Considering the amount of interest and the number of comments this submission is getting, I'm guessing it's news that nerds care about.

Anecdotal evidence: I'm a nerd, and this matters to me.

By viable alternative, do you mean the price point or the technology? Because unless I'm mistaken (and please correct me if I'm wrong) we've reached the point that battery/electric is, technologically speaking, a viable alternative.

I have a Google Play Music family account. This gives me, my partner, our siblings and one parent access to service for AUD$18 per month. It also gives all of us ad-free YouTube Red as part of the package.

I work in a fairly relaxed office environment in which I'm allowed to listen to music over headphones. I also have a pretty eclectic taste in music, so I like to switch beats depending on my mood or what I'm working on. It also lets me discover new artists.

So all in all, I think it's a fantastic service that's worth every cent.

Da-dum dum dum-dum.

You're right; I'm at work, so I forwarded myself the link to watch it later. The topic just got me thinking! :D

And then I went off on all sorts of tangents from there...

We seem to incrementally moving towards smarter and more complex AI. I'm interested to know when we'll classify it as a form of life; does it have to be sentient (self-aware), or could you argue that some animals/insects aren't self aware? Do we adjust the current definition of life (around reproduction and respiration and all that) or create one that's more fitting for a computer based life form?

Interesting times.

Seaquest DSV.

Keeppass... is an unfortunate name.

xkcd covered this a while ago.

I use this now. Not the actual passphrase, but the principle.

This topic is really interesting to me. I had a professor a few years ago when I was doing postgrad that thought exactly that; that the Japanese had reached the capitalist endgame. He went on to explain (at great length) that the Japanese were still clinging to the original model of capitalism, and the only way forward was high tech communism.

What he meant wasn’t the communism of the Soviet era, but a communism in which menial work is left to robotics and AI with humans having the freedom to engage in creative pursuits, invention and leisure. He believes (and his arguments were quite convincing) that the Japanese have a HUGE supply productive potential with very little demand, and that their current socio-economic model is the product of not seeing the forest for the trees.

I'm not actually Scandinavian, or in Scandinavia.

That being said, I would be very surprised if every country in the world (potentially discounting states like Luxenbourg) didn't have its equivalent of the Sons of Odin. Whether they're organised or not.

It disturbs me that the United States has for-profit prisons, and impose harsh penalties on crimes that would (in many other countreis) be considered quite minor. And from what I understand, other countries are trying to emulate this model?

Prisons in the US seem to turn idiot kids into hardened criminals. The Scandinavian model of rehabilitation over punishment seems a far better solution.

Now they're trying Stockholm Syndrome?

I really want him to provide a definition of what a "sense of humanity" is, and apply it equally to a pool of well known individuals (Dalai Lama, Joseph Stalin, Charles Manson, Nelson Mandela) and try to avoid miring that definition in some sort of wishy-washy, mythical or biblical masturbation.

Quid quo pro, no?