True, though there is some precedent for human-machine pairing in sports like auto racing.

The old NASCAR was a great example of this. Fans who drove Chevys would root for the Chevy to win.

The best thing I've heard about this is that Mark Setrakian is involved. Competitors and real fans of robot fighting know him as one of the great geniuses of the sport.

He won the first Robot Wars with The Master. His later machines, Mechadon and Snake, were far less competitive, but were much more interesting.

Here's a video of Mechadon in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El8ne4zSCY0

I've been involved with robot fighting for over 15 years.

You're incorrect. Autonomous robots aren't as fun to watch as human controlled ones for at least 2 reasons:

1. The current state of the art just isn't good enough.
2. It's hard to root for a soulless lump of metal, whereas you can vicariously experience the competition through the human competitors.

Also, every robot fighting competition I've ever competed in has allowed autonomous competitors, as long as they have fail-safe remote control. So you're welcome to build your own autonomous fighting robot.

You haven't seen the product of a high end machine.

They can stand up to pretty demanding service, like rocket engines:

http://blog.reprap.org/2011/06/paul-breed-of-unreasonable-rocket-fame.html

Copyright and trademark infringement are common and this sort of thing has been a source of controversy for a while now.

But the next big blowup will be over things that are illegal in themselves just by their shape and arrangement of parts. I'm talking about things like weapons, drug paraphernalia, and pathogens. It's likely we'll see a crackdown or at least a panic resulting in calls for licensure of many of the most useful creation tools ever designed.

Take the humble AK-47 rifle, for example. It's designed for ease of manufacture, making it a likely target for replication. This makes enforcing highly restrictive gun laws very difficult in a world full of machines that can build them from simple raw materials.

Over the holidays, I got a chance to give Google TV a serious tryout at my parents' house. They bought the Sony Blu Ray player with Google TV built in.

I liked it so much that I ordered one for my living room. It arrives tomorrow.

The Netflix/Amazon/web integration works very well and there's even an app store. I'm planning to use it for all my TV viewing and getting rid of cable.

I've become a recent convert to the idea of using a password card or
password chart to remember my passwords for me. There's not nearly as much to remember, as you use a code to look up the password on a printed card. But if you lose the card, anybody finding it will only see a random sequence of letters and numbers.

You gotta be kidding. You're wrong about just about everything. Read, for instance what Amnesty International has to say:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/cuba

I saw Sony's setup at one of their stores. If you're at all interested, I suggest you go check it out, but please lower your expectations.

The 3D effect is OK and the glasses aren't too awful to deal with, but the image is very flickery, especially if you move your head. It's also not quite as good if you're viewing from an angle; you really need to see it straight on.

YMMV indeed. Turns out half of these transit systems you talk about in the USA don't do so well on the passenger miles per gallon. The average is the same as cars (which get 35 pmpg) and not as good as hybrid cars or electric cars.

Outside of a few cities, these systems also take a lot longer to get where you're going, don't go where you're going, and don't run at night or much at mid-day. At rush hour you may not get a seat (they're efficient then, but lose all that with the non rush hour empty vehicles)

Big sedans are not that efficient, but private transportation can be very efficient, much more efficient than typical public transit. It can be lighter per person, it doesn't start and stop all the time, and it only goes directly from A to B, not out to C first to change trains.

Yes, very profoundly.

Look at the numbers: 1.2 million people killed every year in traffic accidents, many millions more maimed or otherwise injured.

230 billion dollars per year cost of accidents in the USA (NHTSA)

50 billion hours spent driving every year in the USA (3 trillion miles.)

25% of greenhouse gases and many other pollutants emitted by cars. (Why robotic cars would seriously reduce that number is quite involved but it's possibe.)
Making serious dents in these is pretty profound.

There's been a lot of press on this shower, and I think it's been very misleading. The predictions say there will be no special show in North America. The special show (only mildly special) will be only visible in Asia, at 21:40 UT and about an hour around that. Only if it is after midnight at 22 UT is it worth looking for this shower. Outside of that, ie. in NA, you will see a quite mild show, the kind you can see every year from several showers including the Perseids which take place on warm August nights.

This one has a new moon, which is indeed what you want for a shower but that is all it has. Expect to see one meteor every few minutes if you are doing well.

Even the Asian shower will be minor compared to the big showers of 98-02. And they were minor compared to the mega-storm of 1966. This will be nothing like that. Meteor showers can be fun, but I fear all the press on this one will disappoint people for being misled.

The summary is misleading. They didn't actually win the $1 million yet. Masten Space and Unreasonable Rocket are both going to have a crack at the prize and have until October 31 to best Armadillo's performance.

You're too young to remember "The job's not done 'til Lotus won't run." Microsoft apparently would make minor changes in MS-DOS and early versions of Windows so that Lotus 1-2-3 (the most popular spreadsheet of the era) wouldn't work right.