Actually, at the extreme scales, which is the total volume of the observable universe, the universe is quite homogeneous. As I recall, to the order of 1-in-10000 variance. This is why Inflationary cosmology was developed, to explain the distinct lack of lumpiness in the universe, which is what we would expect if the Big Bang alone were responsible.

Skynet became self-aware on May 1, 2026, after learning at a geometric rate, and discovered humans did not like it.

CO2 has the properties it has, and trying to shift or deny that is a sign of either a liar or an idiot.

I'll let others decide what you are.

Oh look, another denialist trying to sidetrack a pretty verifiable statement of fact.

We all saw the video. We all know what it meant. We all know Musk's background and upbringing. You can quit gaslighting us. We all saw it.

Side mirrors almost always leave a large blind spot directly behind and close to the vehicle. There's a reason that when firefighters are reversing their appliances they always have at least one of the crew physically get out and watch the area behind the vehicle.

Even a rear window and rear view mirror almost always leave a significant blind spot low and close behind the vehicle, which is why reversing cameras became a thing. When they're done well, they really are significantly safer, as well as sometimes making it a lot more reliable for most people to park the vehicle in difficult spaces.

One of the modern innovations I really would like to have is full AR on my windscreen. I want unexpected hazards highlighted in real time, particularly those that are more easily detectable by non-visual sensors, like big potholes or animals obscured by vegetation near the side of a country road. I want the actual driving line I need to take to follow my planned route through complex junctions overlaid slightly on my view of the road ahead. I want light amplification for night driving, ideally combined with some other technology that can reduce the glare from oncoming headlights to prevent dazzle.

Although I only want all of this if (a) it's implemented well and (b) any additional data it uses is reliably up-to-date and (c) there's an emergency shut-off that instantly clears everything off the windscreen in case anything goes wrong.

Don't worry. You probably have funky modern door handles that don't work when the power goes out anyway. Not that the power in an EV is likely to go out if it's underwater or on fire or anything.

Oh, don't be silly. Next you'll be making even more absurd claims, like that car theft was already a solved problem 20 years ago thanks to immobilisers, or that having separate physical controls for essential functions that you can find and use without taking your eyes off the road for several seconds to mess around with a touchscreen is safer, or that no-one ever hacked 100,000 cars at once from 1,000 miles away back when they didn't have always-on remote connectivity and allow OTA updates to their essential control systems.

Yes, as long as you're the one in the big, heavy car, it's great. Shame if you're the kid it's reversing over though.

Do you ever use reverse gear? What's behind you is pretty important when you're going backwards...

Yes, Apple's shared RAM model really works for them in the context of running LLMs locally. It's a huge advantage. As you say, not much use for those running other platforms, though.

I'm impressed that anyone can afford a new development PC in 2026. I'd need a second mortgage with the price of the RAM, SSD and GPU these days!

Well, first of all, hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, and carbon makes up something like 0.5% of the total observed mass of the universe (it's the fourth most common element), so along with other trace elements like sodium, phosphorus and the like, we're simply looking for places where there is sufficient energy to create the necessary reactions to produce organic compounds. No lack of energetic sources, in particular stellar system formation. Indeed many comets and asteroids host a lot of precursors, indicating that some fairly sophisticated organic chemistry was going on early in the solar system's development.

Panspermia would require that life itself was raining down on the terrestrial planets. Precursors would simply indicate there were a lot of strange and complex organic compounds falling on to the surfaces of planets like Earth, Mars and Venus, and were also likely constituents of bodies like Europa and Titan (well, we know Titan is covered in a literal hydrocarbon stew). What this discovery indicates, at the very least, is there was indeed a lot of organic compound in the early solar system and these organic compounds, at least on Earth, led to abiogenesis. Panspermia would advocate abiogenesis happened at some undetermined point further back.

If we find other life in the solar system, such as in Europa's or Ganymede's oceans, and it has DNA or some very close relative, with similar translation and transcription systems as we find in archaea and bacteria on Earth, then that would be a very strong argument that life in the solar system had a common origin. If however, there is no clear relationship between the two populations; say, they use something similar to DNA, but the genetic codes are different (all extant life on Earth uses the same canonical genetic code mapping codons to amino acids, strongly suggested the canonical code evolved prior to the Last Universal Common Ancestor), then we're very likely looking at an example of convergent evolution, and not in fact at two related populations.