I've been using a Lamy Safari fountain pen every day for years, dropped it a few times, and it still works good as new. Most fountain pens are fragile and expensive, designed more for asthetics than functionality. The Lamy Safari is reasonably priced and extremely reliable. The grip section has an unusual design that's very comfortable to hold. Even the nibs are tougher than average and if you manage to destroy one (eg. by dropping onto concrete) they are replacable. There's good reason these pens are highly recommended for beginners by fountain pen user groups. It will easily survive long enough to save money over disposable ballpoints if you buy ink in bulk and use a refillable cartridge.

A computer that has run for three years. That's so cute!

When I step on my scale, it tells me if I need to carry an umbrella today (based on the weather forecast it downloaded). Then it sends my weight etc. to my iPhone where it's merged with information from my fitness wristband and my diet tracker. Based on that, I get suggestions like "you've been going to bed a little later than usual. You should catch up." or "drink more water today" or "try to walk this much further than you did yesterday".

I think that's not so shabby.

[Just one more reason] to legalize and regulate.

I can see how this kind of story would support legalization (crimes against criminals often go unaddressed), but how would it support regulating? Is theft unusually common with unregulated crops, as opposed to regulated ones?

(Ignorance plea: Heh, it occurs to me that I don't even know what crops are regulated and what isn't. Maybe agriculture is already totally micromanaged by Washington; I sure hear enough stories of corruption (e.g. subsidies) within the topic!)

One thing I haven't heard discussed is whether affected companies should be notifying their end users about whether they were affected and when it was fixed. I haven't heard from my bank, for example. Where they ever vulnerable? Should I update my password? If they were vulnerable, is it fixed now or would I just be handing an attacker my new password if I were to reset it today?

I wrote up a proposal called Heartbleed headers for communicating this information to site visitors. While I'd like it if everyone picked my idea as the new standard way for doing this, I just wish admins would start using something. We're so close to having a browser plugin be able to tell you "you need to update your password on this site" as you browse. How nice would that be?

I heard that they gave Omni Consumer Products^W^W^W Google to clean up the town. They're doing something with drones.

You can extract the harvest via UAV.

Sometimes I think the war-on-people has an upside. This is how we're going to develop the tech to colonize other worlds. I think you just described a Martian farm from the year 2200.

Legalizing weed would take some money/power away from cartels which is always a good thing.

It's not a good thing, if your financial interests are aligned with the cartels.

If I'm on Al Capone's payroll and you ask for my opinion of the 21st Amendment, I'm going to say it's a bad idea.

All Froot Loops flavors are NOT the same!

That, or developping time-travel / multiverse-shift.

Indeed! Russia also requires all telcoms and ISPs, at their expense, to install monitoring equipment of the internet and telephones, This project is called SORM (wikipedia entry for SORM). The system was put into place around 1996-2000, but it has been used as recently as the Winter Olympics (source). It is explicitly a mass-surveillance system, so either Putin is lying or he is bending the truth: Russia doesn't pay for it... but by law the telcoms have to pay it. They don't do illegal wiretapping because it is explicitly legal. And you're right, they might not have the ability to store all that data for long periods of time, but you can be sure they are targeting people. And you can be sure they are targeting foreign governments too (of course). Heck, there were several diplomatic leaks at the beginning of the Crimean crises in order to strain US-EU ties. You can be sure that's due to Russia's intelligence services.

Personally, looking at Tesla, how the company is run and the products they make, I predict that within the next 20 years Tesla will sell more cars per year than Mercedes.

One of the most important pieces of career advice I've received is to make sure that people who cause pain feel the pain. It is not my job to be a whipping boy who suffers for every bad decision I tried to warn someone about. If management insists that I do something really goofy, then they should not be spared from the consequences of their plans. Insulating them only enables them to keep making bad choices and inflicting them on codependent organizations.

You say "rubbing their nose in it". I say "making sure decision makers understand the results of those decisions".

And having succeeded, they continue to use those same computers to this day.

The problem isn't the name calling. It is that the name calling actually works on people too lazy to think for themselves. They get their marching orders from whatever talking point memo is out (both Left and Right wing) and march in formation.

And while I don't agree with many people politically, I at least have respect and can converse with people I don't agree with, if they at least have a reason for their political beliefs (wrong or right). I often have common ground with people I normally wouldn't agree with, because my viewpoints are reasoned, and sometimes we have the same reasons for the same views.

Above all, the drones are massive and collectively drown out the reasoned voices. And this is to our own shame!