear of reputation loss: this is only the case if incidents are rare
Harsher punishment for ID thieves: incentivizes thieves to hide better or not commit a crime
Harsher penalties for individuals' security gaffes: how do you even propose to do this?
Individuals' vigilance with password & data security: need to provide incentive for this, especially when personal responsibility is diminishing
Nothing much: it's just an inevitable tide to endure: only the best option if all of the other options are likely to make the situation worse

I'm going with harsher punishment. While people do need to be more aware, the key is to create incentives for thieves to NOT steal. In an ideal world, the punishment for a crime should be strictly greater than the expected value of committing the crime (of course conditioned on the probability of false conviction). Obviously, such things are not easy to measure...

I think the argument here is that it's cheaper than keeping the legacy power hungry stuff. Cheaper in the long run than owning the LEDs? Definitely not, because the lessor is making a profit somewhere.
If you don't have the capital to invest in purchasing your own stuff and switching over, however, it seems like this is a reasonable option.

I think people would be surprised how many users still want a decent android phone with a keyboard. I still have my droid4. It is not uncommon for me to get comments from strangers like "wow, I wish I still had a phone like that" whenever I'm typing away. Good on BlackBerry if they can pull it off, I know I'm not alone in hoping this isn't a rumor.

The main reason I still use firefox.

But many financial institutions throw this at the end of their emails (amongst a larger disclaimer):
"If you have received this communication in error please delete or destroy it and notify the sender immediately."

Does anyone know if these statements hold any water?

It was originally legislated to protect workers from factory closure, but applies to many workers who get laid off without notice. Severance (though not in that name) is mandated in the Penalties section when due notice is not given: "An employer who violates the WARN provisions by ordering a plant closing or mass layoff without providing appropriate notice is liable to each aggrieved employee for an amount including back pay and benefits for the period of violation, up to 60 days."

I realize that the large severance pay typically given to IT employees is not intended to comply with this law (though it would would prove satisfactory in cases where WARN applies, should anyone investigate), but merely wanted to point out that it exists.

Actually, depending on the terms of the dismissal (particularly how much notice is given), severance pay is not a benefit in the US, but required by law - http://www.doleta.gov/programs... In many of these cases, however, they're basically offering you that 3months+ of pay to be quiet (among other things). Even "I worked for a tech company that I'll not name, and was laid off when they hired foreign workers" may be in violation of the terms, especially when you start to ponder the strength of their legal team vs. yours.

"Viral growth" isn't only for youtube videos. One major thing to consider is that disease can spread exponentially.

I apologize that I don't have time to construct a proper reply, but this article gives a nice explanation of how majorana fermions can be used to make qubits (hopefully it's not paywalled, but I'm on a university network so it's hard for me to tell): http://www.nature.com/nphys/jo...