Interesting new development. I just read that Judge U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon has found that the metadata program is likely unconstitutional on 4th amendment grounds. May end up in the Supreme Court. http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/national-security-agency-phones-judge-101203.html

I suppose they could break their promise and look at the calls and emails. Technically, it would be quite simple to transcribe all those conversations, index them, and data mine them for any reason they can think of: drug war, kiddie porn, copyright infringement, whatever. Sometime in the future, when the public becomes more comfortable with the current level of surveillance, probably they will, with approval from Congress as well. I trust the NSA to the extent that I think they are mainly focused on terrorism, at least for now, although I don't expect they are entirely honest of course. I'm more worried about Congress giving them explicit permission to do all those things.

You seem to be misunderstanding how this works. I read elsewhere that they scoop up all the data and metadata, which they save for a certain period (I think one year, maybe). They look at the metadata for all phone calls and emails, and if it looks suspicious (as it currently does for 60 people) they get a warrant (or court order, I'm not sure) to pull the actual contents of the phone call from their electronic records. This approach allows them to get after-the-fact warrants for a wiretap. So they are indeed storing everyone's phone calls and emails in their expensive storage facility, they just aren't looking at them without permission (which they get from examining the metadata, that is, phone numbers called and email headers sent). Make sense?

It occurs to me that his actions really benefit his girlfriend. Now the US government and other actors can't attack her, thinking that she knows some vital piece of national security. If that is what he had in mind, I think he exercised responsibility and foresight.

If it weren't for the war on drugs, we wouldn't need all those regulations. How exactly do those regulations serve me?

That reminds me of a famous incident where a circus elephant named Mary was hanged by the neck until dead for committing murder on a human. She got angry at her human handler for prodding her and stomped him. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_(elephant) for the details and a pic of Mary's hanging. I don't think she got to defend herself in a court of law, though.

My two cents on the subject is I think the law could accommodate intelligent animals, but each species should probably be treated differently based on their nature and capabilities. I don't think treating them as persons is the right idea.

I thought of that. Some variation of it might work in some countries or states worldwide, though. Nevada, maybe? Both gambling and prostitution are legal there. Plus, if you describe it as a "date" or some other appropriate weasel words, you might be able to work around the laws.

What's your suggestion for a business model? I just finished reading "Free: The Future of a Radical Price", by Chris Anderson. Here's my idea: sex raffles. The porn stars give away free porn recordings then use their fame to sell raffle tickets. For $50, you buy a chance to have sex with a porn star. Sell 10,000 tickets, have sex with the winner, and it's just as profitable as selling porn.

With artificially intelligent journalism, these articles will one day literally write themselves. Apparently that day is closer than we think...

Every time you turn on a light bulb, you take away a job from a human who could be standing next to you holding a lit candle. Traitor!

You have presented a false dilemma. In other words, they don't actually have to choose and nothing prevents them from eventually doing both. In addition, your idea that it is more efficient to do it the way they are now than they way you have imagined is presumption not fact. Maybe the way you are imagining it is more efficient still than their new, improved version.

I can imagine some workers zipping around on Segways to get special or large products. Maybe they just didn't think of it or haven't yet solved the coordination problems of having two different moving subsystems. Or perhaps they just assumed workers walking around is the most efficient solution.

Amazon.com didn't build these robots anyway, they just bought out the company that builds them (Kiva Systems). Maybe you should get to work building a company that makes smart, self-driving Segways, then Amazon.com can buy you...

Ok, I admit it was lame. But according to the Wikipedia article, Uranus beat out the previous name, given after George III. The planet would have been called Georgium Sidus. Yech... how exactly is that a great name for a planet? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Elert_Bode

If their project is successful, it may address those concerns. From the article:

They seem to be aiming at a whole new level of flexible, adaptable robot with custom, 3d printed appendages and large amounts of in-built behavior that can be quickly adapted to the task at hand then repurposed for some other task later. This is very technically impressive to me and seems like a potentially dramatic reduction of overhead costs and difficulty.

That doesn't work for every planet. Clearly, your head is stuck in Uranus.

Ok, but can we at least bake the shit into some brownies first?