Just think if there were no AC socket standard, how would it have been. Obviously something new comes up in the future, the standard may adopt it. Standards are not meant for remaining still for the life of the universe. Just see where we are on WiFi standards.

The EU made micro USB standard for all phone chargers.

I have been running Win 7 all these years and finally had to move out because Norton Security said they will stop updates in a few months time, None of the browsers work properly with many modern websites. Google Drive stopped working. Microsoft OneDrive too stopped working and so on. Finally, last year I moved to Linux Mint with Win 7 as a VM for use for my PIC programming software. So it is not just a matter of the PC will run, yes but many applications will stop running over some time on those machines.

Keep aside that Trump is asking. This is not a US-only problem, it's a worlwide issue. Reporting every 3 months apart from taking large resources and slow down of decision making, the worst issue is that companies want to always show quarter-on-quarter increases in profits - and that's killer. Results in twisting facts, layoffs, selling assets etc, just to keep showing higher numbers. It is like saying are we getting closer to our destination every 15 minutes while driving from the east coast to west coast of the US. It is non-sense to expect continous driving - as we would break for meals, rest, refuelling etc. Likewise, companies need time to grow and there will be periods in the year when numbers will fluctuate. It is indeed a badly needed correction to the business environment to do away with quarterly reporting . I would say, do it only yearly.

Rail's high efficiency comes from use of metal wheels on metal track - it's the lowest friction that one can have for locomotion. Electric power on top of that adds to higher torque and zero-emission. As other readers have pointed out additional efficiency comes from lower overhead of shared engine for a long train, lower air-resistance due to only one front vs 200 fronts when compared to cars.

The design of the Zook is extremely alarming. If both ends of the vehicle look identical, this will create danger to human drivers who might get confused thinking the vehicle is coming towards them. I have myself been in a situation where a truck driver in adjacent lane got momentarily confused by a broken-down truck that was being towed away ahead in his lane. The problem was the truck was being towed from its rear, so it's front was facing us (my car and me adjacent truck). Next moment the adjacent truck swerved suddenly into my lane when he mistook the truck ahead to be driving towards him. End result - the side door of my new car got hit by the adjacent truck and had to put in a new door. How are the authorities allowing such things on the road in the US?

That's a lost argument. All innovations till now were replacing a part of what people did (either mechanically or mentally). So only a section of the population was impacted and further the roll out was gradual over years - giving time for the impacted ones to transition to something else. But AI will eliminate most mental work that bulk of population does currently for employment. The only jobs left out will be those that are physical and not suitable for robots - like gardeners or nursing. Not everyone can now become gardeners - not enough gardens :-)

More likely your pedometer is counting double or triple. Did you spend 2 hours walking between classrooms over a day? If not, then you can't be clocking 10000 steps.

I fail to fathom what drives companies such as Microsoft and Google to lay off people when they are overflowing with profits? When a company is having poor business, layoffs are understandable. Are companies becoming so greedy that no amount of profits is enough?

Totally agree. Calling them robots, we might as well call 'tablets' (pills) as robots as welll - they go down into the stomach guided by water and change their state and trigger what-not.

Thanks for articulating the differene so clearly.

Very informative. Needs modding up.
But I agree with others that Comic Sans gives a feel of utter casualness to the text and should be restricted to only comic strips and the like. While I am just a user of fonts, I intrinsically appreciate the big difference fonts create how on our impression of content. The analogy is design of a package for a product - the more attractive a package, the more weight (value) we implicitly attach to the product.

Me too, been doing that since the days of landline (pre-mobile) days time. And now that you mention, everyone in my family uses left ear and so do most of the people that I see in my neighborhood and office. And we are all right handed, So I guess your logic of having the right hand free makes very good sense.

I was surprised to read the words 'resurgence' as if it had ever gone down. Many years back (I don't live in Europe these days) I have travelled several times on overnight trains there crossing countries and geographies, and as always, loved the journeys. To me the journey is most of the joy of going somewhere, and nothing beats the lullaby of the train rolling on the tracks, and the sounds changing as we cross bridges, tunnels and stations platforms.

I totally dislike the new Settings screen. First of all there is no Save button. It completely flies against basic UX principles. You change any option it gets changes right away. Second the UI looks so childish. 6-7 fields, but the screen requires to be scrolled to see all the fields. When the first time I came across this type of settinmgs (in Proxy settings) - for many days I was wondering is that a Windows screen or Chrome's settings screen - because it looked so out of place and poor UI compared to the Control panel.