Two words: Crystal Skull.

Yeah but... imagine the harm to Sony's reputation if an unreleased M. Night movie got out...

Elizabeth Moon. Someone's apparently been reading it.

Good book, by the way.

Don't be silly; the internet has no shame.

3.2 seconds.

Idiots who are rich enough to afford the ticket will probably take it as a badge of honor, and/or vie for getting pulled over in the weirdest places.

I remember when they put breathalyzers in Australian pubs so people could check if they were legal to drive home... and then had to take them out again when people started having contests to see who could blow the highest BA levels before passing out.

He coulda got a brand new iMac for no more than half that.

My thought exactly. Why come up with a more efficient solution for your staff / volunteers to move the ice from the truck to the customer, when you can just make the customer do it. Which they'll happily do, since they're there anyways, and it will get them out the door and iced faster.

"I'm not sure I'd bother wearing it after the first few days even if it was given to me."

This is what will kill them. Lots of people might end up with a smart watch, but with out a compelling reason to wear and use them, very few will upgrade to a second one. The cellphone / tablet industry only survives at its current levels on the folks who feel the need to upgrade every six months; the wearable tech folks are going to have to do something to recycle their customers the same way, or they've got a limited market.

Man, no matter how many times they try to upgrade it with fruit "beers" and wine coolers and Ruddy Steer mocktails and all the rest, I've got to say that good ole-fashioned malted barley with a smidge of hops is still the best.

I wonder if you could legally take your driver's license test in a self-driving vehicle. You'd still have to have your hands on the wheel, and check your mirrors before (the car) changing lanes, but I don't know if there are any rules that would actually prohibit your not being in control of the vehicle.

Mind you, they'll have to teach the thing to parallel park...

Any one or more of:
Time Travel.
Teleportation.
Anti-gravity.
A pricetag of $0.

In the case of anything but the most limited of exchanges, my house wasn't going to be worrying about ionizing radiation, it was going to _be_ physics dust settling in a glassy crater. The "watching the mushroom clouds" line was purely for show; there wasn't going to be anyone around to watch.

I'm not sure that a poncho would help.

I grew up in the middle of Silicon Valley - a major techno-industrial center wedged between a fairly major military base and two major population centers. As part of my Boy Scouts Disaster Preparedness merit badge, we had to explain our plan in case of a nuclear war being declared. I told them "kick back on the roof in a lounge chair and watch the mushroom clouds go up."

There was a brief pause, and the instructor said "Fair enough."

"Have you got change for $100 mil? I don't really carry small change."

I think Amarok has a fantastic user interface and helps me manage my files well. My only complaint is that it crashes about 50% of the time if I ask it to actually play music. Apart from that its great.