A powerful graphics suite does not make one a skilled graphic designer. Look at it from the other side: now you don't need to spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on a formal education to find out if you have what it takes to be a designer.
If this continues, you will not see a single person their [sic] who has a degree above a high school diploma.
If that is true, then all it means is that training beyond a HS diploma does not add value to a designer's work.
There will always be people and/or companies that demand top quality design. So the best designers will always have work. It is the Ok to good designers who have to worry as the mass of market entrants start cranking out work that is "good enough".
Today, a hobbyist could easily build an autonomous surveillance robot the size of a small rodent that has everything it needs to capture sound and audio and either store the resulting feed or stream it to a server somewhere. In 20 more years, how much smaller than "rodent" do you think that robot could be?
Interesting idea, although entirely irrelevant to the discussion. 20 years ago, a hobbyist could easily install hidden cameras throughout your home, office, gym locker room, wherever. The fact that the technology was available didn't make it legal then, doesn't make it legal now, and won't make it legal in the future.
It is not the technology you should be worried about, it is the erosion of rights against unlawful search (including surveillance) and seizure you need to watch out for.
This is the big problem with corn ethanol - it is energy negative!
Probably not. I suppose you could say it is open to debate, but the consensus seems to be for positive energy output with current methods. Also perhaps worth noting is that the parent commented on biofuels in general, whereas you focused in on one particular biofuel from a source that happens to be a bad idea pretty much all the way around. I can see the rationale for using surplus corn for ethanol if you have to use it (the surplus corn). But you're probably better off storing it until pricing/supply supports using it as some form of food or feed.
Better methods are coming along, though. Cellulosic ethanol seems promising since it can use non-food feedstock, including existing agricultural waste streams or switchgrass, kudzu or other fast-growing non-commercial plants. Biodiesel from jatropha or other non-food crops are still a possibility, especially where small scale production can work, but algae and pond scum have several advantages over plant crops, and there are companies working on commercial scale implementations now. There is also biodiesel from waste vegetable oil -- either processed, or just filtered and used as-is in slightly modded diesels. And then there is thermal deploymerization of agricultural waste into diesel/fuel oil, which has been going on commercially for a few years now.
Any or all of these can fit into our existing infrastructure, so as petroleum hydrocarbons become more expensive (and/or tech improves for the alternatives), they'll start to become players in the market.
Solutions are obvious if one only has the optical power to observe them over the horizon. -- K.A. Arsdall