Episode 4 (A New Hope) was much hornier in its initial release (when it was just “Star Wars) before the later changes. The sexual tension between Luke/Leia and Han/Leia was much stronger. For example, before Luke and Leia swing across the chasm she kisses him for “good luck”. In original version, that was a big kiss…

That’s called “playing the odds”.  You choose the least dangerous option, but there is always some inherent danger to travel and involves some bias (i.e. some people may choose one option and some may choose another, depending on personal experience).  But the robotic system will be programmed to choose the option…

Some drivers would see the ice-cream truck and slow down, while others would not.  If the percentage is 50% then the number of children hit isn’t much worse than if nobody notices the ice-cream truck.

“Even though blacks and whites use drugs at about the same rate, blacks are three times more likely to be arrested for possession of an illegal substance. This is partly because police patrol formerly redlined areas and make more drug arrests.” Why is this a bad thing? I would love to have more police cars cruising…

I am not sure where all that “money for the rich” is going. Personally, I can say that my investments in healthcare-related industries are making any money lately.  My guess is that the money is actually being spent on healthcare and medical malpractice, but it is hard to say.

I thought that I would try the train once too just to see how it would work out. That was in 1993 and I haven’t been back. 

Sorry, but I don’t see a need for this. Peak miles (i.e. the number of miles traveled per person in the US) peaked in 2005. Now that we have more jobs that can be done from the home, and less need to go shop (delivery of items ordered over the internet), we don’t need more infrastructure, we need less (except of…

Uh, so can flying cars.  And these don’t require any digging, roads or other expensive government funded infrastructure.  

Oh, and on rails is probably the best (and only) place where a Tesla could be completely autonomous. Tesla’s technology of using optical cameras for collision avoidance is severely flawed. Everybody has correctly abandoned that technology in favor of lidar.

I don’t understand.  Why are a million cars less likely to break down than a few dozen trains?

Probably a college found out. The college didn’t want individual employees taking money from rich parents directly — that is muscling on the colleges turf. Colleges have to give their sports-related reduced requirement admissions to students that are really good at sports, so that the colleges can make money from them…

Interesting, but do we really know the race and ethnicity of all the people taken down in the sting? Sure at first glance they appear to be rich white anglo kids, but are they all? Making the assumption that they are would be racist.  We need more data before we can make arguments like this.  If you can, please supply…

It isn’t just a 1% problem. There are plenty of poor kids that go to expensive colleges on (“legitimate”) sports scholarships or are admitted just because they are good at a particular sport. This really isn’t much better than what is going on in this article. These sports kids are still taking the college spot away…

You are missing the point.  They used those advantages to get into a decent college.  That’s the corruption inherent in the system.

Interesting. I don’t see what the difference is between getting in to a selective school via sports — whether you lie and bribe or without lies and bribes. In both cases you are taking the place of an academically and more deserving student and giving it to a dumb jock. I don’t understand why these lower standards for…

It isn’t that bad.  I just did my taxes -- I under paid by $4800 dollars and the penalty was only $90.  I am much more upset by the $4800 that I owe than the $90 penalty.

All the software covers that.  It is pretty basic -- especially for retired people that are getting interest payments.

Its more for doctors and lawyers than for anybody else. I sit near the combination scanner/photocopier/faxmachine. It doesn’t get much use.

(FYI: In the Space Seed episode Spock says that the Eugenics wars occurred in 1994.   I don’t seem to remember that war happening in 1994, but it was a rough year...   *lol*

I got to see the first airing of TNG with friends in college — about 20 science and engineering students crammed into a small apartment livingroom. The first episode (Encounter at Farpoint) was so-so (I think everybody thinks that TNG started slow but got Much better), but what a great time!