Automation is coming for so many more jobs than just these. But, the "OMG the Jobs!" concerns are the EXACT same concerns back when horseless carriages were introduced. What about the blacksmiths? What about the horse trainers and breeders? It's the same concerns here. I would argue that with the truck driving being automated, that the drivers will be reassigned to security guards. After all, you'll need someone to guard that cargo that no one is driving. Of course, until the security aspect also becomes automated, which brings me to my next point: The US government does not realize how much automation is coming. It's not just the menial jobs, like fast food that is going to go full automation, but think about higher level jobs -- medical diagnosis, paralegal work, IT -- automation is coming full-force for much higher level positions than most people realize. There needs to be an honest discussion starting right now about guaranteed living wages, because before this century is up (assuming humans are still alive), there simply won't be enough jobs to keep a middle class.

Here's the shocker: human beings in control of motorized vehicles are increasingly DANGEROUS. The autonomous vehicles with human operators as a failsafe is a transition phase. As the AI gets better, accidents decrease, safety increases, the humans will no longer be needed. For long haul truckers, worried about losing their jobs, I would expect their roles to shift to security guards because most likely, we'd want someone guarding those trucks of stuff shipping all over the place. This is technological progress -- humans being replaced by machines. In a constantly evolving technological world, this makes sense. Humans need to be taken out of the problem because with so many error prone humans driving on ever denser roads, the possibility of death increases. At this point, the number of vehicular deaths on the roads is unacceptable, and that is why technology is taking over. To the crowd averse to change, who say things like, "you're not taking my control away," -- you don't get to maintain control on public roads if my safety relies on you "following the rules" as the school bus problem currently exhibits. If you still want to drive your own car, then do it on a track, or buy a nice piece of land. The public road should be automated, and will be automated, because computers are far better at dealing with collision detection and traffic than human beings are. And what will happen is that the crash and ticket incidents will dramatically drop for self-driving cars to the point that the insurance companies end up making driving yourself prohibitively expensive. It will fix itself. And either you will embrace the change, or you will be stuck with your horse and your carriage proclaiming these newfangled devices to be the death to mankind. Progress happens regardless of how you personally feel about it. Slashdot is news for nerds, I'd expect a large part of those nerds to be in IT -- the very place where change happens ALL the time. We should be used to stuff changing by now.

Except VMware continues to push the envelope by advancing technology. For example: Enhanced vMotion allows you to migrate BOTH the virtual machine AND its files in one operation, meaning you can now do vMotion migrations without shared storage. Also, currently in Tech Preview, which most likely means in full version coming out very soon, is Multi-processor Fault Tolerance. Once this happens, it doesn't matter if competitors have HA, when VMware can provide ZERO downtime protection for VMs in the event of physical hardware failure. Yes, there are internal issues to how VMware is being managed, but I doubt they're going anywhere anytime soon, simply because of the ridiculous speed they come out with very cutting edge features. The big thing here, is that VMware has a vision of where they want the datacenter to go. No other company has that vision: they are all playing catch up, and VMware is playing a completely different game. My two cents. (Or five ;)

I agree. Have people FORGOTTEN Nemesis??? What, was that a masterpiece by comparison? There have been some utterly crappy Star Trek films that I can't bear watching again. The latest is not one of them. I agree with your ranking more or less. Wrath of Khan is still my top.

*Is better than microwave, and has no extra chemicals (perfluorinated carboxylic acids) like microwave* http://www.naturalnews.com/030480_microwave_popcorn_PFCAs.html

It's probably not actual canon, but in the role-playing game, the armor actually did what it was supposed to: protect the wearer from blaster fire, or specifically energy weapons. It could be argued that actually having armor work as designed in a movie setting would make every battle ridiculously tedious: In the RPG, combat lasted forever because you had to wear down the armor/do enough damage to get through. In a movie, people would get bored if actual combat meant several minutes for every single stormtrooper. The opening sequence would have had no stormtrooper casualties and a complete victory for the Empire. End of movie, right there. (I can't believe we even go to any of these lengths to discuss fictional settings, but eh, we're nerds)

The biggest difference between that period of time in the 70s and this, is that they already had plans on the table for the Shuttle and were moving towards implementing. There originally wasn't going to be a gap between Saturn launches and the Shuttle, but the Apollo program got shelved early, thus creating the gap and resulting in no ability to boost Skylab. In fact the Shuttle was being proposed back in the late 60's and one of the initial designs included the Nerva engine as its main engine, instead of what it ended up being, the Hydroxide/Oxygen Engine we ended up with. Now NASA has no plans moving forward other than private industry and they have no budgets for anything other than robotics. It's kind of sad to go to the Kennedy Space Center, look at the launch complex, and hear what the tour guides have to say as you drive by the Constellation Launch pad. It's ready to be used and yet, due to change of direction and political will, won't be. I think we'll see the Dragon capsule replace a large part of NASA's functionality though. As much as I have lived my life loving what NASA has done, I think they're future may be very grim.

I agree with you on that. Cloud this, cloud that. It's a little tiresome. I have accepted that this is just how its being referred to now, and it doesn't appear to be slowing down, in fact just the opposite. The funny thing is when people make reference to the cloud without really knowing what the cloud is. Like those commercials crying out "To the cloud" when the end user is just RDP'ing to their home desktop. What cloud are you using there? The internet? Oh right. The internet is always pictured as a cloud on network diagrams. :)

Funny thing about rider bills: Bill Clinton actually outlawed their use, and for a few short years there were none. Of course, one of the first things GW changed was to allow their use again. So ever since, its been business as usual. Unfortunately. Because the biggest problem, is that all someone has to do is attach a rider bill for something like dumping toxic waste in the ocean to a bill for child welfare. That way if a politician votes against it, it will effectively be career suicide because at the next election, people will say, "this man voted against child welfare. Do you really want this man representing you." Which is exactly the reason Bill Clinton didn't want their use.

and a friendly face pops up saying: "Please state the nature of the medical emergency." Bonus if your phone has a projector!

The article also says that he'd recommend disabling DRS because that would remove resource pools, and goes on to say set the sensitivity to 5. What would be the more correct course of action, would be to set your DRS Cluster to Manual, which is indicating no automation, DRS will not place or move VMs.