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John C. Randolph of Cupertino, California, USA AKA jcr (jcr@mac.com) is a racist and Nazi sympathizer.

Randolph is a German name, so he's not even trying to hide his heritage. Instead, he is boldly stating his racism and love for Nazi ideology.

You may have difficulty unless you've actually read the entire of the Sunnah. There are a lot of hadiths out there saying muhamad did wacky stuff. Some are considered canonical. Some less such, and some not so much at all. It would be a lot of work. For example. I believe I recall a hadith where muhammad saw revelations of god underneath a woman's skirt, but I can't for the life of me remember where, or figure out good keywords to google. On the other hand, muhammad fucking a 9 year old is not so hard to find and Bukhari is considered canonical. If you decide to attempt the project. Shoot me an email and I might have time to help. I've been considered a similar project myself.

Simple Discussion:

Extensive Discussion:

Oh great, another interface screwed up by the design department.
Someone should fire a few UI designers stat!

At least it's not the worst graphical interface sold at retail.
That honor goes to Lotus Notes.

Art of Assembly

I taught myself Assembly before I took the class at the university. I really enjoyed the original draft of the book.

True, and that would meet the sum of three odd primes requirement. If you include 2, then 7+2=9, making it the sum of two primes where one prime is NOT a Goldbach Number.

ObTrivia: Found this page, it looks like it has some interesting information: http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/primes.html

This puts the whole MAD meme in a different light. The only way to win is not to play? The military probably did the same calcs on a paper napkin and came to a different conclusion. They never stopped planning to fight and win a nuclear war.

The only winning move is to make sure both sides mutually agree not to play.

This puts the whole MAD meme in a different light. The only way to win is not to play? The military probably did the same calcs on a paper napkin and came to a different conclusion. They never stopped planning to fight and win a nuclear war.

The only winning move is to make sure both sides mutually agree not to play.

This puts the whole MAD meme in a different light. The only way to win is not to play? The military probably did the same calcs on a paper napkin and came to a different conclusion. They never stopped planning to fight and win a nuclear war.

The only winning move is to make sure both sides mutually agree not to play.

I'm more discouraged by Stephenson's working for patent troll 'Intellectual Ventures'.

http://homepage.mac.com/randyhyde/webster.cs.ucr.edu/www.artofasm.com/index.html

Loved this back in the day.

One of the world record holders was made by Ken Blackburn. Here is the design:
http://www.10paperairplanes.com/how-to-make-paper-airplanes/08-the-champ.html

For those that remember Glider (video), the old paper airplane game for Mac, the author offers the OS X version for free here:
http://homepage.mac.com/calhoun/Glider%20PRO.html

I am not the author. There are two follow-ups in the same thread:
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_102.html
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_103.html

I am not the author. There are two follow-ups in the same thread:
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_102.html
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_103.html

I copy and paste without shame:
http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_101.html

The Nuclear Game - An Essay on Nuclear Policy Making

When a country first acquires nuclear weapons it does so out of a very accurate perception that possession of nukes fundamentally changes it relationships with other powers. What nuclear weapons buy for a New Nuclear Power (NNP) is the fact that once the country in question has nuclear weapons, it cannot be beaten. It can be defeated, that is it can be prevented from achieving certain goals or stopped from following certain courses of action, but it cannot be beaten. It will never have enemy tanks moving down the streets of its capital, it will never have its national treasures looted and its citizens forced into servitude. The enemy will be destroyed by nuclear attack first. A potential enemy knows that so will not push the situation to the point where our NNP is on the verge of being beaten. In effect, the effect of acquiring nuclear weapons is that the owning country has set limits on any conflict in which it is involved. This is such an immensely attractive option that states find it irresistible.

Only later do they realize the problem. Nuclear weapons are so immensely destructive that they mean a country can be totally destroyed by their use. Although our NNP cannot be beaten by an enemy it can be destroyed by that enemy. Although a beaten country can pick itself up and recover, the chances of a country devastated by nuclear strikes doing the same are virtually non-existent. [This needs some elaboration. Given the likely scale and effects of a nuclear attack, its most unlikely that the everybody will be killed. There will be survivors and they will rebuild a society but it will have nothing in common with what was there before. So, to all intents and purposes, once a society initiates a nuclear exchange its gone forever]. Once this basic factor has been absorbed, the NNP makes a fundamental realization that will influence every move it makes from this point onwards. If it does nothing, its effectively invincible. If, however, it does something, there is a serious risk that it will initiate a chain of events that will eventually lead to a nuclear holocaust. The result of that terrifying realization is strategic paralysis.

With that appreciation of strategic paralysis comes an even worse problem. A non-nuclear country has a wide range of options for its forces. Although its actions may incur a risk of being beaten they do not court destruction. Thus, a non-nuclear nation can afford to take risks of a calculated nature. However,a nuclear-equipped nation has to consider the risk that actions by its conventional forces will lead to a situation where it may have to use its nuclear forces with the resulting holocaust. Therefore, not only are its strategic nuclear options restricted by its possession of nuclear weapons, so are its tactical and operational options. So we add tactical and operational paralysis to the strategic variety. This is why we see such a tremendous emphasis on the mechanics of decision making in nuclear powers. Every decision has to be thought through, not for one step or the step after but for six, seven or eight steps down the line.

We can see this in the events of the 1960s and 1970s, especially surrounding the Vietnam War. Every so often, the question gets asked "How could the US have won in Vietnam?" with a series of replies that include invading the North,extending the bombing to China and other dramatic escalations of the conflict. Now, it should be obvious why such suggestions could not, in the real world, be contemplated. The risk of ending up in a nuclear war was too great. For another example, note how the presence of nuclear weapons restricted and limited the tactical and operational options available to both sides in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In effect neither side could push the war to a final conclusion because to do so would bring

Um. Not really. http://idisk.mac.com/mpaineau-Public/paine_tsunami_asteroid99.pdf

The assumption people make is that all the kinetic energy goes into a wave. That's not a given. It can dissipate as heat as the meteor falls through the water, or create incoherent waves. The Indian Ocean tsunami was so bad because the plate "flicked" up, splashing the water. It might be more like punching the water, which would still make a bit of a splash; but it might not make a huge wave.

That said, I wouldn't be swimming anywhere near it.

Anybody remember that Gatekeeper was anti-malware for the Macintosh about 20 years ago?
http://homepage.mac.com/chriswjohnson/gatekeeper/gatekeeper-intro/gk-installing.html

By analogy with metadata - data about data - "metametrics" was what sprang to my mind. And like most things that do after I've had a few jars, it a) already exists and b) is far too shit to deserve such a goshdarn clever name.

You can still play DM, http://homepage.mac.com/aberfield/dmj/

I thought EOB was better, but only because EOB was AD&D...

I spent too many months of my life in front of my A500 due to those games.

Not to mention that "Next" isn't the next email in the result set but the whatever email originally followed the one that appeared in the result set. The Interface Hall of Shame said the following about Notes: We wish we found IBM's Lotus Notes a long time ago. This single application could have formed the basis for the entire site. The interface is so problematic, that one might conclude that the designers had previously visited this site, and misread "Hall of Shame" as "Hall of Fame".

Or they could just ask Charlie Brown, who is slightly easier to find:

http://web.mac.com/jimgerard/AFGAS/pages/apollo/A-10.html

http://www.london-attractions.info/london-blog/2011/apollo-10-command-module-charlie-brown-at-the-science-museum.htm

Am I the only one who was immediately reminded of the hospital's "front desk control panel" in Idiocracy?

Abortion is not necessarily the easy way out. Abortion is not a pleasant experience, physically or emotionally, and it may be tempting for the mother to keep the child, even if she knows it will be raised under less than adequate conditions. If you don't believe abortion is equivalent to murder, abortion may be the most responsible thing to do.

Also, I live in a secularised country (Sweden) where all school children have sex ed, contraceptives are freely sold to all ages, and abstaining from pre-marital sex is seen as a little weird. We have virtually no problems with teenage pregnancies. Most kids have their first sexual experiences some time during high school, but they don't become particularly promiscuous, and most settle into monoagamous relationships (with or without marrying). When people eventually marry, the reason is commonly to have legal protection in case something unexpected happens, especially for the children's sake.

In case you've heard the rumour about Sweden having the world's highest suicide rates, it's a myth.

He's not the first test subject.
This guy is!

Just like the best interface for an audio player application is a painstakingly bitmap-rendered and non-resizable facsimile of a 1970s stereo.

Wait, when did we start talking about QuickTime. (Yes, Apple actually made that mistake once upon a time.)

For OSX its the opposite. For every small task that i want to accomplish, i seem to need to pony up. Every small time programmer tries to make a buck with his little program. Nothing wrong with that, but where are the Free/Libre alternatives?

What "small tasks" are you trying to accomplish, that you can't find several Free (or nearly so) alternatives? I'm not being nasty, I'm just curious; because, with very few exceptions (decent scanning software being the one I can think of), most of the apps on my Mac are Freeware.

I have a few shareware apps that I have considered good enough to purchase (and/or couldn't find a suitable free app in the time I had to search), but (other than VueScan at $40), none have been more than $25, and most have been in the $5-20 world.

Plus, there are many, many projects on Sourceforge, MacPorts, and Fink that are simply OS X versions of Linux F/OSS projects that offer precompiled, installable binaries for OS X. OpenOffice/LibreOffice/NeoOffice, the Gimp, Audacity, XBMC, Azereus/Vuze, Adium, Eclipse, gcc, all come immediately to mind. And there are many, many more.

In fact, Sourceforge alone lists 12,616 results under the "Mac" platform. All free. All Open Source.

In addition, you might check out the highly popular Mac software aggregator, Macupdate.com. They have all types of software, including free apps and inexpensive shareware (as well as "commercial"), and the "license type" is clearly listed in the "search results", so you don't have to look through dozens of apps individually, just to find the "free" ones. I have no affilation with MacUpdate, but highly recommend it. C|Net also has a variety of Mac software, some free, some not. And there are others. Many others. I don't know about these sites, but Google-ing for free mac software, the following sites came up in the first few hits: http://www.freemacware.com/, http://opensourcemac.org/, http://www.applemacfreeware.com/, http://web.mac.com/simon_elliott/simon_elliott@mac.com/Software.html. And that was just a few that looked interesting on the first search result page

Bottom line: If you can't find FREE OS X apps, you either have some severely corner-case application-needs; or are just not looking. ;-)

Unity 2D ('sudo apt-get install unity-2d') works under VirtualBox (if any version of Unity can be said to 'work'). Then you can have fun ticking off how many of these mistakes it makes:

http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/shame.htm

You are correct. After some googling, I find the ad at the bottom of this page:
http://homepage.mac.com/christopher.z/hobby/Courtesy/72-HornetSticker.html

Rather than trusting a political organization or whoever wrote that in Wikipedia, I prefer to look at the data myself.

The graph was prepared by Robert A. Rohde, as the page clearly states; the dozen data sources used are fully referenced, and the criteria for their selection are stated. I'm not sure how that makes it intrinsically less reliable than Willis Eschenbach's personal interpretation of some speleothem data, but let's continue nevertheless.

Rather than trusting a political organization or whoever wrote that in Wikipedia, I prefer to look at the data myself. A zip file containing speleotherm data has thoughtfully been provided here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/26/in-which-i-go-spelunking/ [wattsupwiththat.com]

When I click the link to the zip file I get a 403 Forbidden. Never mind, let's pass to Eschenbach's graph, since in any case you don't mention what conclusions you yourself drew from looking at the data. As you say, the graph does look very convincing, because Eschenbach has directly equated delta18O values with temperature -- not done in the Nature paper he cites, for the simple reason that delta18O is not solely dependent on temperature (if it were, palaeoclimatology would be a lot easier).

Entertainingly, the very source that Eschenbach links to in support of his conversion factor states clearly: "Because [delta]18O may be modified by temporal changes in the oceanic moisture source and/or storm track trajectories, it is not possible to calculate temperature changes precisely (15). On the basis of present-day spatial [delta]18O-temperature relations, the magnitude of [delta]18O variability around the mean is probably too large to ascribe to changes in air temperature alone." (my emphasis)

So, 200-odd words into Eschenbach's "investigation", his entire methodology has been invalidated by one of his own references. This, presumably, is why he chose to publish his work on "wattsupwiththat" rather than in a scientific journal.

But it never went further than the first (successful) trial:

http://myapplenewton.blogspot.com/2009/05/apple-newton-in-combat.html

http://homepage.mac.com/matthewboulanger/NewtonandGPS.html

William

Yes, but that's not how it works. Starvation, sickness, poor living conditions, social upheaval are the major killers in the post nuclear strike world. Initial losses would be far less.

Read; http://homepage.mac.com/msb/163x/faqs/nuclear_warfare_101.html (and following, 102, 103 etc.) or watch "Threads" etc. for a more realistic treatment. "On the beach" for all it's qualities, is not a realistic treatment.

I work part-time at Intellectual Ventures Labs, which enables me to get out of the house and exercise the nerdy predilections that I used to exercise at Blue Origin. This is a sort of all-purpose science lab and thing-making facility where new inventions are developed.

You are confused about who is claiming what, though it is likely that I, too, have reduced my CO2 footprint by about a ton per year.

"Gradual" is in the eye of the beholder. My childhood home was a zone 9, now it is a zone 10; I have seen the changes with my own eyes. Plant zones have moved about 100 miles north in 16 (?) years. (The baseline might be from earlier, so perhaps it is longer.) Assuming this continues, this should put pressure on peaches and pecans in Georgia and South Carolina in a few decades -- those are two crops that I know don't do especially well in zone 9. We can, of course, move our orchards north, but we had better start soon; some trees take a long time to grow to full production. Other annual crops, we can move more quickly.

My "feelings" are backed by scientific evidence, I merely did not include links. An earlier version of this is what first caught my attention, back in the early 1990s. That does not establish a causal link, but it does establish both an increase in CO2 and a hemisphere-wide warming trend. This is a nice discussion (with references) of direct measurements of predicted CO2 greenhouse effects; so it is a greenhouse gas, both in the lab, and in the atmosphere.

SO. Do you have scientific evidence that (a) it is not getting warmer or (b) there is not more CO2 in the air or (c) CO2 is not a greenhouse gas? I am quite familiar with all the usual claims about water vapor, alternate sources of CO2, solar radiation, etc, and would rather not preemptively post links to debunking sites, but seriously, what is the case for your position? Could you, perhaps, define "gradual", "long", and "adaptable"? Those are mighty squishy words from someone who insists on the use of Science.

http://homepage.mac.com/bradster/iarchitect/qtime.htm

Apple consistent? less bloated?

The current version of Quicktime is no better than the version from 1999, 11 years ago. I guess it is consistently bad...

This, of course, this ignores the long term deaths and illness caused by radiation exposure.

Yes, and that's the killer. If you take "long term" to mean from a couple of days to a month or so. For a ground burst this is easily many times the number of casualties compared to the initial blast. (Higher risk the smaller the blast.)

That's the funny (as in peculiar, not "ha ha") thing about nuclear weapons. Our expectations are often counter intuitive. For example, a counter force strike will lead to many more civilian deaths than a strike against population centres. A counter force strike contains a large number of ground burst (to be effective against hardened structures) and will lead to massive amounts of fall out, that subsequently kills civilians. A strike against population centres OTOH will utilise air burst (even high) air bursts to maximise the effectiveness of the blast against non hard structures (to wit, the strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki). This leads to highly reduced amounts of fall out, almost all fatalities and casualties will be the results of blast, thermal and prompt radiation effects, and these are limited in scope and time.

These articles are a good introduction to the area.

This, of course, this ignores the long term deaths and illness caused by radiation exposure.

Yes, and that's the killer. If you take "long term" to mean from a couple of days to a month or so. For a ground burst this is easily many times the number of casualties compared to the initial blast. (Higher risk the smaller the blast.)

That's the funny (as in peculiar, not "ha ha") thing about nuclear weapons. Our expectations are often counter intuitive. For example, a counter force strike will lead to many more civilian deaths than a strike against population centres. A counter force strike contains a large number of ground burst (to be effective against hardened structures) and will lead to massive amounts of fall out, that subsequently kills civilians. A strike against population centres OTOH will utilise air burst (even high) air bursts to maximise the effectiveness of the blast against non hard structures (to wit, the strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki). This leads to highly reduced amounts of fall out, almost all fatalities and casualties will be the results of blast, thermal and prompt radiation effects, and these are limited in scope and time.

These articles are a good introduction to the area.

This, of course, this ignores the long term deaths and illness caused by radiation exposure.

Yes, and that's the killer. If you take "long term" to mean from a couple of days to a month or so. For a ground burst this is easily many times the number of casualties compared to the initial blast. (Higher risk the smaller the blast.)

That's the funny (as in peculiar, not "ha ha") thing about nuclear weapons. Our expectations are often counter intuitive. For example, a counter force strike will lead to many more civilian deaths than a strike against population centres. A counter force strike contains a large number of ground burst (to be effective against hardened structures) and will lead to massive amounts of fall out, that subsequently kills civilians. A strike against population centres OTOH will utilise air burst (even high) air bursts to maximise the effectiveness of the blast against non hard structures (to wit, the strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki). This leads to highly reduced amounts of fall out, almost all fatalities and casualties will be the results of blast, thermal and prompt radiation effects, and these are limited in scope and time.

These articles are a good introduction to the area.

You're correct about that story. I remember reading that. Here's a link to it [ http://homepage.mac.com/simx/technonova/publications/the_difference_between_piracy_and_steal.html ]. And while yes, there probably were a 3 to 1 ratio, this particular case is somewhat unique in that the piracy was generated as a backlash to Bungie's perceived sellout to Microsoft. Granted, some of that anger was probably deserved. Halo for Mac was pretty much a done deal, it was shown running at Macworld. Then it disappeared and an Xbox, then PC version came out. By the time the Mac community got it, people were pretty pissed. I pirated it "just to show those bastards". I also bought it, later on. While the whole piracy thing probably hurt Macsoft (the porting company), it was "justified" in the minds of the Mac faithful for the sellout and slap in the face (feel about it as you will, it was to many).

If she went on the train as far north as possible she went to Narvik, but the vast majority of that trip goes through Northern Sweden. Norway is much more mountainous with better scenery and slower, more twisty roads. Norway is very expensive, but it can be amazingly scenic. Our trips were in August (1991) and late June (2007) and the waterfalls and snowfields were more impressive in June. As far as your parents are concerned if they wanted to take a week of so they might look into flying to Oslo, renting a car to go up to Lillehammer, Geiranger, Trollstigen and on to Trondheim. Two cities with lots of history for mum and several days of amazing scenery and countryside for dad. If they want to stay longer or see more they could fly or take the Hurtigrutan boat up the coast to the Lofoten archipelago. That area is simply amazing from a geological and natural standpoint. Pics from our trip up there: http://gallery.mac.com/drt#100023

Similar oscillations have been observed in Mercury.

Click on Activity 3.

Similar oscillations have been observed in Mercury.

Click on Activity 3.

IMHO every programmer should read Apple's Human Interface Guidelines even if they don't work on interfaces directly or never touch a Mac.

Computers can't be made "easier" just by hiding levels of abstraction - the key is understanding how people react to the things in the world that they need to interact with. There are some well-studied principles that make computers much more pleasant to deal with, such as:

1. direct manipulation when possible
2. modelessness when possible
3. principle of least surprise
4. forgiveness (undo; default options least likely to cause damage)
5. maintain perception of stability

The guidelines aren't a cure-all and they aren't bullet-proof (otherwise they'd be rules instead of guidelines), but they give developers an idea of the kinds of issues they're likely to encounter when their software comes face-to-face with an end user.

For a good idea of what happens when these principles are ignored, see:

Interface Hall of Shame
http://thedailywtf.com/

When calculating the density, this gives a surprising figure because it
  seems that parts of Phobos may be hollow...

There was a 50 year old hypothesis that Phobos was hollow, with a very low density, in order to explain the anomalous drag on the satellite, which has now been shown to be due to the tidal bulge raised on Mars by Phobos. The measured density is about 1.9 gm/cm^3, which is a little low, but not unusual compared to the asteroids, especially small asteroids.

These are probably just all rock piles, repeatedly fractured by collisions and without enough self-gravity to smush things back together, so some internal voids would not be surprising.

Depends on which future you're talking about.

http://homepage.mac.com/dtrull/pix/idiothospital.jpg

I have a (long) bike, not an electric scooter, but it seems to cope fine with the family shopping trip, not always in good weather. What you need is a proper cargo bike. Look here for examples.

For example, heading home after work and a stop by the grocery store a couple of years ago.
Studded tires are useful on ice.
You can tow your kid's bike home in a snow storm..
You can haul a shrubbery to a neighbor's house (it was really heavy, the bike was probably 15 degrees off vertical the whole way).

And if you need to, say, haul 480 lbs (gross weight) up a 31% grade , there's a motor for that.

I'm a little tired of all the negativity. Get a good cargo bike, and ride, and you can do a load of stuff. So the answer is, yes, the electric scooter, or something very like it, is a big part of the answer to our transport problems, and as long as pedaling is still in the picture, it would do a heck of a lot for our health. Over half the commutes in the US are e-bikeable (by commute count, not mileage -- the median commute is 10-12 miles).

I have a (long) bike, not an electric scooter, but it seems to cope fine with the family shopping trip, not always in good weather. What you need is a proper cargo bike. Look here for examples.

For example, heading home after work and a stop by the grocery store a couple of years ago.
Studded tires are useful on ice.
You can tow your kid's bike home in a snow storm..
You can haul a shrubbery to a neighbor's house (it was really heavy, the bike was probably 15 degrees off vertical the whole way).

And if you need to, say, haul 480 lbs (gross weight) up a 31% grade , there's a motor for that.

I'm a little tired of all the negativity. Get a good cargo bike, and ride, and you can do a load of stuff. So the answer is, yes, the electric scooter, or something very like it, is a big part of the answer to our transport problems, and as long as pedaling is still in the picture, it would do a heck of a lot for our health. Over half the commutes in the US are e-bikeable (by commute count, not mileage -- the median commute is 10-12 miles).

I have a (long) bike, not an electric scooter, but it seems to cope fine with the family shopping trip, not always in good weather. What you need is a proper cargo bike. Look here for examples.

For example, heading home after work and a stop by the grocery store a couple of years ago.
Studded tires are useful on ice.
You can tow your kid's bike home in a snow storm..
You can haul a shrubbery to a neighbor's house (it was really heavy, the bike was probably 15 degrees off vertical the whole way).

And if you need to, say, haul 480 lbs (gross weight) up a 31% grade , there's a motor for that.

I'm a little tired of all the negativity. Get a good cargo bike, and ride, and you can do a load of stuff. So the answer is, yes, the electric scooter, or something very like it, is a big part of the answer to our transport problems, and as long as pedaling is still in the picture, it would do a heck of a lot for our health. Over half the commutes in the US are e-bikeable (by commute count, not mileage -- the median commute is 10-12 miles).

I have a (long) bike, not an electric scooter, but it seems to cope fine with the family shopping trip, not always in good weather. What you need is a proper cargo bike. Look here for examples.

For example, heading home after work and a stop by the grocery store a couple of years ago.
Studded tires are useful on ice.
You can tow your kid's bike home in a snow storm..
You can haul a shrubbery to a neighbor's house (it was really heavy, the bike was probably 15 degrees off vertical the whole way).

And if you need to, say, haul 480 lbs (gross weight) up a 31% grade , there's a motor for that.

I'm a little tired of all the negativity. Get a good cargo bike, and ride, and you can do a load of stuff. So the answer is, yes, the electric scooter, or something very like it, is a big part of the answer to our transport problems, and as long as pedaling is still in the picture, it would do a heck of a lot for our health. Over half the commutes in the US are e-bikeable (by commute count, not mileage -- the median commute is 10-12 miles).

I have a (long) bike, not an electric scooter, but it seems to cope fine with the family shopping trip, not always in good weather. What you need is a proper cargo bike. Look here for examples.

For example, heading home after work and a stop by the grocery store a couple of years ago.
Studded tires are useful on ice.
You can tow your kid's bike home in a snow storm..
You can haul a shrubbery to a neighbor's house (it was really heavy, the bike was probably 15 degrees off vertical the whole way).

And if you need to, say, haul 480 lbs (gross weight) up a 31% grade , there's a motor for that.

I'm a little tired of all the negativity. Get a good cargo bike, and ride, and you can do a load of stuff. So the answer is, yes, the electric scooter, or something very like it, is a big part of the answer to our transport problems, and as long as pedaling is still in the picture, it would do a heck of a lot for our health. Over half the commutes in the US are e-bikeable (by commute count, not mileage -- the median commute is 10-12 miles).

2) Hard to reach buttons.

Yes, it looks cool, but it's about as sensible as putting the gear stick behind the driver's seat.

Not entirely true.

Sometimes you want to prevent mistakes.

You want to force the user to think about what he is about to do. Because all sales are final.

So you introduce arbitrary barriers and complications.

Star Trek:TOS Court-Martial, 1967 is a textbook example of what can go wrong.

To jettison the forward sensor pod the Captain flicks an unmarked switch that looks and feels exactly like the others built into the arm of his chair.

The odds that he'll fire the damn thing off by accident sometime in his career are probably no worse than 1 in 4.