I'm the only one without a clue what a Snorlax is? Some kind of laxative? Something that helps against snoring? Something that combines both functions?

Yeah, I often screw up the DSN while smoking the Great Big Pipe...

They must have misconfigured their British Pounds for Euros.

What's "new" here is that it gets some new media attention. I guess we should be grateful for that. Many people out there don't know this or are too ignorant. The more often they're confronted with potential horror stories, the more chance we have that someone will start to ask the right questions at the right time and at the right place.

Also, it remains people of the fact that anything you store "in the cloud" isn't really yours and the government or anybody who's affiliated with them has pretty easy access to all of this...

Casinos "only" take about 10 to 20% of the money that's being played with, either as a form of commission or by means of chance. That means that most money will flow back to the players. Many games are set-up to be played to either win or loose big. Big winners are important marketing material for any casino, so yes, it does happen, yet there are by design, almost much more losers than winners.

While much of "Wall Street" is rigged like a casino, Warren Buffet isn't a casino player, he's a long-term investor. And while he may have been very lucky from time to time, his base investment strategy is far less influenced by luck. Let this same hamster run for 40+ years and then compare the results. You'll see that this is just a momentary "fluke" in a sea of randomness.

Well, what I miss is the "environmental" part of all this... I'm sure Microsoft wants to profile itself as a "green" company. But by simply invalidating millions if not billions of devices out there, because they don't have TPM 2.0 (which has absolutely zero consumer benefits) and creating gazillion tons of new e-waste this way, doesn't exactly feel like a "green" strategy at all...

Australia is as big as an island as it gets and island or not, most of earth's population lives within 100 or so miles from the coast: The sea often provides a more favorable climate (at least until now) and access to transport over that same sea.

I'd bet more on the oil and gas than on the gold. Oil and gas will keep you warm and can be converted in all kinds of other useful stuff. Gold, while having some limited technical applications, can't be cooked, can't be used for cooking and is also pretty heavy... In case of a broken down economy, a carton of cigarettes is a better medium of exchange than gold.

The USA do have a few advantages up their sleeves, compared to a lot of other countries:

- Even with extreme weather, the U.S. will still have sufficient land left to grow crops and livestock to feed most if not all of its population.
- The US is pretty hard to reach from the rest of the world, except its direct neighbors.
- The US possesses the largest and most proficient military complex in the world. This cannot only be used to defend the country itself, but also to conquer resources abroad.

The biggest problem in the U.S. is the lack of social infrastructure, so if you don't have money, you'll be poor and die either of starvation or illness, but there is no guarantee other countries with better social infrastructure will be able to keep up theirs in case of a global climate catastrophe.

Surrendering will mean that you'll end up giving up all your worthwhile resources to those who conquered you and it will be more a Hunger Games like scenario than a Roman Empire like scenario...

Hey, everything is fine in Texas... right?

I have too little information to know if a UBI will work or not, but the idea in itself is interesting and could be an important cornerstone of a livable future. Once we reach a level of automation that all basic human needs can be cared for, without any human labor being involved, maybe we actually can afford this level of socialism. Maybe it could even work within the current economic framework, but, unfortunately, nobody really dares to take on such a bold experiment. What I do know though is that this test was NOT a test of a real UBI. A UBI should at least have the following properties: - Everybody should be eligible and not just those making less than a certain amount a year. - The amount provided to any individual should be sufficient for this individual to cover all his/her expenses and still lead a normal life. How much that is, will depend on where that individual lives, but it's clear that $500/month won't do it, no matter where in the U.S. this experiment took place. A more realistic amount would be anything from $1500 to $2500. The last point is probably the most important one, as anything else will automatically backfire. If you subsidize low-paid workers, you only motivate the industry to pay less, since people still have to work to pay for their living. Once you cut off this dependency, people aren't required to work anymore, as long as they keep their expenses within certain limits. This gives them a lot more freedom and the corporations less power to bargain for their salary. Some people may see this as a socialist hell or a socialist utopia, but I think it would be a worthwhile experiment. We all have been raised with the notion that we need to work to be able to live, yet we may have the opportunity to reverse this. We may have the opportunity to put forward a society, where people can do whatever they want with their time, most of the time. It's clear that we haven't structured society to work that way, but that doesn't mean it can't work. With every step of further industrialization, people have been crying wolf about large parts of populations getting redundant for the work force. And while the apocalypse didn't happen, society changed over time. Nowadays, it's common for many people to have spare time, time they can spend on hobbies, travel, sports and other leisure activities. This alone has spawned entire new industries. Realistically though, we'll face a future where not everybody will have a job, as further automation creeps in and even the more sophisticated tasks will eventually be replaced by machines in some form or another. So, if we don't start to plan for this now, we'll face an increasingly bleak future, where lots of people will eventually be left on the wayside, the dumpster of society. Either that, or we at least give "new" concepts like UBI a serious try.

It may take a while, but there are more things in life to aspire than just money. While money is important to survive in this world, the most interesting people I know aren't the rich people. Most of them got rich, because they know how to screw other people over and have no problem doing so, a mentality not all people want to exhibit, especially not the more intelligent people I know.

The reality is: Self driving simply isn't there yet and it's doubtful it can ever be done properly with the hardware present in all current Teslas. If selff-driving doesn't work in this environment, it will not work on public roads, with much more variables to account for. Have you ever driven in a Tesla with auto-pilot enabled? It's hardly more sophisticated than automated lane-assist, which other car manufacturers have offered for quite a while now. If there is one company I expect to be able to deliver a somewhat autonomous car it's Alphabet/Google. But they equip their cars with a serious load of sensors, including lidar, not the toy sensors and cameras you find on a Tesla and any other modern vehicle...

This should, in large part, be covered by the different service tiers. I'll probably not going to subscribe for their Gigabit plan if I'm not a serial downloader...