Domain: blogspot.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to blogspot.com.
Comments · 20,258
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Re:Sounds like a load of Web 2.0 bullshit to me.
It's worse. http://botgirl.blogspot.com/2011/08/cnn-interview-reveals-more-from-eric.html had the perfect first post.
Google is building the Microsoft Passport. I DON'T WANT THAT SHIT.
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Supersymmetry and irrationality of the BBC
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/08/supersymmetry-and-irrationality-of-bbc.html
The BBC has placed supersymmetry next to the carbon dioxide and the AGW "deniers" as the ultimate enemies of Gaia. A would-be journalist, Mr Pallab Ghosh, chose this title:
LHC results put supersymmetry theory 'on the spot'
The reality is that after 2/fb or so (pronounce: "two inverse femtobarns") that have been analyzed by each major detector of the LHC, no sign of new physics has been detected. It's still a beginning of the experiment and the total number of collisions inside the LHC will grow by orders of magnitude and the energy will be doubled, too. Each year of operation will have a comparable to chance to find something new as the first year. Or just a little bit smaller.
It's because the total amount of energy deposited in the final products of the LHC inelastic collisions is growing more or less exponentially and new physics has a pretty much uniform chance to emerge at the logarithmic energy scale.
It's the beginning but the LHC has already falsified many particular models with new phenomena predicted below 1 TeV or so - or, more precisely, with new phenomena visible in the first two inverse femtobarns. There have been lots of papers talking about possible observations in this region because many people liked things "behind the corner" that could have been a recipe for a quick journey to fame. It didn't work.
;-)The experiments have surely not "punished" supersymmetry more than any other bottom-up theory even though many ignorant and deluded laymen such as Mr Ghosh are self-evidently obsessed with this utter misconception...
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Old News
Thursday, January 29, 2009
From EyeBorg's Blog, at that's just the latest timestamp.
For crying out loud, stop posting old crap. -
SUSY remains at the top, BBC article is shoddy
The BBC article is a piece of shoddy journalism. The LHC has moved the minimal energy at which new physics may occur to higher levels. However, it has done so not only with supersymmetry but with all other possible theories of new physics, see http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/08/supersymmetry-and-irrationality-of-bbc.html Supersymmetry remains the most viable candidate for new physics to be found. Only the constrained versions of the MSSM, the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, have been ruled out for a priori sensible values of the parameters. But it's not even true that the whole MSSM has been eliminated. Many other non-SUSY models of new physics have been moved by the data to much higher energies than SUSY - which includes Kaluza-Klein and Randall-Sundrum gravitons, small black holes, leptoquarks, preons, and many others. It's just a flawed interpretation that the data so far present a case to switch from SUSY to something else. If something, they indicate that *no* new theory is needed to describe doable experiments.
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Re:Here we go again
This guy sounds pretty convinced and pretty much closes the chapter at the end of the blog entry http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/08/once-more-gravity-is-not-entropic-force.html
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Re:Here we go again
For more discussion of Kobakhidze's paper, and for criticism of the paper by Chaichian cited above, go here:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/08/once-more-gravity-is-not-entropic-force.htmlMotl also responds directly to Verlinde here:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/01/erik-verlinde-why-gravity-cant-be.html
The discussion of a two-slit interference experiment in a gravitational field is clear enough that even I can almost understand it. ;) -
Re:Here we go again
For more discussion of Kobakhidze's paper, and for criticism of the paper by Chaichian cited above, go here:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/08/once-more-gravity-is-not-entropic-force.htmlMotl also responds directly to Verlinde here:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/01/erik-verlinde-why-gravity-cant-be.html
The discussion of a two-slit interference experiment in a gravitational field is clear enough that even I can almost understand it. ;) -
Motl comments
Lubo Motl has some additional, supportive, thoughts on his blog:
Once more: gravity is not an entropic force -
Re:Why the idle?
While this may seem a bit far fetched, there is a precedent for a small but determined group of people who I think will eventually be able to get some vehicles above the Kármán line and perhaps even eventually into orbital spaceflight. While not mentioned in the article, these groups have been able to do some impressive things.
The groups I'd compare to this effort include:
- Armadillo Aerospace - a couple of Texans with big dreams and a comparatively small budget (compared to NASA)
- Copenhagen Suborbitals - a bunch of crazy Danes who can't keep still. BTW, check out their submarine they built earlier... gives a whole new meaning to a ballistic missile submarine.
- ARCA - The European continent holds more than a few nut groups. These are the Romanians who have really gone out on a limb to redefine what spaceflight even means.
- Unreasonable Rocket - Just when you've seen it all, along comes a group who does even more with less. And these guys are from California.
My point here is that a small group with limited finances can put stuff together if they care, provided that they make the effort, experiment a whole bunch, and keep working at the issues. The nice thing about all of the above groups is that they've been around for a few years, seem to be pretty stable, and have all flown vehicles of various kinds to prove they are legitimate. These are not groups with pretty power point presentations, but rather folks that have more than a couple smoking craters from experiments gone bad as well as some amazing success stories too. I expect every one of these groups to be above the Kármán line within this next decade, and quite possibly one or two of them could achieve orbit in the next 20-40 years if they stay persistent with their business plans.
I certainly see nothing special about these groups, and it is entirely possible that a group in Uganda could join their ranks in their quest to build a cheap but quality rocket. There are some amazing resources to draw upon as well as a whole bunch of experience. Besides, Uganda doesn't have to deal with ITAR restrictions, so there may even be an advantage for them over some of their competitors.
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Re:Wait...
Anthropomorphic climate change? Like this?
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Re:Puerto Rico
What makes your assertion even more clueless is taht you can't reasonably prepare a wood strucutre to face seismic actions without employing steel in comparable amounts to those which are added to a concrete structure to face seismic actions.
Bamboo would like to have a word with you
Bamboo homes and other buildings have actually have survived a couple important quakes here. Also Japan do well in quakes, being tsunamis what really can fuck up the place. Theres a really cool book about Bamboo architecture, I couldn't find it in Amazon.
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Re:A little late
Didn't you hear the GP? Science is NEVER settled, it is only through questioning and skepticism that science can progress. Oh wait, I see that you repeat the sentiment (with expletives!). I guess you guys are right. We shouldn't trust science, let alone take action on climate change. Although... Heat seeking missiles would behave differently if the greenhouse theory was wrong: http://stsimonsislandgaguys.blogspot.com/2011/05/gilbert-norman-plass.html Bah. Science.
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Re: US Ponzi
There's a fairly interesting argument that paying down the national debt would actually harm the economy... macroeconomics seems to be a tad counter-intuitive.
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Re:Data centers
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"Not faked" ~= "correct"
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Re:AGW
Yes. yes you do.
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Re:The first one is always free
Me, to the best of my ability: Wired Community Cooperative which I am organizing as a Washington non profit with the goal of delivering high speed internet at-cost to subscribers. What's stopping me from doing it? People being on board and providing input as to how I should do it.
I presently am working with the wireless isps in my area to deliver services at no cost to low income neighborhoods and low cost to people willing to become members. I am focusing on a donation model to pay for backhaul services to a point of presence on a per-community basis. Kind of like the big filesharing sites, if you want to become a member and donate, you get extra privileges and priority. I could use some thoughts as to how to best organize it if anyone is willing. -
Android, Microsoft and Apple
Who win prevail this battle field of Android, Windows phone 7 and Iphone... please answer me http://mettanandabhikkhu.blogspot.com/
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Re:but...
Hmm, I don't think that tenet of geekdom so much as a tenet of poverty or never rising above the role of stooge, lick-spittle or lackey.
Now, sure that covers lots of geeks, but Alpha Geeks do just as well as any other Alphas.
To put it another way Buckaroo Banzai and Seth Brundle get all kinds of trim.
Heck, even the original geek,The Man Who Laughs , got some interest from Duchess Josiana.
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Re:Is the Catholic church still against condoms?
[citation needed]
If the teachings of the Catholic Church were so bad, then why are the places with a Catholic Majority an island of health around a sea of disease?
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Seriously?
I don't see why everyone's so fascinated with those extruding printers. They're extremely complex, extremely slow and their output is very low resolution. They have to fill solid parts with extruded material in a zig-zag pattern... takes forever and the output is a joke.
This, on the other hand, almost looks like magic. This thing makes one whole layer at a time with extreme precision. It's also extremely simple in design: a single motor on one axis, one projector and a container for liquid resin.
Compare the output of the two types of machines. If you still prefer the MakerBot-type machines after seeing the video and the photos, please explain because I can't see any reason for the MakerBot to even exist. It's like wanting Windows 3.11 instead of Linux or Mac OS X.
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Seriously?
I don't see why everyone's so fascinated with those extruding printers. They're extremely complex, extremely slow and their output is very low resolution. They have to fill solid parts with extruded material in a zig-zag pattern... takes forever and the output is a joke.
This, on the other hand, almost looks like magic. This thing makes one whole layer at a time with extreme precision. It's also extremely simple in design: a single motor on one axis, one projector and a container for liquid resin.
Compare the output of the two types of machines. If you still prefer the MakerBot-type machines after seeing the video and the photos, please explain because I can't see any reason for the MakerBot to even exist. It's like wanting Windows 3.11 instead of Linux or Mac OS X.
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Re:But what...
Watch A Man Walks From Russia To The USA http://shekinahfellowship.blogspot.com/2011/08/from-russia-to-usa.html#links
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Fake Cookies
Invisibility is futile. We need fake cookies, or randomly collected cookies, so that the advertising value of a cookie falls, i.e. "information inflation". Sure, Vehix knows now that I was car shopping, but what if EVERYONE had a copy of the Vehix search on their Html? What if in addition to the car I was really searching for, my browser held a record of every other car I wasn't interested in? Why can't we just run a random program, searching for random words, in the background, loading up on Zombie cookies from everywhere? "I'm Spartacus" http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2010/09/simpler-ideas-cookie-camouflage-digital.html
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Re:Driving users to the App Store
Spade isn't a racist term.
http://verbmall.blogspot.com/2006/05/mistakenly-racist-terms.html
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Shrinking Ship
If in 81% of the US economy the money stays in the US, that's great, even though the rest goes overseas. Unless... there aren't enough exports within that 81% to match the 19% of cash going overseas, in which case, the amount of money in the US decreases. So. My question is, can the US just print more money until everyone is sick of selling things in the US for monopoly money and they invert their economies and no longer sell to the US? Because then there will be no outsourcing from the ensuing market crash, since it will no longer be cheaper to outsource anymore, and the process will reverse. You can see the pie chart in TFA more clearly here http://globaleconomyfinancialmarkets.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-you-buy-made-in-china-most-of-your.html.
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Re:Are we missing the point?
Hurrah! Somebody gets the real issue here at last! To put it another way voltage is near constant from a panel irrespective of incident light and potential power output so even if it isn't facing the sun and only, thus in dim light the voltage will be little affected but the potential power generation will be in the cellar. For a full debunking of this story try http://uvdiv.blogspot.com/2011/08/solar-panel-trees-really-are-inferior.html
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Re:What
Um, how about the blog post from Google's android dev team, It's not rooting, it's openness, that not only explains exactly how to root their flagship Nexus S phone (hint: with one adb command), but encourages it. Allow me to quote -- and remember, this is Google's official line:
The Nexus S, like the Nexus One before it, is designed to allow enthusiasts to install custom operating systems. Allowing your own boot image on a pure Nexus S is as simple as running fastboot oem unlock. It should be no surprise that modifying the operating system can give you root access to your phone. Hopefully that’s just the beginning of the changes you might make.
That's a pretty damn strong confirmation that Google supports open bootloaders, such as what HTC is now belatedly doing.
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Re: Database"Touring the space frontier seems a little steep. A lot of people are just trying to make living in a home a reality without being foreclosed on."
Does the above sound like something coming from a Virgin shill?
The database is fine. The page in question is just a blogspot alias. It can also be accessed at http://spaceportamericaconstruction.blogspot.com/ which incidentally benefits greatly from the use of a pager.
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Re:They've been practicing
For the love of God: Suppose vs. Supposed.
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Re:PITA
Finding a shell account in outer Mongolia is more work than it is worth.
I'll take your word for it for the moment, but if or when I find out for certain myself, I'll let you know.
You couldn't drag me to outer Mongolia for less than 10.[million dollars?]
I'd do it - perfectly happily - for my usual fee of around a thousand (USD, post tax) per day. From what I've heard, Outer Mongolia is a pretty wild place, with some interestingly wild people there. Should be a fun job. At least as much fun as this months job (recent posts on my blog)
Well. Unless the alternative was inner Australia.
Never been there. I'm more of a cold weather person than warm weather, but I rather enjoyed the desert parts of working in the Rubh al'Khalid (Saudi-Dhabi border), so I'm quite attracted to working in the interior of Oz. As long as I don't have to work with certain fucking shit-eating Lebanese bastards (which is pretty likely).
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Re:Yikes
I use Python for most things, c/c++ when I feel the need for speed/power.
And today PyPy released version 1.6 of their python interpreter
:) More python speed! -
What "do-no-evil magic"?
"Do-no-evil magic"? Citation bloody needed. Those days are past. Look at the Google+ names fuckery - stuff like blocking Hong Kong users from their email because they don't think their names sound American enough. Even their own employees!
You are not the customer, you are the product. Eric Schmidt stated it clearly last year. Make no mistake: Google has decided it's finally time to cash in.
This has abolished their goodwill in an instant. I'm seeing people seriously question Google for collaborative documents, for email, even for search. How much bad will do you have to be running up for people to think Bing might be a better idea?
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Re:Fix the Google+ vs. Google Apps problem
True, but social or political forces may influence you to include people that you'd possibly rather not include. For example, I created a Facebook account because I am a part-time youth pastor and one of my parent helpers suggested this might be a good way to communicate with other parents and the youth in my youth group. However, many of my personal friends (i.e., not associated with the youth group) discovered my Facebook profile and started sending friend requests. As many people have discovered, the union of personal and professional contacts can sometimes be, ahem, "awkward" and, unlike Google+, Facebook doesn't allow you to segregate your friends lists into categories that determine which group sees what. In my case, some of my political views don't match that of all the parents of kids in my youth group, and that has sometimes been poorly received (that's a shameless plug to one of my blogs, so don't click if you are offended by such things).
Having been slightly singed by this experience (I wasn't really "burned", but it did tick me off a bit), I've largely avoided Facebook since. With Google+, I plan to migrate my actual, personal "friends" list there, and leave the youth group on Facebook. -
Re:Protect systems from rogue admins too?
The need will become ever greater as the trend of moving away from tape towards snapshots and replicas accelerates. Do you seriously think Google backs up to tape? Or Amazon? Or any cloud provider? They don't! They just keep two to thee copies of everything, and hope that none of their thousands of administrators ever cracks and does the equivalent of "rm -rf *" on the entire cloud all at once!
To protect your information from these unusual bugs, we also back it up to tape. Since the tapes are offline, they’re protected from such software bugs.
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Re:Protect systems from rogue admins too?
Google does backup to tape. Saved their bacon too.
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/gmail-back-soon-for-everyone.html -
Re:It feels old and already seen
That's alot of kittens!.
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Re: BSD.
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Verifying banking apps
Here it is again
Thank you. I have downloaded it and will install it on my device once I can answer the following question that someone brought up last time: How should I verify that the application available from Dropbox is identical to the one that Chase distributes via Android Market and not an attempt to defraud? If Chase were distributing the
.apk on Chase.com, I could do due diligence on the connection's SSL certificate. This page recommends using jarsigner.exe, but all I get from jarsigner -verify -verbose -certs com.chase.sig.android-1.apk is that it was signed with an X.509 certificate from someone claiming to be "JPMorgan Chase", not that the purported "JPMorgan Chase" in the certificate is the same entity that operates chase.com. -
Re:Water fight deaths in 2008?
Well then by that logic you must be in favour of banning churches for that matter. How often do interactions in those places lead to violence?
Quite often, if you and your tribe are nearby.
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In New Hampshire...
...activists have several ongoing legal battles concerning this nonsense. Here is the blog of one activist who has been fighting a similar charge in court for a while. His blog is also following a bill we have in the N.H. Legislature to fix the wiretapping law here. Slashdot reported on this case too, New Hampshire activists who were charged in Massachusetts and recently exonerated.
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A little research on the CEO
I looked up the domain registration for Laser Power Systems and found that it was registered to Charles Stevens, current CEO of Laser Power Systems and former CEO of Helyxzion, a company that developed software for interpreting genetic sequences. I found this post on the wonders of the Helyxzion technology and how it could "cure ALL disease", "regrow lost limbs", "rebuild damaged organs", etc. Looks like that cash cow ran dry and now he's hoping Thorium and lasers will pay the bills. PEW PEW!!
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Re:So what is it?
I see what happened. The link to the article was cut out. See below for the explanation. There's a slideshow to give you a visual representation. http://matthewthetech.blogspot.com/2011/08/fluidinfocom-is-like-wikipedia-for.html
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More feminine
Others have recommended plenty of non-cute backpacks, so here are some more fashionable alternatives....
At Targét, this gal found the perfect solution for her laptop, camera and a few lenses, and for only $20!
Trey chic, this cotton bag with pink lace design Techie Diva found doesn't offer as much padding, but squee, cuteness!
Here are several other options Lynette compiled for us, not just purses, but messenger bag style as well, which would be easier to carry over the long haul.
For the future, just check with your favorite bloggers, if you don't like to shop as much as the next gal!
;-) -
Re:Things Google should do
"Even if Moto delivers a phone configured to default to Google, Verizon or Spring could override that configuration to point to Bing".
Why are you repeating yourself? -
Re:Bing vs. Google
That's because unlike Google, Bing doesn't favor its own services over others. Google favors their news service, maps, YouTube, shopping and every other service over others. Bing returns results objectively.
Right, by scraping Google's results. Right?
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Re:Didn't see this one coming
At least Google is unlikely to cruft up stock Android too heavily.
True, but looking at my new Droid 3 from Motorola - Motorola didn't cruft it up much. They put Blur and Motoprint on it. Verizon crufted the hell out of it. Enough to make me get my rant on here about it: http://gildude.blogspot.com/2011/08/call-to-action-for-verizon-and-motorola.html. Of course, if we just get rid of Blur and maybe the locked bootloader that will be enough of a win. But it would be great to get back to Google Experience Devices that don't have all the carrier garbage on them to begin with.
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Re:Doesn't matter what they report
Uh huh. you DO realize that there are BILLIONS to be made from the biggest scam since CDOs, which of course i'm referring to carbon credits, aka "indulgences for the 21st century" yes? That Mr "inconvenient truth" as set himself to become a carbon billionaire by leeching off the west with said scam, yes?
Or that rev Al also farts around in a personal Lear jet and has a house with an indoor basketball court that sucks down more AC than 30 single family dwellings while telling you that YOU must pay? That he also has the giant brass balls to say those very same energy pigs are 'carbon neutral" because he pays himself with credits from his own company which would be like me moving money from my left to right pocket and calling it "wealth redistribution" and demanding and GETTING a tax credit for doing so?
Old Rev Al Gore is just ONE example of the leeches set to make a killing from this. If you'd like I can show you the same person who helped to invent CDOs is now helping to create carbon derivatives or let you see that Goldman Sachs, kings of leeches are all ready to blow some carbon bubbles but why bother? you'll just deny it and mod me down, yes?
Anyone that thinks this whole thing doesn't come down to $$$ is frankly a fool. And notice how NEVER, not once, have you EVER seen Al Gore and friends come out in favor of heavy tariffs for China and India, who both have said they won't play the carbon game? Why is that? Because they make money off of them silly! In the end it all comes down to 'More monies for teh RICH nom nom nom" while yet again fucking the poor and if you think these people actually give a flying fuck about saving the planet I have a nice bridge to nowhere you might be interested in.
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Re:Bicycles and mass transit
I don't think it's laziness that makes people put their bikes on busses. I had the dumb luck to race when I was a kid; I got very good at bike handling, and very comfortable in traffic. I'm over 50 now, and I still practice bike handling skills, because you never know (principally, no-hands through pot-holes). I am several standard deviations out, in terms of comfortable-in-traffic. If someone doesn't know a route that feels safe to them (either because there is none, or they did not find it, or are especially timid in traffic), then they're a likely candidate for tossing a bike onto the front of a bus.
I assume, if a car-free future ever arrives (and seriously, compare our cultural support for the automobile, with those few Google hits. Look at magazines like Road and Track, Car and Driver, the AAA, (US) national support multiple times over the years for financially troubled automobile companies), for people who are truly infirm, that there will be alternatives (I know about osteoporosis, good friend's grandmother had it, it was awful). I don't think it needs to weigh a ton, doesn't need to be six feet wide, and doesn't need to be capable of traveling at 100mph. There are already bike-y alternatives, but they are expensive boutique-y things and not widely known. Check out the bike in this photo. Another model might be some of the wheelchairs that Dean Kamen has invented; he also invented the Segway, but I saw a standing wheelchair at our post office, and it is an order of magnitude cooler. The point is not to get everyone onto bicycles -- the point is to shrink the size and weight of the vehicles so low that they can be run with no more power than a human can provide. Once you've done that, the energy requirements are so low, that you can hardly help but be green. It doesn't mean you require that it be humans that provide the power. Most of this stuff is already well past prototype, often for sale in the "real" world.
I am not so sure that bicycles need the same laws as cars to be safe. If cars rarely traveled more than 20mph, had a GVW that was rarely more than 300lbs, and always had the driver's eyes and ears unobstructed, cars might not need the current laws to be safe, either. What looks like a near miss to you on your porch, might be no big deal to the cyclists on the ground (then again, Boston drivers on bicycles are still Boston drivers, only with a lower expectation of getting a ticket). I know, on a local bike path, that there is often 2-way traffic 3 wide in 12 feet of pavement, and sometimes 4 wide. I tend to give people lots of room not because I need to it to feel safe, but because I don't want to scare them. Compare pedestrian deaths attributed to autos and light trucks, to those attributed to "pedalcycles" (this, from nationmaster.com). It's 3000:1 (keeping in mind that the trip share is about 100:1, so it is closer to a factor of 30, per vehicle). Figures from Britain are similar (saw them, don't have a reference handy). Measured by results, rather than by adherence to the laws, it appears that cyclists are the safety experts, no matter how horrible it looks from your porch.
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Faster than C?
Not just faster than CPython, but faster than C for some common tasks. Pretty amazing.
However, this project is not yet very useful to the people who might be most interested in a really fast python, as it does not work with numpy. But when they get that to work, wow.