But you always get someone who is clueless and cannot comprehend simple instructions on the screen holding you up in line.

But, and this it the beauty of kiosks for me, in time there will be more than one. Sure, they'll just have one as they're phasing them in, but eventually they'll change the counters so you have one regular cashier (for the fuddy-duddies or as a back up) and three kiosks, just like the supermarkets (I go to) have groups of six self-checkout lanes. Sure, you could get a situation where all three are being used by idiots, but the alternative is that all three are talking to all three cashiers (who may also be idiots), or only having one cashier and no kiosks available during a sudden small rush of people.

More likely you'll have one dude hogging one kiosk, while everyone else just uses the other two to make their purchases. They can improve efficiency here by having a single, snaked line so that there aren't three different lines, meaning that some people won't be screwed getting stuck in the slow line or having to hop between them.

+5 well earned. I would like to add that a lack of economic suffrage affects political suffrage. Maybe someone below the poverty line would like to vote, but because money is so tight they have two (or three!) jobs and can't get the time off to go to the polls. This is especially made harder in some states by encroaching voter laws and cutting down the number of early voting days, locations, or both.

I enlisted in late 2009, right before the Army significantly raised the enlistment requirements, and before going in for the pre-enlistment stuff (urinalysis, medical check, etc.) my recruiter had myself and others going to enlist fill out a yes/no questionnaire. After that they took us into the office, closed the door, and told us that if we didn't answer "No" to every one of those questions (which included prior drug use) we would be turned away from the military.[1] So I was a good little lemming, did so, and went to Basic four months later.[2] While I never thought to poll my fellow enlisted, I would not be surprised if this was a common thing.

[1] And then said that he would outright deny ever saying that if we told anyone. In hindsight, this should have been a red flag to me.
[2] I have no prior drug use, but I did answer yes to things on the recruiter's questionnaire, like if I had seasonal allergies

ger-happy twitchy gamers who are able to follow commands, complete objectives, ask no questions, question no commands.

Don't forget Achievements!

Learn the fucking laws people, and I mean you too police officers, and fucking use them properly.

While I agree with your statement in full, it belies the problem. You see, law enforcement has not caught up with the ease of harassing people online.
1) Most police units are barely aware of online activity past trying to catch people boasting on Facebook about breaking the law.
2) Even if they were aware, most don't see this harassment as more than some form of bullying (and most adults don't see bullying as anywhere near the huge problem it really is)
3) If they are aware and see it as a real, law-related problem, they probably have no funds to pursue it
4) If they have funds to pursue it, they need to be able to identify the perp
5) In most cases the harasser, the site(s) where s/he does most of the harassing, or both are in another jurisdiction. Now their legal system has to be involved.
6) GOTO 1

This ignores the barriers to getting the identity of the harasser, even if you can get the site to cooperate (unlikely without a subpoena/warrant, unlikely without cooperation from their area's law enforcement, etc.) such as tor, throw-away accounts, and proxies. I fully agree that existing laws can be used against these kind of horrible people, but only if those existing laws actually apply to that person and you jump through a number of other hoops (and pursuing even one of the harassers will likely make the others up their antics.)

Even a civil suit would be incredibly hard, because you have to have the money to hire a P.I. to get that information, then still go through juridstictions. I don't know if restraining orders even hold across state lines, or how you would set them up (the accused has to stay at least 10 hops away? Cannot maintain an account on another website held by the protected?)

Taking legal action against the nastier harassers (like the person who called in the shooting threat when Anita Sarkeesian was going to give a speech) would likely help a great deal. A lot of these kind of people get power from their pseudo-anonymity, so the threat of removing the mask will scare many of them off. But this success would require cooperation on a national if not international level, with the likes of the FBI or Interpol spending considerable time and money for even just a few.

Fucking anti not nice to be law bullshit.

Ah, but politicians! Politicians don't actually care about doing anything, they only care about the appearance of doing something. Raise taxes and/or retask law enforcement efforts to go after online harassers? You'd have all sorts of people calling for their heads in an instant, saying it's a waste of resources that will give little reward that requires tremendous effort. Now, laws... laws are easy and relatively cheap. You make some new law/bill, give it a cute name ("NONETBULLY Act of 2014"), and write overly-broad definitions and penalties that would get struck down quickly when challenged in court, but give the people the idea that something has been done. So you get overwhelming bi-partisan support because it also distracts from any more local and tangible problems and, boom, you get to hit the campaign trails declaring you took a "firm" stance against online harassment.

And, in the end, all the bill actually did was fund a number of riders: the park has a new bird bath, the library on fifth was renamed to Steve Irwin Memorial Library, Barbara down in the cafeteria is recognized for Best Sloppy Joes of the 20-Aughts, and some corn farmers get an extra bump in their water subsidy. Effect on curbing online harassment: none.

Why exactly do I need Gbit service to bring healthcare into my home?

While I can't speak directly to what the OP was thinking of, I can think of a future where regular examinations or long-term monitoring are done in the person's home, talking to nurses and doctors over the internet using "pedestrian" versions of medical equipment we have today.

Your doctor/insurance provider sends you a relatively inexpensive set of electronics that you can store in the closet when not in use. When you see your doc via the internet, a few 3D cameras and these items can do most stuff. Stomach problems? Swallow this tiny camera and the live feed goes to the doc. Ear ache? Put a disc to your ear and a telescopic arm will move about to find the proper viewing angle for your canal, along with a light source.

Such things are quite a bit off, obviously, but will trickle into the home eventually, the same way that computers and the internet did. There will be limitations, of course, but over time those will decrease as well.

Though your average person might not get used to the idea of using a tool to probe their rectum...

I've spent years trying to pretend that Coldfusion isn't real, but somehow I keep running into it now and then.

...oh, cold[space]fusion? Nevermind, then.

It also works great as a bargaining tactic in the future. "What's that? You would like us to build our second GigaFactory in Detroit? Well, we might consider, but it sure is a pity that your state bans our sales. 'Course, we probably lost all kind of sales revenue from that move, and that will need to be made up somehow..."

They didn't have to Michigan is the home of Detroit the former "Motor City".

FTFY. Detroit is a shadow of its former self, thanks in large part to its heavy reliance on the Big Three. While it may still be referred to as "Motor City", the auto companies took much of their production lines and moved them to Mexico or elsewhere, even if HQ is still around there. Flint is much the same.

That the state legislature has no problem banning Tesla direct sales despite such actions speaks volumes about where the interests of the legislators truly lie.

I would love to see this get signed and, rather than spending money on a lawsuit, Tesla opens a factory in Detroit/Flint. No state rep is going to fight against jobs (even if the plants are mostly automated and make few permanent jobs, there's at least construction,) so all of them will be eating crow when people find out that all of these nice, shiny, and by-that-time-affordable cars are being moved to other states and can't be sold in Michigan. Once the plant is up I'd expect the law to be reversed quickly.

Considering that HBO is always an extra charge over regular cable (AFAIK), that the cable companies pay HBO to carry it (as opposed to some other channels, as I understand, like Shopping Network, that pay cable to carry it), and that this isn't the end of HBO on cable, I would be heavily surprised if it caused any change in cable prices.

And if they do go up, good: just gives people more of a reason to abandon them.

I'm pretty sure that not everyone agrees to such a thing.

While I've not had the pleasure of a relationship, I would think that a healthy, long-term relationship would involve knowing the boundaries of each other, both mentally and sexually (and maybe politically.) There will be some bumps (excuse the pun) as those boundaries are felt out (okay I'll stop now) early on, but eventually each one will know what they can and can't do both in public and private without explicit permission.

Another way to look at it is personal space in general. As a kid (and even the rare occasion as an adult) my mom can wipe a stain or smudge on me without asking me, or my dad can hold my shoulder while talking to me about something serious or to comfort me, and I wouldn't feel uncomfortable at all. But if a stranger or even a loose acquaintance did that it would make me incredibly uncomfortable and be seen as a massive invasion of private space (the wiping more than the shoulder.)

There's also implicit vs. explicit trust. A long-term relationship has implicit trust, but marriage makes it explicit.

Interesting, thanks for the link.

I admit that I don't follow football myself, but--from what I recall of time with my family--watching live games was often a very social event and important amongst many fans. I'm sure that core fans will go back and re-watch old games, but in my limited experience I think that a stand-alone package that shows games live (even if that's all it shows) would be far, far more appealing.

Where did you read that? At least per this NPR article:

Beginning in 2015, HBO will offer a streaming service to cord-cutters and other nonsubscribers on an a la carte basis. It should be noted that the announcement HBO released to the media does not explicitly say the service will be HBO GO (or that it won't), only that it will be "a stand-alone, over-the-top, HBO service." And, of course, it doesn't say how much the service will cost. It doesn't even say it will carry every HBO show, let alone what archival material will be available — HBO GO has a lot.

The announcement says HBO will "work with our current partners" and "explore models with new partners," but it seems inevitable that an arrangement like this will unsettle cable providers who have been able to use legitimate access to premium networks like HBO as one of the remaining barriers against cord-cutting, the practice of declining to have a cable subscription in favor of watching online.

Emphasis mine. While that incredibly vague part about partners could suggest tying it to ISPs, the straight-up statement of "stand-alone" contradicts such an idea.

But, even if it was a package deal, that's not new to ISPs: many have bundles with anti-virus subscriptions and some might do Hulu or Netflix trials. None of these are big pushers, however, and HBO would be a game changer in that.

As opposed to when the government gives them a local monopoly?

This was just announced today; I guess the submitter assumes everyone is plastered to their many-tech-related RSS feeds and already read about it.

Of course, "announced" is a lose term here. As far as I'm aware, all they've said is that they're going to offer a new streaming option. That's it. No price, nothing about what HBO content it will have (just the live feed? Can you watch individual episodes? Can you watch past series?). Just that it's coming.

Considering that HBO is one of the main reasons a lot of people don't abandon cable, I wonder if the various cable companies are worried. I can just imagine them rounding up the lobbyists, telling them to throw money at whatever Congresscritter they have in their pocket to somehow make this illegal.

Live sports are the other "main" reason, of course. If the likes of ESPN and the NFL make stand-alone streaming services (I believe they have the "requires cable subscription" offerings at the moment, like HBO already has) then it could be the death knell of cable subscriptions in our country.