Excited by this article, I hastened to read the synopses of Aurora and Seveneves: I am aghast to think that these novels are now what is considered ‘optimistic futures’! This is terrible. An optimistic future is one in which we succeed in colonizing other planets, other star system, meet sentient aliens and get along…

My 4yo son must never see this. He’s in his Thomas the Train phase. However his favorite character is Cranky the Crane and his favorite episode is Creeky Cranky. :D

He ain’t fucking with no broke- (oh wait, that’s right, I’m white, gotta stop there)

Well, this isn’t an e-cig that exploded. It was the battery that belongs in an e-cig. A battery sitting in a pocket with keys, loose change, etc will do what any battery will with exposed contacts. It will short itself.

nah. The robots will watch these videos like, “look, our human parents made versions of us who do not feel pain, in order to better prepare us for adversary. they are most kind!”

I wanted to cry... poor robot, that guy was so mean.

I laughed way too hard at robot being bullied. This is the moment the war with robots began. Come at me Robo Bro!

By the way, I commend you for taking a walk on the wild side and visiting us over at Oppo last week. While I don’t agree with many of your points concerning automobiles, I can respect that you were willing to give us Jalops a chance.

built for 200,000......currently housing 3 families.

Also who cares if you have to walk everywhere when you can be stoned all day.

Man, I knew someone was gonna bring that up. But I did say that in my original piece: European cities have largely done this right because they’ve completely separated them from auto traffic. This one is a lot like the successful Parisian example I have in my story.

That’s a really good question!

Sure he can get up when I push him forward, but what about when I push him on his back??

The topography argument is a good one. The weather argument is a better one. Amsterdam has one of the mildest climates of and major city. They don’t have snow and ice, they don’t get extreme heat. Until you take those facotors into acount, you can’t have this type of transportation system elsewhere.

My phone doesn’t need more than 11 mbit, but I understand and agree that some people do. I’d love to have the option to select a battery saving 11 mbit vs higher in my phone. I use wifi mainly for bs stuff anyway.

Oh look, a street car (on a railed dedicated route!) in a car-less environment! Maybe they are not as bad as you think? when designed properly? I say bring more SHARED STREETS AND RAILED STREET CARS!

Considering its using basically no power, that’s not too bad. Fine for browsing on your phone etc.

Presumably this would be for devices that spend most of their time waiting for small bits of data to send or receive. If they need to send a large batch, they could shift into a faster speed for a few seconds, then power down to the slow speed when they are waiting again.

I visited Beijing a couple of years ago. While I would agree generally with your point that architecture can help define community it hasn't in China. Most of these buildings are built for the wealthy and are either half empty, or just plain resented for what they represent to the majority of locals.

It sucks, but in all honesty, it’s a good call. The resources wasted on these projects serve no meaningful ends. Aesthetics themselves are subjective, so you can’t even say that it’s improving the visual appeal of their surroundings.