I'm still wondering how an 80 year old Han Solo will not end up looking ridiculous? This potential for lame old guy jokes a la Space Cowboys or Wild Hogs is already making me queasy.

Well you say that, but Google, one of the smartest players in the game, use big data and get it appallingly wrong. Just a take a look at targeted ads. I search for an airfare, then buy the airfare. Google then spends the next 6 weeks advertising airfares to me. I sure hope no-one is paying them for this service.

Scrolling through 100 Facebook feeds takes about 5 minutes. It's mostly the same shit day in day out. Holiday photos, baby photos, food photos, things people think are funny but aren't. I wonder why Facebook hasn't been replaced already. It's exhausted it's usefulness, and I get the impression everyone is waiting for the next big thing so they can all jump ship and leave Zucks pennyless. It's strange that no-one has come up with a FB clone, along the same lines but with privacy intact and no ads. I think it would kill FB overnight.

The thing is, a real watch will still look good years later. I don't see too many people wielding a 10 year old electronic gimmick with pride. The Apple watch doesn't make sense to me. It crosses the barrier between useful device, to unnecessary gimmick to try and show off but has the opposite effect and will only make you look like a try-hard. Apple has definitely peaked.

Only speaking for myself but I open new accounts on all my regularly visited sites every couple of years for privacy reasons. This account has a high ID but I've been here since the 90's.

Why would anyone care? In Australia it's illegal to not vote (you get fined if you don't get your name signed off in a voting booth) yet over 5% of the population don't vote and another 5% cast donkey votes (blank or scribbles as protest). That's well over 1 million people who despite it being illegal still don't vote.
It beats me why we even need elections. Statistical methods can get us a pretty close result with small samples, and either you end up with 1 of 2 of the same idiot. The US spent over $6B on the last election, I honestly think you'd be better off if you just tossed a coin and then gave that money to poor people.

Fuck that, I'd be expecting WhatsApp type pricing, of $1/year.

I re-imaged my PC for the first time in ages and forgot to put ABP on it. I was shocked how horrible the internet is these days. How do people regular cope with this?

This is not how Science works. Science makes and observation and attempts to explain it. The Bible explains nothing in nature and no amount of re-interpreting changes that fact.

My bank also has an app that does NFC payments with my phone (before Apple or Google had it - again they offer nothing new). I used it for a bit, but it was unreliable. The card pretty much works every time without fail, the phone didn't so I stopped using it. A requirement of convenience is for it to work when expected, not have to continually keep retrying.
Another point which makes me uneasy is that banks, despite having low public approval, are reliable organisations (at least in my country they are). They make their money by being reliable. Software companies, not so much. The idea of a company whose primary business is making phones or search engines is not the business I want also securing my money.

Yep and the bank covers the loss, then replaces your card for free. Unlike say if someone steals your phone and they get your $1000 phone....
Or if you drop your credit card it doesn't break and costs hundreds of dollars to fix...
And it works 99.9% of the time first go, unlike Apple software...
And I can lend my card to my wife, kids, friends or family and they can use it on my behalf...
Apple have come up with a inferior solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

You obviously don't have kids, or have any gay friends...

Signing is already obsolete here in Australia. As of August 1, signatures are no longer accepted at all. All card payments over $100 require a pin (under $100 just swipe card and go),

Credit cards must be different where you're from. Here retailers all have contact-less payment terminals. My credit card works through my wallet so the transaction consists purely of taking wallet out of pocket, swipe past the reader, putting wallet back in pocket. From transactions over $100 I have to type a four digit pin which takes all of 1 whole second. Interestingly, my bank has an app which already uses my NFC chip on my phone to perform the exact same transaction. But also lets me withdraw up to $200 cash from an ATM without my card. Apple and Google have a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.