I was just scanning the comments to see if this point had already been made. Thanks!

Perhaps the most obvious example of this was Babylon 5. In many ways that woke up television producers to the option of strong story arcs across seasons or even the entire show instead of the old rule that everything had to end back in the same state where it started. Sure, there are plenty of other examples, even before B5, but I think that is what really changed the market.

Now it's standard practice for lots of shows: 24, Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, and many others.

Of course, other factors now support this model that weren't really a factor with Babylon 5. Namely streaming video, DVRs, and DVDs. It's no longer a big obstacle to expect fans to not miss any episodes. Fans will stream the old episodes to catch up, record them, or buy the DVDs. In fact, the DVD market encourages strong arcs; I think people are more likely to want to own a complete story than a collection of independent episodes.

I remember doing "The Forever War" for my sci-fi book club. When we met to discuss it, we were shocked to find that we had read different versions. Depending on which printing you get, you may or may not get the depressing story in the middle. I don't believe it was ever written as separate stories, though. This was a case of an editor cutting something out, and then having it restored years later.

Just think of "Celeron" as "i1" and "Pentium" as "i2" and then they fit just fine.

I just heard a story the other day about prisons installing cell towers that only work with a small list of specific devices (owned by staff). It's a lot like using a Stingray, only being for blocking access instead of monitoring it.

Apparently keeping out unauthorized cell phones is simply too difficult.

If you only want to make calls over WiFi, then the solution already exists. Sign up for a Google Voice number, then install the Google Hangouts Dialer, and you're all set.

The potential value-add here is not the voice or texting service, but access to the WiFi network.

Why did they not support 4K?

This is the same vertical resolution as 4K, but slightly lower horizontal resolution. Why not support both 4K and double HD? It just seems silly not to try to match the resolution that movies are being produced in.

Real gamers use paper, pencils, and dice.

That's the problem with becoming dependant on a behavior that you want to prevent.

The same issue comes up with self-driving cars. What do you do about all the lost ticket revenue when you stop having traffic violations? How do police react when they lose the ability to use a traffic stop as an excuse to find drugs in cars?

How do you fund roads with a gas tax when cars become more fuel efficient and eventually switch to electricity (often generated at home with solar panels)?

Changes happen. Policies will adapt to reflect them.

Assuming this is effective, should it be added to the required list of vaccines for attending school? Imagine if it were impossible for anyone to become addicted to nicotine in the first place. The smoking rate would drop to essentially zero.

What if China required it for everyone?

This has the possibility to completely destroy the tobacco industry.

I think Google only really cares about data. Perhaps the Google-branded service will be LTE-only, including voice over LTE. If so, then they don't really care about CDMA or GSM. They may even ignore voice and tell people to use the Google Hangouts dialer with Google Voice.

That would be a pretty reasonable strategy for Google, since they're certainly going to be mostly interested in the data side of things anyway.

They may be afraid of being made irrelevant by a deal like this, but they're much more afraid of being made irrelevant by a deal with their competitors. Imagine how different the market would be today if the original exclusive iPhone contract had been with someone other than AT&T.

Besides, one likely end scenario if this goes huge is that Google buys their partners.

That's going to kill the resale value of the existing Leafs, so if you want a short-range electric vehicle at a good price, there are going to be some great deals in the next two years.

I run a Tor relay, but I set it up to also allow exit for specific sites, such as Google.

I don't use Tor much myself, but I figure I'm a step ahead of the game by being in the habit of opening most links in a private browser (killing tracking unless I'm tethered to my phone--thanks Verizon).

I just set up a file server (NAS4Free), and it currently has tons of extra space. I would be more than happy to get something back for the extra space until I need it.

For security, I would hope they set up the file servers as Tor dark sites, so even if the encryption fails, there would be no easy way to track down where the storage is.

Remember the HTC EVO 3-D? It had a 3-D screen and took 3-D photos and movies. Remember how the revolutionary technology completely took over the market? No, it was pretty much ignored.

I had the HTC EVO 4G which preceded it, and it was a pretty good phone for the day (though Sprint's 4G coverage was horrible--I used it once in the years I had it; too bad they didn't start out with LTE).

3-D has always been a gimmick to attract consumers that has mostly failed. Hollywood is still trying it as a way to get people to have a different experience in the theater from home, but few people seem to care. TV manufacturers jumped on it, but they didn't sell. It's just not something people care about.