There is however a transit museum in Brooklyn that's well worth checking out. It's also built in a former subway station (not an architecturally exquisite one but it's still neat to see exhibits underground) and the lower platforms are stacked with vintage subway cars from various decades.

So what you're saying is that they have openings, right?

For anyone else patiently waiting for Dance With Dragons, Martin has released a few sample chapters as an appetizer. You can get them here:

@blatanville: No need for a retcon. This is just Earth #8323929383975bazillion and has no effect on the many parallel worlds where Batman is still a secretive lone vigilante.

@Benevolence: You can practice offline with AI teammates against AI opponents, and pick whatever difficulty level you like. And other than in arena mode where you can't respawn, death usually just means you wait a few seconds to come back into the game.

@Faustroll: Color stands out. Colored ink is much better for note taking for that reason. While I'm all for preserving books, these are two mass-printed paperbacks - probably not a rare or special edition. They don't really deserve special treatment that gets in the way of actually using them for their intended…

I think you're misstating what "singularity" means when you compare it to penicillin. Pencillin is just a great new technology. Singularity instead requires artificial intelligence/enhanced human intelligence that is capable of improving its own intelligence without limit, at an ever increasing rate. It's basically a…

@stereobot: Maybe he's allergic.

What they neglected to mention is that the 1% of babies that do survive end up having psychic powers. Or so I assume, I mean there's got to be an upside to this right?

@chrismoke: Think of it as a coupon. By giving you say 50% off a new game by trading in an old one, Valve is still getting you to pay 50% of the retail price. That's money in their pocket you might not have otherwise spent.

@1WordUp: I'm not really sure what the game would be. Maybe a version of The Sims but confined to the one room of the spaceship for months on end, where all you do is manage the crew's stress levels with porn and cigarettes.

@ObiHaiv: As a robot made in Russia, I take offense to that. I frequently grasp a pen in my steel claw and write poetry.

@Akitsu: Hate to be a downer, but space colonization isn't about saving Earth. Space colonization is about saving humanity after Earth is ruined.

No Raphael? Always the moody brat of the ninja turtles.

That's why you give the bad guys a generic evil organization name like "Brotherhood of the Claw"

@phoghat: Everyone knows that Martians are green.

@CerealBizness: Au contraire. Many workers have their passports confiscated by management so they can't leave the country. Then they can't leave, and are forced to work as long as their employer wants for whatever their employer wants to pay.

The article is more playful science-fiction than an attempt to accurately predict the future. Later on it talks about explorers traveling to Mars in balloons and meeting friendly Martian who are "a highly refined people, who had known the use of safety matches and gum pastilles for some time." My favorite line:…

I always like stories that can pull off dream logic in an otherwise realistic world. Although Rat is awake, the entire story, and the image of the stair, would work perfectly as someone's nightmare.