And just think: if it overheats, your computer becomes delicious

Honestly, I found the name "Unobtainium" no less plausible than a number of the heavier elements in the periodic table. Comparing "Unobtainium" to, say... "Promethium", "Ununoctium", "Berkeluim", "Californium"; not to mention a number of the proposed names for the current temporary ones... How does "Unobtainium" defy logic any more than those do?

Or are you claiming that because we haven't discovered it yet, it doesn't exist? In a science fiction movie. Really? Really?

As for orbital bombardment... That's probably the part the Cameron didn't show. Humans go down to the surface and try to strip-mine politely because of politics. Think of the PR win that it would be for the (then current) administration if they can convince these primitive creatures to live/act like humans! But now that we're kicked off planet, time to warm up the nukes.

I think it's more "don't artificially limit it via per-user throttles".

Evolution is entirely random. Natural selection is not. You are using the term evolution to describe both processes.

This only works when the profile actually has public information. If _everything_ is private (as it is on mine) and nothing is visible on the 'distress' page, then this would be a clear red-flag that you're not showing the right thing.

I think it's also important to remember that at the moment, customers provide the transport-to-home. This is a non-trivial number of routes that must be serviced, and would take a significant number of drives in order to service in a reasonable timeframe. Perhaps it would be doable if you would accept that you can only receive delivery on specific days (maybe only monday and thursday, for instance, or even just monday in underrepresented markets), but then the brick and mortar stores are needed to provide the incidentals or the last-minute "oh shit, I forgot that" items. Either way, you're going to be paying a delivery charge. The charge could be bundled into the price of the items and averaged out over all the items, sure. But then you start dealing with psychology and "oh, it's cheaper if I drive myself to and buy it. Look, I'll save 10 cents per pound!". Psychology is also in play as people prefer to pick out their own items. Every time they get a banana with a couple brown spots, they'll be wondering if there were better ones that they didn't get. You mentioned a big box to receive deliveries in - I think this is simply not doable in cities when you start considering apartment buildings with 20-400 units in them, simply due to space considerations. Rural areas and suburbs, sure - that could work. tl;dr - I don't see B&M stores going away for a long time.

You mean like this? http://www.peapod.com/

[Tangent started] There could be a variety of reasons for tolerance in a 'true' religion. 1) if their God had demanded that everyone be allowed to make their own choice; 2) A religion that says simply the act of faith is necessary, wherever that is placed; 3) A religion that holds ALL religions to be false, and thus not matter at all. [/tangent]

tldr; Truth in a religion has nothing to do with how tolerant it is.

The problem is that many people will feel "comfortable" at speeds that they personally are not safe at. They'll continue to feel "comfortable" right until they look down at their makeup/phone/breakfast/newspaper and crash.

The more comfortable a person is, the more comfortable they will be with directing their attention elsewhere. And the more someone drives at higher speeds, the easier it becomes to be comfortable at even higher speeds than that.

I'm sorry, checking your email on your phone while cruising at 85-90 on a busy freeway is not the safest behavior.

One way that I did it with AT&T was to sign up for a plan, but _don't_ sign up for a data plan. Since all iphones are required to have a data plan, in a few months they'll notice and just tack one on to your bill.

No contract required.

That's how I did it a few years ago when I moved back to the US from Australia with my aussie iphone.

Though in truth he could just be apathetic.

What are you talking about, this looks totally legit: http://imageshack.us/f/163/easyspycomp.jpg/

Netflix can do it pretty easily.

The United Kingdom of Firewalls

It is entirely psychology - but the psychological differences between positive feedback (do something right, get reward) and negative feedback (do something wrong, get punished) are coming onto play here.

FFXIV "punishes" players for playing too much by giving them less XP. This results in the perception that it is bad to play for long periods of time. WoW "rewards" players for playing less by giving them more XP. This results in the perception that it is good to play for shorter periods of time. Yes, the end XP result is the same, however the perception differences between reward and punishment give the events a emotive response that is _not_ the same.

That's one of the things S-E needs to learn - the psychology of gamers. There IS a market for people who enjoy being punished. The masses with their wads of cash? Not so much; they tend to prefer being rewarded.