How is this useful?

Teledildonics?

I don't know why everybody has to be so skeptical nowadays.

Years of practice, now it no longer takes effort.

Oh, and a world which constantly reinforces that outlook as being a good choice. ;-)

Of the suggestion uses, this one stands out the most.

I see what you did there. ;-)

and capable of switching between hard and soft states

Or, as penis implants for old men. ;-)

You're placing too much value on this.

A bunch of people will assign random names to arbitrary objects nobody will ever see. Using a dubious system which may or may not be representative of the populace, after it's been vetted to be inoffensive, boring and tidy.

Name them, don't name them, number them, don't number them -- this is purely a publicity stunt, and will have no impact on your life, or anybody else's life for that matter.

It's like naming cats, it doesn't really serve any purpose except to the people who assigned the names.

Let's not get all bogged down in how inclusive and representative this actually is. Because, well, it's kind of pointless, and fretting over it is kind of a waste of time.

So much so, that you could continue to call any of these planets anything you like -- and people still won't know where it is, or care. And nobody will come along and lock you up for using the wrong one.

Don't like the name they came up with? Hold your own contest, or just make up your own name. Nobody else will know what you're talking about, nor will they care -- just like this. ;-)

Unless you think your life is going to be damaged by this, feel free to ignore it. If you do think your life is going to be damaged by this ... well, the same applies, really.

I'm not really sure why this whole thing is offensive.

My Mum had sex. At least once because, you know, I'm here. This much should be clear. And if she wanted to have sex with you too? Well, she's a grown woman, she can do whatever she wants. Hell, I hope that at age 60 I'm still getting some as well, especially from people who are around a third my age.

I mean, really. That's some high grade success there. Having earth-shattering sex with nubile young 20-something's when you're 60. That's hardly an insult.

I love my Mum a lot. I want her to be happy. If that means having all the crazy sex she wants, by all means. She can. I'm not going to judge her.

And another thing... what does that say about you? "Yeah bro, I had intercourse with a 60 year old woman! Fuck yeah!". I mean, by all means, if that's what you're into then whatever mate, go for your life. Some people like that. It's fine. Some people are into having sex with blowup dolls. That's weird but if it's their thing, then I'm cool with it. They tend to brag about it a lot less though.

Honestly, the most offensive thing about that is the waterbed. Those things are a piece of shit.

... making waves.

it may be possible to implant this inside the eye and have augmented reality without p*ssing off the people around you.

Wait, are you suggesting there are _other_ uses for augmented reality? Sir, you've just blown my mind.

Cyclists ARE a menace, to themselves.

I recently saw a cyclist come from the sidewalk on my right, cross an intersection diagonally across me (between two left-turning lanes of north/south traffic), get back up onto the sidewalk, and then later get into the bike lane going the wrong way, at an alarming speed.

As a motorist and a cyclist, I was completely stunned. It's cyclists like that why motorists hate cyclists.

Nobody can avoid killing you if you don't even pretend to follow the rules of traffic. But many many drivers forget that they are required by law to not run over cyclists, even if they are inconvenient.

I have seen more cyclists do ridiculous things than I could count. I give them a wide berth, but, I have to admit, some of them seem like they're trying to get killed.

Likewise, a lot of drivers more or less don't give a damn and will practically run them over, or off the road, or door them. Sometimes buses don't even obey bike lanes.

I won't ride a bicycle on city streets anymore.

Oh, I automate deployments, and I automate some monitoring. Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to automation.

Like all programmers, I'm lazy and would rather code it once instead of doing it by hand many many times.

That doesn't mean I'd walk away from it and leave it unattended. To me, that's just asking to get bit in the ass.

These days, anything which is low risk maintenance is stuff I do during the daytime because it's not Production. For our Production environments, everything is considered high risk because the systems are mission critical. Any change at all is high risk, because if it breaks, it costs the company large amounts of money to be down.

You have to understand what your threshold of risk is, and what your actual risks are before you do any automation. Some systems you can play fast and loose with. Others, not so much.

Or, worse, guyliner.