Because we've had a generation of people developing for desktop machines, and now the New Shiny is the old mainframe model. In another twenty years, everyone will be abandoning it for the New Shiny of local processing after they remember why giving all your data to someone else who charges you to access it is a Really Bad Idea.

Yeah, I saw the latest Office recently. Man, what a heap of smelly stuff.

'But people won't understand menus if they're not in UPPER CASE!'

It's like they've got confused and are trying to do a Nokia on Microsoft itself.

Like what?

You are aware that every form of ebook DRM is completely broken and serves no purpose other than to annoy legitimate purchasers, right?

But this is Slashdot. In 13 years, we'll all be in driverless Teslas, so you'll be able to watch pr0n or post kitty pictures to Facebook for the duration of the trip.

More seriously, 'high speed rail' appears to be just a huge boondoggle to shovel money to unions. That's presumably why it's going to take so long to build; if there was real demand, no-one would want to wait thirteen years for it.

Why would any commercial enterprise in their right mind fly a big, expensive drone that would smash to pieces if it hit the ground from normal operating altitude, and not have some device to prevent it from doing so?

All that's really needed is insurance and common sense. All the FAA can do is cripple the US drone industry with pointless regulations.

Regulators gotta regulate... FOR THE CHILDREN!

Like I said, they'll try to control them like the Soviets tried to control typewriters. And that will just result in an economic collapse, as the free countries where anyone can make whatever they want become far more wealthy than the totalitarian Luddites.

It's worth noting that many lawyers believed the export restrictions would be tossed out as unconstitutional for digital files as well as printed books (since not doing so would clearly be insane, though that's obviously no guarantee the Supreme Court would do it), but no-one really wanted to be the test case when they could just print the source code and OCR it abroad.

ROTFL.

Electric cars have been around for nearly TWO HUNDRED YEARS.

Anyone who claims they're 'revolutionary technology' just shows how little they know about the history of transport.

For good or bad, 3D printing is the end of government controls over physical items, unless they require some exotic material, like plutonium.

They'll obviously try to control them, as the Soviets tried to control typewriters, but that will only be a temporary speed-bump. Widespread availability of the technology is essential if we're ever going to get off this planet.

Ha-ha. Commies just never give up.

1. The driver will recognise that someone in a Nixon mask and wig is probably not up to anything good.
2. The driver will kick your ass unless you threaten them, so you're committing a violent crime that could get someone killed, instead of just robbery.

If you can't see the obvious difference, you obviously haven't considered the obvious flaws of humanless vehicles carrying valuable cargo. Who's going to program a truck to drive over anyone who steps out in front of it wearing a Nixon mask and wig?

And they still crash when the computer doesn't know what to do.

While allowing terrists to cause massive pileups with nothing but a can of paint and a brush...