There's nothing wrong with eating insects? I don't see how they can compare to feces. I've been eating them all my life (as you said, red dye), and I'm happy about it.

We're way behind on schedule already. They should have happened now.

I really, really hope that this guy and the jetpack guy manages to create a safe and working product. We need flying cars in this world. Why? It was promised so long ago!

I highly doubt it will make humans dumber. It's not as if our brain capacity lowers. And it's not like we have become dumber as technology has advanced; the opposite is actually the case.

What future doctors should know however is what will change. Perhaps they can work on better treatments, now that they do not need to worry about diagnostics.

Basically, as technology levels increase, the academic level on the Universities increase. But that's already the case, so relax. (Or should be; sometimes the levels decrease because of politics and economics)

Don't become a manager then. Work towards becoming a specialist instead, or an architect. That way you will still sit near the top, but you won't have to manage other people.

In CS we use math, so it really is computer science =/= word processing :) computer science => word processing

It is too simple to have had a consciousness. The article reads that it contained only 40-60 neurons.

Have a look at the animals here, to get an idea of the number of neurons required for various levels of intelligence.

The definition of conscience is as far as I'm also vague as to whether that is intelligence like a humans, an intelligence on the level of a human, or an intelligence on the level of animals. I mean for example that several animals like for example Elephants are self-aware and emotional creatures. You can find many other examples.

What you had was however a very simply living being, that to a very limited degree had thought ;) I don't think it is wrong to either create it, or destroy it, not at this level of intelligence. It would have to have intelligence above that of insects before I would have problems against its destruction, but not its creation. Becomes problematic then; you're creating advanced life, can you then simply kill every failed experiment?

Personally I think research must be done until we not only create intelligent life on the level of our own, in whatever medium, hardware or software, and other intelligence that is equal in level but alien in function. How else will we truly learn to understand what intelligence is?

Sure it is

All our technology is based on good enough. Do you see perfection anywhere? No! We must make do.

The banks in Denmark certainly doesn't require you to identify yourself over the phone, or physically. I created an account yesterday in five minutes flat.

Of course they use a digital signature that is linked to my citizen ID that all the Danish banks made together in collaboration to remove that very check you are describing.

This can however be exploited as well as you describe :S Problem here is that it's my citizen ID. It's not just money then. They can change my name, my taxes, healthcare services and anything else that is between me and the state. Ack, I began the comment to say that we're far more advanced, but the pitfall with a totally digitalized citizenship is that our identify is at stake :|

If this is the case, then customers would be able to choose exactly how many points they wish to purchase.

Instead the customer is always left with a few extra points, who can then point towards a future purchase.

I prefer paying the exact price. What currency it is doesn't matter.

I see many more dimensions than two or three when I program. Visuals tools are limited by being visual. If I comprehend the syntax of the language in which I can state my logic and operations, I can do the visualisation with my own mind. It's for the same reason mathematics are great. Only the simplest problems can be expressed through figures and other visuals. When it gets interesting, you're better off with a good imagination. The same applies to hypertext. I see the structure before I write it, and not by the means of a WYSIWYG. Those always have some predetermined way of handling things, and I do not agree. The syntax have what I need, and I have my own preferences. I can't speak for any other than myself, but the ability to think abstract is an amazing aid when writing software. Actually see the architecture, the collections of elements, the pointers and references, gives you an overview that is very faster to work with, than having to look through a huge diagram.

More stuff for the bad people like me to feel challenged by then :( I hate surveillance, but I have a burning passion for AI, and as a subfield of AI, pattern matching. Each time I see an effort of encryption or subterfuge, I can't help think of algorithms and techniques that could defeat them with some success above chance. Luckily I'm not yet employed to do so. But I am just hired in a bank, and that's probably all the AI they do. So I might end up there. I'm afraid I will be so curious about the technology, that I'll forget the issue. But then again, I'm not the smartest person; if I do not do it, someone else will. What's the harm then? (I know that is a fallacy, but I fall easy victim to it) Maybe I should look into cryptography. It might be as fun creating a NP hard problem as approximating a solution? :)

Of course. Take Denmark as a glorious example of this.

On PC you can choose where it is you play. I'm sure the experience can be horrible at bad places. A lot of people just chose the first and best server that have players on it, and a map of their choice. But then they just got to suck up whatever experience they find at that server. I absolutely hate the lobby system on the console, but I think you are right that it can be better in that there are little to no cheaters. However the chance of you grouping with pleasant people are slim. What I've done for the past ten years, is simply to play at a certain set of servers, often belonging to the same community. It takes some time to find those servers of course, but I think it is worth it. Then I get to know the community, and become a part of it. Cheaters and hackers are reported, and since I know the population of the community, it's trivial to record it and send it to an administrator. Thus cheaters and hackers are banned in the matter of a few hours. The community I belong to now also encourage good behaviour, so excessive name calling, mocking etc. are also punished in various way. So it takes some work I suppose. Good thing however is that by using the time to get myself into a community of gamers, I now have 70+ friends that I know are decent players and pleasant human beings. Since it is on Steam, this then crosses out into other games; a bunch of those are bound to buy the same games I do. My experience on the Xbox 360, admittedly four years ago, when I just bought it for the exclusive title of Gears of War, was horrible. I had to attach the headset, such that I could put it under a pillow, because people were shouting profanity constantly, and unless I attached the headset I'd hear it from my sound system :| So I'm biased towards PC; I tried to play online on a console for a week, found it absolutely horrible, and returned to my PC and the people I knew there.

Well space is only as large as it has expanded. But as it keeps expanding, it keeps growing, meaning we'll never be able to travel to its ends. (Unless its rate of expansion slows or halts at some point) There are nothing where there are nothing. Then again, there are no walls, for if you could travel beyond space, you'd just expand space by travelling "out" of space. So in the sense that you could travel forever, then yes, infinite, but in the case of there being anything beyond without such travel, no. (But you couldn't observe that non existing space anyway, as any way to measure it would expand it, and create space)

I dislike driving. I commute in a metropolis, where there are no parking and constant queues. Currently I therefore only use trains, busses and metros. However, I'd like my own car such that I can choose my own destinations and have some privacy. But sitting still so much, waiting in queues, and figuring out how to navigate in crowded multilane streets puts me off this. I'd use this most definitely.