...the somewhat tounge-in-cheek poster from cold war has this covered in its last step:

o Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye

AC might have been thinking of London, where the English are now a minority.
They have not disappeared, they just moved out of London. I take it Americans are familiar with "White Flight"?
Though in this case many of the newcomers are whites too.

Horrible event, but extremely atypical. If a young black man is shot dead, a frequent occurrence in the US, it is almost certainly by another young black man.
Bad for him, but insignificant to the black population.

They'll buy them cheap from China, just like we do. Maybe they won't buy the fanciest ones, or the ones hottest off the cutting edge of performance, but if you're making a device for internet access rather than mobility, it doesn't have to be as small or power-efficient.

If you believe in a patent system at all (which is a separate argument), an original implementation for a relatively obvious concept can still be patentable. Most patents I've seen start out by claiming something fairly obvious (a wheel) and have several progressively less obvious claims before getting to the core invention (a specific axle mounting design, etc.) and then maybe some variations. Most articles about patent abuse focus on the more obvious claims being obvious; that's separate from whether the more abusive actual cases are somebody getting a patent for the less obvious parts and then suing people for violating the much more obvious claims.

Since Uber's lost about 10 previous attempts, they may very well be trying to patent something obvious (charging more when it's busy), or may be trying to patent more specific things about their implementation (but maybe still obvious to the patent examiners, who've actually taken taxis before, even if they haven't written compilers or optimized databases.)

There's an obvious solution this... Assuming you don't want a cat or a home...

No? Can we assume this is the only product on the market (and before it was invented, cats littered homes with reckless abandon)...
If in the end, this is your only solution, then make your piece with the DRM, or with bypassing it. Don't forget, you always have a choice..

OK grumpy, I'll speak more literally. Google has all my emails, much of my we browsing, my searches. My photos are backed up to google drive.
Their computers know my appointments. I've opted in to Google Now, so my phone tracks my movements and tells me its a 20 minute drive to that place I looked up on google maps on the PC.
Like a human PA, Google knows more about me than my wife does. It's convenient, but a little scary sometimes.

    The always-on microphone is a metaphor for that.

FWIW, the longshoremen solution is a container royalty central collection fund which is like a "tax" for intermodal shipping containers... The money from this "tax" goes to... the few folks that got to keep their jobs (to pay for lost employment opportunities).

There isn't a specific pallet tax that I know of... Yet... (although there are often redemption-like fee associated with pallets)

You may have meant it sarcastically, but since the 60's, longshoremen have acquiesced to the use of efficient containerization in exchange for a royalty payment to compensate for lost job opportunity... You can read about the on-going fight about this here

Of course, jobs have been lost, but the folks that still have jobs are being compensated quite well for the time they took to process the container, almost as if they actually stuffed and stripped the cargo (what packing/unpacking is called in maritime transport lingo) w/o actually doing so...

This has less to do with pallets, but advent of multi-modal shipping containers.

FWIW, having worked in a warehouse for a production line, I can say that even material handling w/o pallets is basically a non-starter. The line expediters in our warehouse worked with unpacked material and the inventory tracking and special transport handling that went along with that is easily on par with simply just discarding the partial pallet storage that was left in its wake. It isn't just shipping that relies on the magic of pallets...

Programmer's Pizza*

Eating just the right amount will allow you to reach optimum blood sugar levels for creative programming. However, be warned that eating too much will probably put you to sleep.

Please watch this space for the introduction of our follow-up product: Programmer's Spaghetti (with Object-Oriented Meatballs)*

*Garlic levels tailored for maximum personal isolation. Do not use if in a relationship or if expecting a job interview. May cause immediate termination of relations, arms-length disease, and acne. Not suitable for homeopathic dilution. May enhance programming mania. Use with caution.

Fine; but Cuba is one, at least as far as I know, that doesn't have a significantly built-out Internet structure, even though the hardware to do so is pretty far down the road to commoditization. They're very late to the game, and this should (ok, could) afford them some advantages. So what I was trying to say (and apparently, saying badly) was that it will be interesting to see how they go about it.

From the paternalist, condescending article: Beyond firearms, of course, TSA officers encounter an extremely wide variety of other prohibited items at airport checkpoints, including ... an unloaded cannon.

Because archeologist or collectors should absolutely check in priceless historical artifacts! It's not like baggage handler would steal anything, or the airlines would lose luggage, ho ho, how silly.

Hey, this thing was a firearm once, right? So it's totally justified, innit? Even though the picture even shows that the thing is rusty, unable to fire, and very old.

Do you know how funny it is in Dilbert cartoon when the PHB adopts a tone of condescending smugness to assert misinformed, ill-reasoned opinions? Well, somehow, these bureaucrats don't manage to make it funny.

It means Google has given up, and admitted that they are listening to everything you say.
I'm opening up my chromebook to install a hardware switch on the microphone wire.
(Goes without saying that there is already duct tape over the webcam. )