Glass isn't always recording either. Meanwhile, that guy in the corner of the coffeeshop who looks like they're texting, he's taking a picture of your ass. Cameras are everywhere and have been for quite some time. Glass just makes this more obvious.

I've had Glass for a couple of weeks and the experience has been interesting. I live in a area w/ about 250,000 people and there are probably fewer than five (including myself) who have Glass. I've been wearing them around town to see how people react to them and so far it seems pretty positive. Some people just kind of look at me oddly, but many people recognize what it is and ask me what the experience is like. This is what I tell them: Sure, it's great to have access to (most) of the Google Now functionality without needing to look down at my phone. Text messages delivered to the HUD is handy, as is responding to them via voice. For the most part though, there isn't a whole lot these do yet, certainly not enough for average consumers to care. That said, the potential for business/industrial use is HUGE. Most people's first experience with Glass won't be as a consumer item, but rather as something they use for work. Think construction workers, or people who work in hospitals or laboratories. Many people will be exposed to these via applications in the work environment. You, as a consumer, may not be very interested in Glass, but there are many businesses who want/need something like this for their workforce.

And yet, they still shop at Megacorp's big box stores with cameras filming them as they walk down every aisle.

I've owned a few refractors and currently have an 8" dob (newt mounted on a simple alt/az base). With a small refractor (say under 102mm) it's easy to just pop out of the house and start observing. Fast refractors (like Orion's 80mm shorty) are great for scanning the deep sky and drinking in wide views of the milky way from a dark site. They set up fast and don't take up much room when stored or while in the car. My 8" newt is a completely different setup. It's heavy and bulky and takes up a ton of room in the car while transporting. In the winter it can take a couple of hours for the mirror to cool down to ambient temperature and provide stable views (on top of the 15 minutes it takes to get setup). That said, other than the narrower field of view, it shows much better on planets and most deep-sky objects than any sub $2,000 refractor is capable. In an ideal world, one would have both a small grab-and-go refractor (or possibly some 15x70 or 20x80 binoculars) for quick/casual viewing and a medium or large reflector for serious viewing.

This. I wish I had mod points for you. I've suspected for a while that I'm sent incorrect bills initially to see if I'll actually pay them.

In what universe are the operations of the IRS so secret they can/must be hidden from the public?

Uh, reducing mass DOES reduce the wear on the road.

That's not quite correct. Certain strains of yeast are able to make wine with alcohol over 16%. Some California Zins hit 17 and maybe even 18%.

First post

I think you're right. Another generation or two of mobile processor improvements and a way to connect your device to an external screen/monitor/mouse via a wireless connection, and you'd have something really special. You'd have a computer suitable for web/media consumption/basic office document processing, and you simply take it with you from terminal to terminal.

This was originally, mistakenly, scheduled for Saturday 10/20. Rescheduled for Monday 10/22 as intended. Pizza and Hot Grits will be provided :)

...but which one's the cloud?

Unfortunately, this is not correct. I work in the e-learning industry which relied heavily on Flash, and I can tell you there are lots of things we did that were easy in Flash that are a PITA to get working correctly using HTML5. Sure, we can develop native apps for each device stack, but that brings it's own mess of challenges, particularly since the training content and training delivery system are typically not developed by the same vendor. In order to support mobile devices, we've had to ratchet down the overall lesson quality. Also, our Flash lesson content worked great on our Xoom tablet. I'm not saying Flash didn't have issues and wasn't used in places it shouldn't have been, but it did die too soon for the e-learning industry as HTML5 multimedia is still not particularly well supported or capable.

That said, this isn't meant to be industrial grade security. Compared to no security at all, this is a big step up. The likelihood that I loose my phone in the parking lot and someone who finds it has a picture of me to unlock the phone with seems extremely slim. More likely, this would be vulnerable to attack from people I know, but even then, it's better than nothing.