Maybe they should also solve the problems of it being too expensive, too long from breaking ground to first light, too cumbersome, etc. as well.

The creepy stuff aside, biometrics as a form of identification are just stupid. Even if it wasn't for nonsense like when Apple's face recognition would identify basically all Asian people as the same person, it's just fundamentally flawed. Basically, it uses features that are out in the open for anyone to gather for identification. That leaves it open for circumvention methods with no way to change the authentication details. It's just stupid.

Also, 30 seconds?! Seriously? Who wants to wait that long these days.

This discussion was very specifically about what they had aside from subs and bombers. Going back to an earlier comment by Drinkypoo:

The context then was specifically about what they had aside from weapons delivered by subs and bombers.

Whatever happened to Alexander Peter Kowalski anyway? Have not seen him around in a while.

No kidding. As far as I'm concerned, the only difficult part is finding the shoes in the right size and with the other features you want. That is presumably already done with a form of AI in existing search engines and generally very poorly. Not to mention with a whole lot of bias in the search engine towards products from clients who are paying them. So that part already exists and already sucks (compared to what it could be, anyway) and this does not look like it will improve things.
As for the rest of it... autofill has already been a thing forever for things like credit card details and shipping address, and there are already options for simplifying payment like paypal. As for presenting things like shipping options, why would the AI do any better a job at that than the existing UI on the site?

Basically, I just don't see what value this actually adds to the experience.

The real lesson here I think, and the lesson for everyone wanting revenge on a former employer, aside from just don't do it, is don't use computers to do it. Physically break into the office with buckets of pig manure and spread it everywhere. Vandalize cars in the parking lot. Murder your bosses pets (please, please, please don't do this, none of this is actual advice, it's just meant for contrast) You won't get a fraction of the sentence you'll get for doing anything computer-related to a former employer. All that said, the allergen thing was pretty heinous, even if the menus were never printed, but it does seem to be true that "on a computer" is not just a great way to patent an already existing idea, but it also turns pretty much any form of mischief into a really major crime.

Not that nerds like that don't give the rest of us a bad reputation, but you make it clear from your own post that you're also the kind of nerd that gives the rest of us a bad reputation.

If you can get the renewable equipment in, you can get things out. Even if something prevents transmission lines, you can obviously get trucks in and out. So it would be even more practical to use the power to produce something. You could split the difference on carbon sequestration and produce fuel from CO2 in the air and water, then use that net carbon neutral fuel to offset non-carbon neutral fuel in the marketplace.

Otherwise, the basic argument from the GP is completely correct. Pretty much all methods of sequestering carbon sequester less carbon per unit of power used than would be generated by using fossil fuels to generate that unit of power. There might be exceptions like pumping CO2 into old oil/gas wells, or sequestering in certain forms of rock or under the ocean, etc. Even there though, I have my doubts. Basically, using power to sequester carbon might have its place, but I think that place is only after all other sources of CO2 that actually can be practically eliminated have been. Basically until we stop extracting fossil fuels for burning (there is some question about whether it's still OK to extract them as chemical raw materials). Before that point, you should pretty much always be able to save more CO2 from going into the atmosphere by offsetting fossil fuel use than by extracting the CO2 it produces after the fact.

The big problem from my perspective is, after we get into power generating levels with fusion, what then? We still have to turn that power into something usable and the only way we have to do that at present is basically a big steam engine (I mean, I suppose we could do a big Sterling engine rather than steam engine, but still more or less the same thing from the point of view of complexity and expense). Basically, we just have a fission plant where the fission reactor is taken out and replaced with a fusion reactor. The fusion reactor can produce more power from less fuel in theory, but the rest of the plant has to be scaled to whatever the actual heat output is just like it would need to be with a fission reactor. There's also nothing that suggests that the fusion reactor would be any less expensive than a fission reactor. The things it might have going for it are that it can't melt down or probaqbly explode the way a fission reactor can, so that might mean some cost shaved off the containment building. While it would still be very radioactive, it would produce a lot less high-level nuclear waste and would not need cooling ponds. So, generally it would be cleaner and the waste issues would save a little more money. Generally though, it looks like it would be very much on the same order of cost as a fission plant. There's the potential to be slightly cheaper, but chances are that the actual components of a fusion power plant, being considerably more high-tech than the internals of a fission reactor, are going to wear really fast in the high-radiation environment and require frequent replacement, with the upshot probably being that it would be more expensive than a fission reactor for the same amount of power produced. As a thought experiment, replace fission or fusion with a magical sphere that generates heat absolutely for free, no cost for the sphere (or the control dial that lets you turn it up from zero to infinity), no fuel costs, no waste, etc. If you had such a sphere, how much electricity could you actually generate from it and for how much? That would be your baseline for what you could actually do with fission or fusion with current technology. So, basically fusion would just be an incremental improvement over fission, not some huge leap forward.

So, we're struggling to reach and beat break-even with fusion but, even after we do, there's a lot more to do before we get to "too cheap to meter" (which was always a bit silly in the first place because most people's electricity bills are dominated by delivery and other charges rather than the actual cost of electricity). If we can manage fusion and make it roughly as cheap as fission, then I am all for replacing fission with fusion wherever nuclear power is actually practical. I get the feeling though that renewables are going to be eating the lunch of any form of nuclear power plants in most niches unless we get some really amazing leaps forward.

All of this is ignoring the principle of mutually assured destruction of course. You also didn't address the fact that they don't have enough ICBMs to actually carry that out. They rely on bombers and shorter range missiles fired from nuclear subs for their nuclear threat.

All of that is based on the assumption that, somehow, capitalism=free market. You then go on to make an argument based on free market principles. That notion seems to have no actual relationship to the real world.

It's a matter of perspective. When I talk about unions here, I am specifically talking about US unions, which are their own fairly unique animal. While the existence of unions is, in general, good for workers (they have their problems too, but on the whole are more positive for workers rights) they are quite different from the labor rights movements of old. Modern US unions are largely mercenary advocates for their members. In that context, I would say that they are indeed capitalist in nature. The capital that they control is, rather than money, the labor potential of their members, and the role of the union is to promote the value of that capital. In that sense, I do think that unions, at least as largely practiced in the US today, are indeed quite capitalist in nature.

They have thousands of nuclear bombs, but only about 200 actual ICBMs. Now, those can generally carry multiple warheads, but it's still nowhere near enough to attack most of the US (and the most populated city in Alaska only has about a quarter of a million people). So, they certainly could attack the US with nuclear weapons, but they would need to be able to use their bombers and subs to actually get the vast majority of their nuclear weapons to the US.

While it could be argued that the worker's rights movement in general has a socialist bent, how in the hell can anyone sane argue that collective bargaining is "communist"? It's quite fundamentally a capitalist activity.

Just to be clear, do they have dorms, and what is the cost to live in the dorms?