Even the weather in Middle America hates those liberal pinko commies in the Northeast.

I'm confused. Don't they already have Internet in space? And can't you hook up a credit card reader to a computer or a phone line?

It would be way too easy to complain about those silly "Related" insets interrupting my reading flow in an article about human beings' ability to pay attention, so I'm not going to do that.

You bring up some good points here. I haven't formed an opinion yet, but it's pretty interesting that hacktivist groups see DDoS as a form of peaceful protest and law enforcement agencies (at least in the US) have taken the position that it's basically digital terrorism.

Is it bad that I'm totally okay with most of these scenarios? Magic bartenders, hyper-competitive bread making, and President Obama on rollerblades are particularly appealing.

Can we stop for a second and talk about how awesome it is that there's an Institute for Mummies and the Iceman?

If they came out with OS X Hypoallergenic, I would buy 10 copies at launch, no questions asked.

Does anyone ever run these "universal greetings" and their code by, say, a linguist or a cryptographer? I'd be curious to see if our own experts - without being told what they were looking at - could derive the messages.

I'm going to continue to complain about them, but thanks for at least reducing those flow-breaking "related" insets to just the article titles. The excerpts were driving me nuts.

Oh, it's fine, they can have it. Ron Moore et al retconned the glowing spine out of BSG, because sooner or later someone would've noticed. Think about it guys, someone would've noticed.

Either way, it's still pretty interesting!

Are those the same systems in Trek, though? I have no idea, myself, and "realistic" space combat can be a deep rabbit hole. So I'll just say, fair point, and leave it at that.

I'm going to I ahead and say it, because I feel like starting an Internet Fight first thing Monday morning - why are these "typical" future people white?

Nah, I'd put life support way ahead of gravity. I'd much rather have CO2 scrubbers, oxygen pumps, heating, and ventilation on than stand on the floor. Not to mention computer systems, lights, weapons, shielding, and propulsion. And, again, I maintain that if your space crew isn't trained to perform with or without…

All of these look like 60s Star Trek sets or Apeture Science labs.

That's a really good point, and now I feel dumb for never noticing it before. Ships can literally break apart in that universe, or have 0 power, no lights or air, and the gravity is still on. If I were an engineer, and I needed to divert power to weapons or shields in a fight, gravity would be one of the first things…

The pull quote about "the slums of tomorrow" is particularly interesting, given that that's what more or less happened. All of those blighted, run-down, brutalist housing projects you see today (I'm thinking specifically of "inner city" high-rise public housing) were designed to be clean, efficient alternatives to…

But is that extra sensitivity or a reduced ability to block out stimuli?

Man, I won't even ask someone out if they don't read books. Forget dating.

I'm genuinely unsure! I think that's what's interesting about the "problem" of progress – it's not always clear if things are missteps, dead-ends, actively detrimental, or useful and worthwhile. We can't really know if, say, the development of CFCs was a valuable misstep that led to better technologies or a total…