Loved this story! Also good timing as a lot of us are watching the HBO mini-series now. I especially liked this quote: "The reason it's so beautiful and so peaceful is precisely because we can't consume it. Like, perhaps, all real paradises everywhere."
I couldn’t afford the ATARI 800 but my 400 still works today. Just played some missile command, star raiders, and Miner 2049 on it a few months ago. I learned BASIC and 6502 on mine so will always have a soft spot for them.
On my 2016 MBP, I also map CapsLock -> Control and Left_Control to ESC. It's goofy having ESC down there but I need a physical key as I do not look at the keyboard while typing in vim - there is no haptic feedback from the glass surface.
I am 50/50 VIM / EMacs so the it's important for my control key to be on the home row.
I'm not sure why keyboards even have caps lock. It's rude in chat right :-) I started with Sun keyboards where control was on the home row. I guess if one spends hours typing long capitalized acronyms daily, then it makes sense.
It's personal preference in the end. I certainly wont buy another MBP - my 2016 has had 4 trips to the Apple store since I bought it for key replacements.
As I mentioned in another comment, you can use Control-[ to produce ESC in programs which respect ASCII control character values. So this will work with vim and emacs, but likely would not work to simulate depressing a cancel button in a GUI.
Personally, I prefer the Control-[ combo as it allows me to slide my left pinky slightly from the home row and right pinky 45 degrees up and right to produces an ESC. Over the years it has made having to hunt for a physical ESC key quite irritating for the few programs which require it :-).
One reason a small corporation might want a structure is to pursue industrial activities (building stuff, refining ore, etc.) that are either not available in the area or for a lower tax rate. You are correct that it wouldn't be to protect assets.
I saved up money to buy one of these in college, was amazing, fast, sounded like a well tuned race car :-) Still have some CSCI homework and projects on paper printed on this from my Atari ST.
One option might be to use a hash of one's DNA sequence and be done with it. The name identifier can then just be an image with any markings made by the person. This would then move name / id search from a character set problem to an image recognition problem. Works for me :-)
Essentially, people can (sometimes) not have a single set of DNA.
And this has already caused issues:
> In 2002, Lydia Fairchild was denied public assistance in Washington state when DNA evidence showed that she was not related to her children. A lawyer for the prosecution heard of a human chimera in New England, Karen Keegan, and suggested the possibility to the defense, who were able to show that Fairchild, too, was a chimera with two sets of DNA, and that one of those sets could have been the mother of the children.
My guess is no. Concrete fails under tension and with the irregular and natural assembly process the structure probably would have issues with tension and all the extra weight. The cost of filling each bamboo void would also make it costly and less renewable. My gut feeling.
