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But it makes the town a better place to live, so more people (and businesses) move there, increasing the number of subscribers and lowering the cost for everyone. Hey, it could happen.

Sure. And a pink elephant could materialize out of thin air. Fortunately, we don't need to guess — the City of Brotherly Love tried municipal WiFi (much cheaper than running actual cables) years ago. By 2008 the system was shut down. Earthlink actually wanted to hand it off to the city's government, but found no interest...

Seattle's municipal WiFi went dark in 2012. Other examples abound.

Yes, not only is government competing with private sector illegal — it is also a bad idea.

Except you are not simply talking about government. You are also talking about HOA's and similar communities.

For instance, one of my friend's bought a house in a community 15-20 years back. The CableTV companies didn't want anything to do with the community; so they ran their own lines to everyone's house. It was simply an HOA that did the work and the residents split the costs. Same thing has happened in many communities around the nation only to have the big players (especially the Cable companies) come in and shut it down.

So no, this doesn't necessarily mean goverment run; but it does mean citizen run and organized in some manner - with or without help from their municipal government.

But it makes the town a better place to live, so more people (and businesses) move there, increasing the number of subscribers and lowering the cost for everyone. Hey, it could happen.

Sure. And a pink elephant could materialize out of thin air. Fortunately, we don't need to guess — the City of Brotherly Love tried municipal WiFi (much cheaper than running actual cables) years ago. By 2008 the system was shut down. Earthlink actually wanted to hand it off to the city's government, but found no interest...

Seattle's municipal WiFi went dark in 2012. Other examples abound.

Yes, not only is government competing with private sector illegal — it is also a bad idea.

With various approaches but its not clear that they are so successful. Your particular conversation sounds like it may have been an outlier.
http://www.smartplanet.com/blo...
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-new...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

I personally have installed an RO filter (any monkey with a crescent wrench should be able to do the same) and we have a crapload of klean kanteen-style stainless bottles...

Stainless steel is a filthy metal unless you're using the newer silver-coated stuff.

Seems a shame to use water from an expensive reverse osmosis filter in an inherently disease-friendly container - why not use a nice glass bottle, or a silver or copper one if you're worried about breakage?

Sure:

http://www.irpa.net/irpa9/cdrom/VOL.1/V1_46.PDF

http://www.techmetalsresearch.com/2011/03/the-issue-of-residual-thorium-uranium-from-rare-earth-ore-processing/

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/why-safe-nuclear-will-rely-on-rare-earth-minerals/

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/boom_in_mining_rare_earths_poses_mounting_toxic_risks/2614/

http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp147-c4.pdf

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/2011/06/29/the-future-of-thorium-as-nuclear-fuel

http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/problems/disposal.html

http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/problems/disposal.html

unless AI research has gotten a lot darker since I last looked at it?

Well, Amazon now have drones, and Google just bought a home automation company... and a few months ago Google had their name linked to a Lockheed fusion project...

Given the content of the warrant and the laws governing search warrants, officers serving said warrant examining ANY documents that were not laid out and readable in plain sight is a violation of 4A rights and exceeds the scope of the search warrant used.

Not necessarily. If the warrant specified that a car could be searched, and the house were searched, instead, that's exceeding the scope. Looking in folders for guns is perfectly reasonable, as there are small guns that will fit easily under or inside a stack of papers. Once the investigators are authorized to look somewhere, there is no requirement that they ignore anything else questionable that they see, including merely documents with FOUO markings.

The Fourth Amendment is written and intended to protect citizens from the police inventing reasons to interrupt their lives, as was standard practice in colonial America. If the British soldiers didn't like a shopkeeper, they'd just "search" the store repeatedly, shutting it down in the meanwhile, and confiscate everything in it. There would never be any followup, except probably just more searches until the shopkeeper was broke (and likely facing debtor's prison) or tried to run away (which would be treated as fleeing a crime, and punished with no due process). Under the Fourth Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, the interruption to the citizen's life must have a good reason (such as a husband's prior conviction and evidence that he was collecting firearms, in this case). Again, once that interruption is approved by the court, any further evidence of possible criminal acts need not be ignored, even if the original investigation was for something totally different.

Nobody cares enough about Africa to listen in on them. The only thing Africa has is resources, and China already is buying them. Is the infrastructure subject to surveillance? Sure, but every infrastructure is, even heterogeneous ones like the US.

So, nothing to see in Africa? Just move along? I don't think so.

Just like Europe, South America, and Asia, Africa is an entire continent of nations, some of which have drawn considerable attention in the last couple of years. I assume you've heard of Libya? Egypt? Algeria? South Africa? There is a lot going on in Africa, and the Chinese are heavily involved. There are plenty of things they might want to listen to.

Africa has more mobile phone users than the U.S. or E.U.
How mobile phones are making cash obsolete in Africa
European Rocket Launches 2 African Satellites

China and Africa: What the U.S. doesn't understand

Seven out of the world's 10 fastest growing economies are African. According to a 2010 report by consulting firm McKinsey & Company, the rate of return on foreign investments in Africa was, in the first decade of this century, higher than in any other region. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected that Africa is now growing faster than Asia.

Sino-African trade volumes have grown accordingly. Negligible in 2000, trade hit $198.5 billion in 2012. By comparison, U.S.-Africa trade volume was $108.9 billon, and is slated to fall further behind: Research from Standard Chartered estimates that trade between China and Africa will hit $385 billion by 2015

MAP: Here Are All Of The Big Chinese Investments In Africa Since 2010
China’s Increasing Interest in Africa: Benign but Hardly Altruistic

South Africa Could Have a Spaceport

The Republic of South Africa has considered using Israel's Shavit space booster to send a satellite to orbit. The South Africans have tested the Israeli Jericho 2 intermediate-range ballistic missile which converts to the Shavit space rocket.

International Effort Seeks to Counter Jihadists in Africa

China To Establish A Naval Base Around Somalia

As the threat of piracy continues. And as Somali pirates continue with their awkward trade to kidnap foreign ships, a Chinese Admiral has revealed China’s proposal to establish a naval base in the region in its commitment to thwart piracy and finally end this tragedy in the gulf of Eden. The lazy pirates who have no intentions to pursue an education or employment see piracy as an easy way to make money. About 75% of piracy in the region is being masterminded by terror groups to finance their illegal activities.

Rear Admiral Yin Zhou’s, a senior Chinese naval officer has suggested that China will establish a permanent base in the Gulf of Aden to aid its anti-piracy operations. The proposal was posted on China’s Defence ministry website. The Admiral went on to say that supplying and maintaining the fleet off Somalia was challenging without such a base, and said other nations were unlikely to object. The Chinese navy curr

The fly ash is usually dumped into a man-made holding pond. I think some of these are on-site but that's just reckoning from personal experience. Also, fly ash is mixed in with concrete*.

[*] http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/pure-genius/fly-ash-from-toxic-by-product-to-nearly-free-metal-replacement/5902

Taxi driver is a more dangerous occupation than policeman,

No, it's not

Yet that is an exceedingly rare situation and it's not what people are referring to here. If you are SWATting someone the whole point is that the person being SWATted doesn't actually pose a threat, so something like that would never happen.

Really? You know that for a fact? Do you think the person setting this crap up knows the victims well enough to know that for a fact too? I know many people who keep guns in close proximity to their bed. If someone broke down their door, in all likelihood several police would be shot as well as the person being SWATted.

So if SWATting could reasonably be expected to involve deaths, to the extent that the SWATter should be charged with murder, something is wrong.

Anytime you are forcibly entering someones home the risk of someone being injured or killed can be very high.

It's not economically sensible to ship regular, lower-grade coal for producing electricity all around the world.

This is factually incorrect. Coal used for power generation is called `steam coal' and the recent growth of US coal exports is due to steam coal.

You may expect all of this to accelerate rapidly. As the story points out, met coal is going to China from the East coast the hard way; via the Atlantic, Cape of Good Hope, etc. Our pollution outsourcing and de-industrialization needs are so great that the Panama Canal is being expanded to accommodate much larger ships. Simultaneously we're waving environmental regs right and left to dredge up East coast bays for those ships.

This will all be up and running in 2015.

Once "Super-Post-Panamax" shipping can haul coal from the East Coast to China via the Pacific we'll see huge growth in coal exports and more de-industrialization. Coal going that way and finished goods coming back.

There's been some work on that:

Wind-powered cargo vessels: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/sails-to-power-future-cargo-ships-global-trade/18536

Rail is very efficient: http://www.nationalgateway.org/fuel-efficient-freight-rail-deserves-more-federal-support

and computers can make 18-wheelers more efficient: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/supercomputer-helps-turn-big-rigs-into-energy-efficient-8216smarttrucks/6237

There's been some work on that:

Wind-powered cargo vessels: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/sails-to-power-future-cargo-ships-global-trade/18536

Rail is very efficient: http://www.nationalgateway.org/fuel-efficient-freight-rail-deserves-more-federal-support

and computers can make 18-wheelers more efficient: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/supercomputer-helps-turn-big-rigs-into-energy-efficient-8216smarttrucks/6237

Yes

What about longevity compared to LEDs? Light emitting diodes are supposed to last for 25 years or longer (although LED bulb makers provide warranties of only about 7 years). There seems to be no hard figure for the life expectancy of a Fipel, but Carroll says he’s had one working in his lab for about 10 years.
The reason is that there is next to no heat from it. As such, it should be about as efficient as LEDs, and last a similar time.
What is interesting is that this will be cheap to manufacture compared to LEDs.

If the price goes up, the private investor will have no problem raising the money. That's exactly what happened 2 years ago.

Or maybe he meant Solar sails?

"and respond to the takedown notices in my spare time."

That's certainly a good legal point, showing how far out society has regressed since the 1960s -- no only can't we put a human on the Moon anymore, but we can't even discuss it while including copies of forty year old documents (that should long ago have become public domain under any reasonable copyright regime).

Makes me think of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Age_Ahead
"Using this and other examples, Jacobs argued that modern political and economic ideologies were in effect no different than those dominant in Western civilization's past Dark Ages, such as Middle Age Roman Catholicism. In both cases, she claimed, the dominant ideology prevented and discouraged people from finding rational and scientifically-verifiable explanations and solutions."

As Jane Jacobs says, a Dark Age is when a society has forgotten even that it used to know something. We seem to be getting there in spaceflight, a few recent small company proprietary successes aside, like SpaceX. In general, the USA has also made publicly discussing some aspects of rocketry and such illegal for military reasons.
http://www.exportlawblog.com/archives/439

Still, some people are trying to relearn things on a small scale:
http://www.smartplanet.com/photos/privately-funded-open-source-rocket-lifts-off-photos/6243520

My own, so far unsuccesful, steps in that direction, but others are succeeding in that idrection as part of an open manufacturing movement:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/

There are a few, but for the most part though things are that fucked up.

Here is a good story about China.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/us-partners-with-china-on-new-nuclear/17037

You can get keyboards for $2+shipping on Amazon. $15 seems high to me.

Something like a $35 laptop would work for this guy.

The mining machines wouldn't necessarily need to be: massive, transported via the tether, and/or come down fully assembled. Not everything has to start out on massive scales. For instance consider the state of global shipping back in the 18th century then compare that to the early 21st. Or farming in the 18th vs. 21st. Normally things start out small and gradually build out as technology and resources develop. Staging things is simply an engineering problem which if Curiosity is any indicator we seem to be getting pretty good at. Even during the Apollo missions we were dropping some pretty serious hardware down onto the moon. Powering these machines can come from any number of technologies from mundane to exotic. We already have well proven solar and RTG technologies, there are a few rather interesting possibilities using in-situ resources as well. For instance using the newly discovered water with the aluminum in the regolith to produce hydrogen for fuel. The Aluminum Hydroxide byproduct has its own interesting uses. The obvious one is of course simply using the mined He-3 for fusion power (whenever we get that one figured out).

Few grand adventures into human frontiers are ever "practical" initially and that unfortunately prevents people from seeing what humanity's pioneers and explorers see. In the 1800's no one got what Charles Babbage saw. During the first half of the 1900's very few saw what Konrad Zuse saw. Today no one can miss it and everyone demands it. People too often are quick to see problems as "too hard", too near-sighted to see possibilities, too self-centered to appreciate the benefits to others. You might not get to holiday on Utopia Planitia, or sail the methane seas of Titan but wouldn't it be awesome to initiate the projects now that make that a reality for your progeny? Both incomprehensible business opportunities and human delights await us on this next frontier. What are we waiting for?

Here's one guys take on The future of oil prices. He basically expects the price of a barrel of oil to bounce between $85 and $125 for the next couple of years.

Last year, there were more smartphones sold than PCs and tablets (yes, iPad included) combined. If you instead count tablets and smartphones together and separately from PCs, the difference becomes almost 2x.

Of course, these are sales numbers, not the absolute count to date.

Or for environmental monitoring like this one from the list. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/design-architecture/are-non-military-drones-flying-into-regulatory-quagmire/4759
Here is my guess of what they are doing http://www.nasaepscor.unh.edu/projs.shtml
Snow melt run off surveys. Those little drones would be a lot cheaper than manned aircraft and safer.
Seems as if the Army Corp of Engineers are using them for none evil tasks.
 

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/design-architecture/are-non-military-drones-flying-into-regulatory-quagmire/4759

Training, evaluating new systems, and storage. The US has attack helos in the US also but I do not think they are all that worried about tanks on US soil. Some drones are tasked with missions from US bases just as U2s are launched from US bases.
And some are used for other functions like this one.
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/design-architecture/are-non-military-drones-flying-into-regulatory-quagmire/4759
This is what they are doing at one of the sites in the article. They are monitoring a lake. Trust me I have been out there and there is nothing in that area but wild pigs, Bass, fishermen, dear, cows, and an anual mud bog.
All the other bases in Florida are well known bases that don't shock me at all. They are used a lot for training.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/design-architecture/are-non-military-drones-flying-into-regulatory-quagmire/4759

Training, evaluating new systems, and storage. The US has attack helos in the US also but I do not think they are all that worried about tanks on US soil. Some drones are tasked with missions from US bases just as U2s are launched from US bases.
And some are used for other functions like this one.
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/design-architecture/are-non-military-drones-flying-into-regulatory-quagmire/4759
This is what they are doing at one of the sites in the article. They are monitoring a lake. Trust me I have been out there and there is nothing in that area but wild pigs, Bass, fishermen, dear, cows, and an anual mud bog.
All the other bases in Florida are well known bases that don't shock me at all. They are used a lot for training.

One of the sites on the map is not far from where I live. The thing is that there is no "military" base in Okeechobee Florida so I did a little research...
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/design-architecture/are-non-military-drones-flying-into-regulatory-quagmire/4759

ewww I am terrified. The Army corp of engineers are using small hand launched "drones" to monitor lake Okeechobee which is frankly a way cool use of tech folks. Yea this guy in a polo shirt throwing a model airplane from a bass boat terrifies me to no ends...
The other bases in Florida are all training sites. At at least one of them they also have F22s! ewww.
Really people when did Slashdot become so freaking political? They are not good at it and frankly I would rather see more stories about people buiding mechs in the backyards than fear mongering crap like this.

On a similar note, I ran across this today. Chubu Electric Power Co. is investing some R&D bucks "specifically looking into an alternative reactor design that would use liquid thorium fuel in a reactor cooled by molten salt." That ought to make the thorium geeks happy.

Any third option for the foreseeable future is a hippie pipe dream

I don't get it, all the free market preachers are promising that my energy problems will shortly be solved by the free market but your view is such a fatalistic-don't-even-try-jaded response that you seem to doubt the free market can provide.

And if anyone thinks that solar panels and wind turbines are going to supply Tokyo with even a fraction of its power needs, you've obviously never been there.

I haven't been there. But no one's asking those solutions to go from zero to powering Tokyo over night. Look how gradually it's taken wind power to start in the United States (current numbers here). Japan is comparable at our state level and is looking at connecting with Korea, China, Russia and Mongolia power grids to buy more renewable energy. So why call these hippie pipe dreams? If these are hippie pipe dreams, when will our innovation kick in and 'save us' from nuclear and coal?

(unless you count regular, sustained blackouts as an option)

Did you hear that Japan did actually make small adjustments following Fukushima and called the movement setsuden?

I don't think the situation is as dire as you describe it and, frankly, dismissing all the alternative efforts really undermines what we should be working toward which are transitional phases until some breakthrough comes in fusion or an unforeseen source.

A lot.

new solar technologies are able to harvest light from the infrared spectrum, which includes harvesting energy at night:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/scientists-harvest-solar-power-in-the-dark/4150

Putting down any alternative energy technology as permanently impractical is always a risky bet and one solar naysayers are going to lose sooner rather than later. The most damaging thing is when it gets turned into a political football because it discourages money being directed to research and development across the board.

We need to be going full moon-shot towards alternative energy, subsidizing early adopters and deficit spending all the way if need be. The real and widespread economic costs associated with global warming and also with peak oil in the very near future far far outweigh any cost associated with R and D into alternative energy.

I'm always telling people about how we could just mount turbines on the roofs of cars and power the engine; they're inevitably enthusiastic about this idea. /sarcasm

Actually, no sarcasm necessary, that actually works quite well:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/wind-powered-car-travels-more-than-twice-as-fast-as-the-wind/4322

As an added bonus, the faster you drive into the wind, the more power you get!

(wouldn't really work for airplanes, though)

And don't forget that the self-driving cars project was a DARPA project. Google's current self-driving car project was done by hiring a bunch of guys involved in the DARPA project ("Google hired several veterans of DARPA challenge teams." - http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/googles-self-driving-car/5445)

No. I tried several brands of those and you are right they are annoying to type on and I hated them all. This is the HP Washable keyboard another bonus was that I used to have an ancient keyboard that I loved because it felt *solid* but I lost it when I moved out of my parents house 11 years ago. This is the first keyboard that I've owned since then that feels solid enough that I actually don't find myself wishing for my old keyboard.

One company has already made genetically identical clones in china already. They even gave some rabbits human DNA at one of the government labs. That one kicked up quite a fuss, I'm not sure why you didn't hear about it.

Probably something to do with you sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling "nananana I can't hear you".

A lot of the problem is the cutting edge research IS NOT happening in your back yard so you know nothing about it nowadays.

As for mice, they've succesfully grown and transplanted whole livers into mice and they are working on monkeys now.

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/rethinking-healthcare/can-reprogrammed-cells-nix-the-need-for-liver-transplants/4449

Not to mention the fact that an experimental stem cell treatment in the UK cured someone that was BLIND from a direct tissue injury that was previously completely incurable, and is still completely incurable by any other means.

http://gizmodo.com/5433391/stem-cells-cure-blind-man

Somebody who fell into a combine harvester. I remember reading Readers Digest while in the hospital waiting room as a kid.

Karl Merk

Matus Hrdy

Corporal Andy Reid

Oscar the cat

I do wonder whether it wouldn't be possible to reconstruct hands using a titanium skeleton (like they do for jawbone replacement) and use airbags to stretch the skin so that it would cover that skeleton.

You're right about the article. What's been surprising to me, though, is that PV has actually gotten cheaper than even industrial-scale solar thermal in the last few years. More than one large-scale facility out here in the desert has scrapped their plans for concentrating thermal plants, and is instead just buying a stack of panels. The best bang for your buck isn't in the big thermal plants anymore, thanks to the relentless decrease in price for photovoltaics.

The vast majority of Microsoft commerical products are developed in C++. There are instances of Microsoft commercial applications and tools written in .NET but the core product offerings SQL Server, MS Office, Windows, and even Visual Studio are all written in C++. This means those applications have to be ported to the ARM processor which is very doable. I imagine the more tenuous issue has to do with Microsoft's very longtime relationship with Intel and the x86 instruction set. If Microsoft starts embracing the ARM instruction as an equal to Intel x86 that would cause riffs in the WinTel alliance. The market has forced Microsoft's hand already on releasing a specific version of Windows 8 to run on the ARM and that has not pleased Intel. But Intel had to capitulate and cannot blame them since Intel's own chip really cannot fully compete with the ARM on several levels. What I think will be interesting is to see if Microsoft continues the port to ARM and offers not only Windows 8 on ARM laptops and workstations but also begins to port their other core applications to the ARM instruction set. After being involved on way or another for decades in the computer industry, the ARM chip and its adoption rate seem very similar to how Intel began on disconnected PCs and then moved to portable PCs and finally into the data center and beyond. Likewise, the ARM chip have started out on low power, small devices and some are foreseeing the adoption of this efficient chip architecture into laptops, desktops, and data centers with several large companies like Nividia and Dell taking a large gamble on it. In fact, the ARM chip is being considers for a super computer. From a chip architectural perspective, it is easier to scale go up than down.
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/nvidia-eyes-arm-based-supercomputers/13343

But Intel is a fierce competitor and they will not sit around while someone eats their market share. They have crushed the competition before (Cyrix, PowerPC, DEC, AMD) and they will attempt to do so again. To me what is different about ARM is that the adoption is happening automatically and organically in the market place. It is not a force-fed situation with expensive marketing campaigns and an army of sales people.
http://www.dailytech.com/IDF+2011+Intel+Looks+to+Take+a+Bite+Out+of+ARM+AMD+With+3D+FinFET+Tech/article22719.htm

I was waiting for the self driving Google cars to come out so I can just be a passenger again. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/googles-self-driving-car/5445

" unless you think its just going to run on sunshine and rainbows?"
Kinda:
Sunshine
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/us-military-brings-solar-power-to-its-front-lines/4321
http://www.military-solar-power.com/
http://www.powerfilmsolar.com/military-products/military-products.php

AS for rainbows, they could use the drug crops and turn it into biofuels.

I person is killed form enemy action for every 24 convoys. So, yea 1000 killed due to enemy action sounds about right.

"As with most things related to the military, some idiot gets a number, then goes completely doom and gloom, and suddenly OMFG WE GOTTA STOP THAT!
As with most thing in the military, it did not happen that way.

"As they say in Counter Strike .
ah, I see. Your military/logistics experience comes from a kids game,how cute.

"Note: I as expected, did not read the actual article, just the summary. Its more fun that way."
I have no idea why someone finds it fun to be completely wrong.

Don't count on it: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/thinking-tech/googles-self-driving-car/5445

From 2007:
    "GE Engineer Sees Competitive Photovoltaics In Under 10 Years"
    http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/004702.html
"A high ranking engineer at General Electric says in some parts of the United States photovoltaics will become cost competitive by 2015."

From this year (2011):
"Report: GE says fossil fuels, nuclear soon costlier than solar power"
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/report-ge-says-fossil-fuels-nuclear-soon-costlier-than-solar-power/6686

And:
http://gweedopig.com/index.php/2011/04/08/ge-bets-600-million-on-2015-solar-plant/
"General Electric Co made a big push in solar power, saying it will invest $600 million to build a new factory as it pursues what it thinks could be an up to $3 billion business by 2015. The largest U.S. conglomerate, which over the last decade has made itself a leader in renewable energy, said it has designed a thin-film solar panel that converts sunlight to electricity more efficiently than rival products today. The move is likely to ramp up already intense price competition, particularly for First Solar Inc, which uses the same thin-film technology as GE has focused on."

It is happening... Not the same as printing, but that will come too most likely...

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/business-brains/new-algorithm-spots-sarcasm-in-customer-testimonials/7192

Also, you might laugh, but one of the Program Committee Chairs at the conference this was accepted at has a bunch of work on computational humor: http://www.cse.unt.edu/~rada/papers.html

Would Bernstein let Jobs in the PARC facilities today? That view that Xerox/PARC didn't capitalize enough on its breakthroughs is common. For instance, Jason Perlow said I should ask whether PARC would let Steve Jobs in the building since a lot of those PARC ideas built Apple. "It would be great to have Steve come over," quipped Bernstein. "I'd just have to be careful about what I showed him."

Larry Dignan interviewing then Xerox/PARC chief Mark Bernstein last November.

I am not holding my breath for a self-driving car. Robots cannot even vacuum a room with furniture in it, so it may be a while before we have a car that can drive itself safely through a maze of streets and avoid hitting old ladies and bikers.

You should probably tell Google that, they're going to be bummed.
http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/googles-self-driving-car/5445/

86ing the phones is not going to eliminate the problem, ditching the human control system would be a much better option! Anyone want to go for a pub crawl and have Google drive us home? http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/googles-self-driving-car/5445/

http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/the-mysterious-california-missile-launch-that-wasnt/5646/ This site is saying that it might just be a commercial airliner.

Eh, exploitation at the Geysers in CA has resulted in increased seismicity. I'd really want to take care before tapping into Yellowstone - eruptions in the past have dumped up to a foot of ash as far away as Iowa. Other problem with generating juice in Yellowstone is that it's quite a ways away from the intended customers, so you'd need a mess of transmission lines to get it where it's going. Geothermal energy: too dangerous? - SmartPlanet

All of this requires physical access to the car

That used to be true. While some hacks still require physical access, others can be executed remotely. Cars are getting online and the security problems go with it.

Box-checking mostly deserves its bad reputation, but I feel so sorry for it that I'm moved to defend it a little.

I'm a big fan of checklists as a tool.
But in the security domain too often they are an end rather than a means.

For everyone here arguing that a cellphone has no/negligible effect on the brain see this article .... http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/the-cellphone-radiation-controversy-takes-a-new-turn/2667/ If cellular radiation can break down beta blockers (causing Alzheimer's disease) how can we even begin to think that it does not have an effect on our brain?