I dunno. As an extension of your iPhone, it does fit in a niche. It's probably handy to use to see notifications, maybe some status updates, check in on real time data like weather, and to quickly check the current time like any other watch. It can probably serve as an always-connected fit bit or something like that.

But I agree that it is a solution looking for a problem. In the larger picture, I just don't see the form factor being conducive to a significant variety of applications. So it's useful to a subset of the population but not a must-have for most. And that will prevent it from being a runaway success. That is, until they can find a "killer app" that everyone wants to have. And I'm sure many people are working on ideas for that. Maybe someone will find that problem to solve. Maybe not. Even if they don't, I think enough people will find it useful enough to justify buying it and I think Apple will at least make their money back on the development costs.

...than a dice "insights" spam.

The problem is that the people who you really want to get insight from are not the types who waste a lot of time blogging. At least not on a regular basis. As a result, the signal to noise ratio is so low there's no point in really following any of them.

In the original back story, Han was an imperial officer who couldn't stand to see a wookie (Chewie) being abused so he freed Chewie and deserted. So there is a core "good guy" in him from earlier in his life. In order to survive as a smuggler, he had to suppress all that.

I do agree that a "nice" Han Solo wouldn't play well in his prequel story, you can't completely cover up the core of who he is either. If they do it right, they can show him with a look of regret as he is driven to do the ruthless things he needs to do to survive. That way he can still be a badass but also a sympathetic hero at the same time.

According to the story they made up after the movie with the one line, the Kessel run is made through a cluster of black holes. While there are charted routes in and out, some smugglers chance taking a shorter route so they can shave time off the run. And Solo, being a hero in the story, is one of the smugglers who managed to safely find a shorter route. It's a not-entirely-clumsy way to sweep under the rug what amounts to a line of bad dialog.

I suspect that they'll toss out everything and write a new story. That way you don't have to compensate the authors of the books for their ideas. But that's just the cynic in me speaking.

I would be surprised, however, if they didn't at least cover Han meeting Chewie and them doing the Kessel Run (completely rewritten, of course). I wonder if, in his new story, he will have been an officer in the Imperial fleet when he rescued Chewie or if they're going to rewrite that too.

I hope it will be interesting to watch, regardless of what direction they go in.

Good point. The Kessel run absolutely needs to be there for it to feel "complete".

Are they going to incorporate anything from the Brian Daily prequel books (Han Solo at Stars' End, Han Solo's Revenge, Han Solo and the Lost Legacy) and the like, or are they going to start with a clean slate and write a new history? While I enjoyed the books, either direction would be fine by me as I'm not a rabid purist. I just am interested in knowing what they plan to do with the story.

Doesn't the government still pay farmers to NOT grow food as part of a subsidy program to reduce supply and thereby artificially raise prices?

Or was it that bears are Catholic and the Pope shits in the woods?

It will take a lot for cash to go away. While the underground economy is driving a lot of the cash use, the privacy advocates will surely fight to keep it as well.

Given that many corporations are multinational and span continents, I bet your privacy isn't nearly as guaranteed as you might think.

Who are you going to charge when the business has closed its doors and a bankruptcy court is discharging its assets to creditors?

I heard the Pope is about to announce he's Catholic too.

Reason #43385634 why I try to minimize my exposure by refusing to give as much personal information as I can as often as I can. Paying in cash for day-to-day transactions helps out a lot too.