Looking forward to next months article "we are actually already dead".

Keep pumping that dogma! You can still squeeze a few more pennies out of the rubes before even they see you for the charlatans you are.

Go ahead if you want, my mind wouldn't be changed by hundreds of innocent people being burned alive. That is on the wielder, not the tool... taking one tool away does not mean some other tool cannot be used for whatever grim task the wilder imagines.

Your desire to ban anything dangerous leads to a world where people are incapable of handling any danger. I don't need to bookmark it because your philosophy is already killing hundreds (thousands?) of naive people per day, and growing. The disaster you so grimly anticipate is here, and you are causing it. Whats sad is your complete lack of feeling responsible for the creation of incompetent adults.

I know there are at least a few efforts at work on private space stations, including space hotels.

To me it no longer makes sense for government to work on a space station, when they could be helping to fund private efforts by guaranteeing to lease some of the space aboard commercial stations for government use.

The criminals figured our really quick that torched paint on their cars was highly suspicious.

Not to mentioned the blackened corpses in the rear seas from the guys in the front seat using the flamethrower. Wind matters...

Why are NRA members so dim-witted?

Hint: He's not really an NRA member. They actually do have common sense which he obviously lacks.

Let's be clear, absolutely no-one is going to be using this as a weapon. It's not even a "last line of defense" weapon for home invasion, because while some may want to watch the world burn, they have different feelings about their own home specifically.

There are actually some pretty valid uses for this thing - farming an pyrotechnic displays being just two. There are a lot of people in the U.S. with large properties that could have very good uses for these things.

But basically, this is just fun, because fire is fun. Anyone who fails to see that has had irrational fear of EVERYTHING so deeply ingrained into them I cannot possibly see how they can function in real life.

People always accuse people who like guns, and now fire, of being fearful. But it seems to me like instead, those afraid of such things are the ones always afraid, and without any real joy.

Perhaps "filled with drones" is not exactly accurate, but nowadays almost anything interesting you go to, you are almost sure to see at least one drone.

who needs more than...

Very funny Mr Gates.

I'll just chime in with a real response though: 4K video from home movies.

Not everything is going to go into the cloud.

Just my own personal photos require nearly 8TB now between RAW files and converted images.

No airline takeover/sabotage attempt that passengers could reach has succeeded since 911 (the most recent just a week or two ago when some idiot ran down the isles towards the cockpit door screaming - was tackled and pressed).

Stop locking the door altogether. If there's a problem, you'll have a line of people waiting to destroy whoever tries to take over a cockpit now. Threaten to hurt someone with a box cutter? Whatever damage you can do to one person is outweighed by every other person on that plane wanting to live.

Locking the cockpit doors has, to date, only brought disaster. You have to think that had the airplane that vanished had open cockpit access passengers could have got in there over the many hours the thing was off course (there are a lot of people that monitor aircraft position during flight).

No, I think the ISP's will only keep it for two years - but that is gauranteed.

Right now in the U.S. everyone blindly assumes the data is kept for NO years, and we aren't even given an imaginary date when it might be deleted.

The Australians are at least all aware for sure the data is being kept, in the U.S. it's still possible to imagine it is not... That's my point.

Voting for the other corporate-controlled, militaristic party doesn't seem like a viable plan for getting out of this mess.

We already tried that a few times; voting in Democrats does not help.

Republicans are only into conflicts they can win and stop fighting; Democrats are the ones who like to cause endless conflicts they can pour money and people into. Under Bush we helped turn Iraq into democracy; under Obama we abandoned them to be consumed by ISIS, at least to the point we get to go over and fight for the same land all over again.

Isn't it better for people in Australia to know their network data will be retained for two years, than for the people in the U.S. to be unaware data is being retained, but then in actuality have it retained forever by the NSA?

That's too bad, I've never been in person but had been wanting to go for a while... sounds like I missed the best run.

So you have no philosophical objection the the NSA acting completely outside the law

Everyone else is acting completely outside the law these days, and the law has been built up over time to give too many protections to guilty people, so I've pretty much stopped caring.

My objections are on the level of "well, I wouldn't do it personally, but whatever".

Especially for the guys that encrypt other people's data and ransom that. Who cares what happens to those jerks.

How so? Good looking people can still sell from a booth

Good looking people can of course be in any role.

However at least some former booth babes are models that really can't do things other than look good. Since they would not be good in an informational role, they would not be hired.

Like I said, better for attendees in some ways as at least you can talk to someone more about the product. But not as good for the women (and men) now out of work.