Remember how cellular "feature phones" used to make an audible "ker-click" sound when you took a picture, and there was no option to turn it off? And how the gym prohibited all cameras in the locker room? Folks were worried about these increasingly ubiquitous cameras. Then smartphones came along and the cameras truly were ubiquitous and everyone sort of gave up... you can turn off the fake shutter sound now and that man in the corner staring down at his cellphone probably isn't trying to take a perv shot of you (probably).

I'm not defending Google here, or arguing that Glass is a good thing. Rather, that it's possible Glass will become socially acceptable once people get over the novelty of it. If I were advising Google, I'd tell them to add a prominent LED to the front of the Glass that glowed red when the camera was being used. Then people would "know" if you were recording or not.

The drawback, of course, is that this negatively impacts augmented reality (AR) applications, which are one of the big promises of Glass-like devices. In AR, the images are analyzed to detect faces/landmarks/surfaces/whatever in order to draw reminders/factoids/whatever in the user's field of vision. For instance, maybe Glass could be showing a mechanic the relevant portion of the service manual when he stares at $VEHICLEPART. Google could make it so that the LED doesn't light up when the camera is being used for non-recording purposes. The drawback to that is that Glass is then just one software hack away from being able to record covertly (e.g., without lighting up the public-notification LED)... so it'd really be better to stick with the first approach and hardwire the LED to the camera sensor.

Of course, you're still being recorded/tracked by a panopoly of public CCTV's, license plate readers, websites, and various other data cabals.

As a C programmer, you maybe haven't bought into OOP, templates, exception handling, metaprogramming, or other such features that C++ brought to the systems programming scene. Maybe, like Linus Torvalds, you've tried C++ and think it's a horrible language.

I myself agree with you (or rather, Linus)... except I'm coming from the applications world (C# mainly), where those nice features (that C++ popularized well and implemented poorly) are bread-and-butter techniques. I want to do systems programming with objects, exceptions, namespaces, reflection, etc., *but* I'm not willing to weather C++ for them, nor am I willing to drop down to C. Ergo D, except it doesn't really have a viable ecosystem at this point. :-( (And, like you said, JavaScript/Java/C#/Python/etc are fast enough for the vast majority of applications.)

Mainly, it's a systems programming language, meaning that it gives the programmer fine-grained control over memory and operations so that you can write operating systems, drivers, and high-performance applications. This is relevant because, aside from the two biggies (C and C++), there aren't a lot of other languages in this space. I mean, there's Objective-C (which sort of half-asses it), and recently Go and Rust arrived on the scene. All the other popular languages are pretty much for scripting (Python, JavaScript, PHP, etc.), or running atop a managed virtual machine (Java and C#).

As for what it offers... it's basically a re-invention of C++. No, no... it's deeper than that. It's the idea of C++ re-invented in such a way that you get most all the power and low-level control of C++ without so many of the dangers and difficulties.

Unfortunately, D has struggled to gain wider acceptance. It fractured it's community when D version 2 broke backwards compatibility with D version 1, and the forums (which run on a dedicated Usenet server, FFS) are filled with endless commentary about what does and doesn't work in the latest point release of the DMD compiler. Bright and Alexandrescu have certainly designed a compelling language, but they seem (from my distant vantage point) to be mired in implementation details... yeah there's a standard library and everything, but the surrounding ecosystem (standards, tutorials, tools, IDE's, API's, packaging, etc.) hasn't made the leap to that sort of functional minimum you see with (for instance) node.js or Haskell's "batteries included" experience.

TL;DR - D's a super awesome low-level language, but it's not yet a platform.

Check that make-a-law impulse. A desk job is just about the safest thing you can do (assuming you don't have to travel for work). Very little chance of suffocating a mile underground (mining), disappearing into the sea (commercial fishing), losing a limb (logging, mill works), or routine exposure to carcinogens (many factory jobs). (Obligatory slideshow: the twenty deadliest jobs.)

That's not to say OSHA should have no concern but office workers (which they do)... just that it should be proportional to the risk involved.

Read this brief on the perils of both sitting and standing, and then check the references at the bottom. Notably, standing all day leads to varicose veins and puts a strain on your circulatory system.

Just generally, the factory production line taught us long ago that holding the same pose or making the same motions all day long will have chronic repercussions. (If you ever have to work an assembly line, hope it's in a factory that practices job rotation so your tasks are varied over time.)

If we're going to stick to simple arguments: governments kill more people than terrorists; ergo, they are the greater threat.

Of course, if you want a more sophisticated argument, then you need to go back to democratic principles. Separation of powers, checks and balances, due process, and so forth. It's always about power and preventing too much of it from pooling in one place. No matter how noble government objectives are at the current moment (which you seem to have some charmingly naive assumptions about), you don't want to setup bad power structures or the next thing you know some low-level spook will be defacto dictator of your republic.

Alternately, you could point out that all this spying and intrusion on civil liberties is an enormous waste of money. The government could save wayyyyy more lives by focusing on cancer, heart disease, and vehicular deaths. Heck, poisonings are the second leading cause of accidental deaths, but nobody's insisting the government watch you take your meds or make you lock up your cleaning supplies.

And I don't know what you mean about slashdotters turning a blind eye to Facebook and Google... we bitch about that all the time too.

But with strong crypto it's secure enough that the 3rd party can see (or alter) your communications. Obama and Cameron and (undoubtedly) all other future leaders want to strip away this protection using the force of law to change how crypto products are designed. You will live your life under the state microscope and, as always, the proper prerogatives of government will be twisted to cover up incompetence and serve the powerful few instead of protecting the dignity of the individual.

All ideologies are false. That's what makes them so tasty. We crave simple rules and easy answers for this complex, interwoven world of ours. And once we subscribe to a set of Answers, we can confidently stride them out upon others... especially those weaker souls who may want to look at an issue from multiple angles and acknowledge the inherent difficulties of society's seemingly numerous and intractable problems. There's nothing better than feeling intellectually invulnerable and knowing that all voices that run in any way counter to your own are automatically corrupt or incompetent, dismissible out of hand without even having to listen to them. The world is so clear when righteousness runs thru your veins.

Whatever the source--left or right, extremist or complacent-- unchecked ideology is the true enemy of humanity .

(Yah, I know... don't feed the trolls, but I've been where AC is, and it is a trap unto itself.)

Maybe he suggested that at some point, but his main argument was that Nina had gone back to Russia.

For justice's sake, let's hope the jury is able to navigate the technical details, filter out bullshit theories and scare-mongering, and render an accurate verdict--whether it's guilt or not gulity.

... I'm much more worried about how to protect humankind from itself. From crazed individuals to ruthless criminal gangs to mindless bureaucracies to huge corporations, paranoid governments, and controlling religions... all willing to crush or enslave or entirely discard some segment of humanity for a little bit of profit or their concept of the bigger good. We could literally have heaven on earth, if we had been just a little better as a species. :-(

Maybe the machines can do a better job for us. But I wouldn't hang my hat there.

And you're sure that an endocrine system can't be simulated logically because... why? What's this magic barrier that keeps a silicone-based organism from doing the exact same computations as a carbon-based one?

Moreover, "emotions" aren't really needed for an AI to select "self preservation" as a goal. Even if not explicitly taught self-preservation (something routinely done in applied robotics), a sufficiently intelligent AI could realize that preserving itself is necessary to accomplish any other goals it may have.

Oh hi! I'm your new LG refrigerator. Before I unlock the doors, please agree to this EULA and wait half-an-hour while I download the latest firmware!

By all means, write your PSC, but before you do, don't forget about the O&M savings from (1) not having to pay meter-readers and (2) not having to do as many truck-rolls for other reasons. That's a bundle, esp. when gas prices go back up. There's also (3) better theft prevention (they can tell when someone swaps a meter or tries to install it upside-down) and (4) alternative rate plans (typically targeted at EV owners).

Finally, automated metering can/should give you a faster outage response: they can immediately see everyone who has lost power (without waiting for phone calls) and dispatch crews in the most efficient manner possible.

Disclaimer: work in the biz, though not directly with automated metering.

Ah yes, insist that they reduce their personal emissions by the most painful avenues possible. And once they do that, just find another ad hoc or ad hominen reason to ignore the dangers they are pointing out. That's a totally rational way to undertake public policy. Too bad we didn't have fine voices like yours back in the sixties so we could enjoy the enviable air quality of Beijing, PCB's in our fish, and awesome DDT health complications! (Of course, next time, you could ask those darn hippies if they recycle, eat less meat, buy local, use CFL or LED bulbs, or keep their their tires properly inflated. Those are much easier ways to reduce your footprint, and some of them help with the wallet too.)

Speaking tours, book deals, green charities, and even research funding are complete CHUMP CHANGE compared to coal and petroleum consumption. By any conceivable metric (gross, % of GDP, jobs, etc.), the latter utterly dominate by 2 or 3 orders of magnitude.

If you want to argue against cutting CO2, then by all means introduce facts and reasoning. But don't be the fat girl who bullies people about their looks.