That is true, but the archaeology shows that this won't work for all island-hopping or all river navigation.

For example, we have clear evidence of hominins not just living on islands across the Mediterranean when no ice was present (it was free-standing water) but commuting to and from shore. We also have evidence of technologies travelling upstream along river-based communities at speeds that cannot be accounted for by simply walking.

So we need a model in which they could actively navigate against the water flow AND across significant distances of open water.

That doesn't seem to be in the Debian repository. (I don't have my Algol documentation anymore anyway, but once upon a time...)

But I meant Algol-60, which was the only version that was ever widely used.

Well, when I went looking for an Algol compiler, I didn't find it. But perhaps I just needed to look outside the repositories.

What about "Don't write your stuff while wearing a plaid shirt."?
If the rules can't be enforced honestly, they shouldn't be present. And rules against AI can't be enforced honestly unless you hold the contest in a sealed room with no remote access.

The problem is that the context of the pre-2020 works will become continuously more dated. I can't stand most Victorian fiction, even Sherlock Holmes is weak outside of the short stories. Historical fiction really needs to be written from a viewpoint assuming the current context...which means it becomes dated. And this also works, though less powerfully, in the realm of fantasy.

IIUC, the human variant of that gene (FOX P2) is NOT shared with other extant species. But it also seems true that there were lots of other changes associated with it.

We know that boats built 1.1 million years ago (so around the time of the split) were capable of going long distances up/down rivers between settlements, and across open waters beyond visual range to islands. This places certain language requirements on the hominins of the time, although we can't be sure hobbits had full access to all of those requirements. (There's not much evidence of boat building.)

However, they must have genetically had the capability, whether or not their brains were large enough to make any use of it.

That is all perfectly true, but we have a problem. Boats were capable of navigating reliably and robustly up/down rivers and across open sea beyond visual range. This requires much more complex communication than a gorilla or a chimpanzee is capable of, but obviously orders of magnitude less than a modern human or a Neanderthal.

It would seem reasonable to say that homo florensis was as much like us as those who first built deliberate boats for voyages requiring complex navigation.

The homo genus arose 2.2 million years ago. Evidence of complex communication exists as far back as 750,000-1.1 million years ago. Homo sapiens arose 300,000 years ago and are technically the "modern humans" as far as outward physiology is concerned. The brain was the size of modern humans for much of the 2.2 million years, but it is disputed how much. Since homo florensis is clearly not being likened to modern humans in the morphological sense, it would seem reasonable to conclude that they must be talking about some intellecual capability.

Saying it "gave us our next-level language abilities", but it does seem necessary for them. I really doubt that it is sufficient. (But we could insert one into a Chimpanzee or Bonobo to check.)

Fusion is going to be necessary at some point, and you can't start those with solar panels. Reducing wilderness is acceptable up to a point, but beyond that you start to screw up vital corridors and endanger whole sections of the food web - including those not directly impacted by the panels. So yes, you can increase solar and wind, but there are upper limits you absolutely should not cross. We're nowhere near those in the US, yet, but they shouldn't be ignored.

Nuclear as a general purpose fuel is dangerous, yes. So you need much much higher standards for designs and maintenance to keep them safe, and you really need Gen 4+ in order to be able to use nuclear waste as fuel (as we've a lot of that and can then dispose of the energy locked in it quickly and safely). A few more nuclear plants won't cause problems, provided they are Gen 4+ and preferably molten salt not water.

It's hard to not blame TEPCO to some level, as the tsunami was a one in 500 year type and was around 500 years after the last one of that magnitude. Although they're not exactly clockwork, it does become kinda obvious that you need to take such things into consideration. Yeah, yeah, there was no "legal obligation". Honestly, that isn't worth a damn. Either you update the design as new risks are determined (regardless of the law) or you knowingly take that risk.

However, you're absolutely right that the tsunami and the earthquake caused most of the property loss.