Agreed, Hulu was just a for-instance. The big issue is whatever comes "next"

This is going to be a major roadblock for any new streaming idea / service coming through... if they want access they have to pay the toll.

I guess it depends on your employer. The current tax programs will let you type in some serial number from your W2 and it will connect to some repository and download all of the W2 fields so all you have to do is eyeball the results when they're done to make sure it looks right. But I guess your employer has to opt into said service.

Personally I like the way some of the apps (like TurboTax) phrase the descriptions when asking about deductions. My living situation seems to change every 2 years so every year or so I have to see if [A] affects me or not... and they offer plenty of help to let you know whether you are affected by something or not.

Dependent -> renter -> home owner -> etc.

I've been called out for being an MS astro-turfer once or twice. Because when someone was posting "LOLZ BING IS SO HORRIBLE" last year I responded "It's not that bad." That's hardly a ringing endorsement of Bing.

And another instance mentioning a single feature I liked in Bing maps more than a competing Google Maps feature being described in an article... even though I prefer Google maps more.

Sure, there are bots and astroturfers out there and they should be stamped out.

But not everyone with an opinion different than the majority of the slashdot crowd is some nefarious plant working for Microsoft/Samsung/etc. Believe it or not, MS and Samsung do have legitimate fans who might like their products more than they hate them.

The same way how if a user honestly posted something nice about Ubuntu in a Microsoft-focused forum isn't necessarily some plant trying to win people over to Linux. Maybe they're honestly commenting in response to something.

Nope, you can have 1 face look a specific way but the "back" face look any number of ways. Heck you can solve for multiple sides and have the rest of a sides still be a mess.

The guy is being accused of doing something that many countries' government leaders would love to make into a crime. Add to the fact that he's done sensitive government work in the past... and even if they can't get it considered a crime regularly they can say it's treason or something.

When being accused of something in a major way, you go to a lawyer. I don't care if it's something small like some reported to the police that you stole their stuff... you go see a lawyer. Because as much as we want to believe the system is there to protect the little guy and common sense will prevail, too often the little guy gets squished.

So when a flippin' newspaper is shouting from the rooftops "This guy did that thing that you politicians would LOVE to call treason" then it's time to see a lawyer.

If for no other reason than to make sure your statement isn't going to shoot yourself in the foot later.

Officially, sure. But I've read some articles in the past like 1-2 weeks ago where he said he denied it when asked.

He was probably hoping that denying it that much would be enough for the paper to admit it made a mistake, but now has to make a formal denial. Besides, a formal denial probably needs to go through a lawyer first of something just to make sure everything you're saying is kosher.

I have to admit, I like the UI on the Windows 8 phones. While Windows 8 doesn't exactly translate well on the desktop... it works fine on the phone as far as I could see. It's at least drawn nicely and has a different design than iOS and Android.

Unfortunately there are just too few apps available. I went to their app store and only a small handful of my apps had a presence there... and Google's stuff was all third-party wrappers to offer some Google stuff. Honestly, that was enough to turn me off.

I guess it's circular... people won't want it if the app selection stinks, but the devs won't make apps because it's not popular.

Note: I got an Android instead.

LOL, obviously there are ways. And honestly, I've always wondered why they didn't go the cart method.

I guess everyone just wants in on that "one click shopping" mechanic.

But even some websites still suffer the same issue. If you put stuff in the cart, log in, and click "purchase" and don't log-off afterwards and walk away... then if your session is still live then your child could start clicking stuff and buy a whole bunch of stuff from the site.

I believe the issue in questions is NOT that the child can just type in the password and buy stuff. As you say, there's nothing Google can do about that outside of forced fingerprint reading.

BUT that after the parent types in the password to buy the child Angry Birds or whatever... that password is active / cached for another 30 minutes. So when they hand the phone back to the child, he/she can start buying whatever they want for the next half hour. Cartoons, games, music, etc.

Apple does something similar, I believe it's a 15 minute window now. At least it's shorter, but that window still exists.

Ultimately there has to be a compromise: security vs ease of use. Many would be annoyed if they have to type in their password over and over to buy something each time. Sure you're only buying one or two apps at a time... but what about music? What about comics and books? etc. Just last night I bought 10 comics through Comixology on my iPad... it only prompted me for password once.

Personally my password is over 20 characters, a mix of upper/lower case and numbers. I'd probably be annoyed having to type that into my phone over and over.

Agreed.

Time length in particular: maybe it was a short-tern Comcast glitch that just occurred for a few hours or even a few days. I would have the occasional short-term SNAFU with the Verizon FIOS DNS servers until I just decided to switch to Google's.

Then again, considering my past experience with Comcast and Verizon I wouldn't be surprised if this was a long-term issue. The problem is depending on who you get, it's a LONG time before you finally get routed to the correct person who actually knows more than "have you tried rebooting your router"

Well it's not just that... but sometimes the articles are funny.

Sometimes they're just the short blurb they're reading out loud.

Other times the set guys got creative and continue writing the adventure afterwards, or put other neat like articles on the rest of the paper. Like funny little Easter Eggs.

Firstly, the guy lost his s**t during the previews? Really? Not that shooting someone in the middle of a movie is more sane, but flipping out in general during the previews is silly.

That being said, I always turn off my volume AND vibrate off into the theater building and while the commercials (and eventually) previews come on I might do some quick texting of "At a movie until xPM" No actual conversations, mostly "Don't bother me for the next 2 hours" in case I was in a conversation with them earlier or they're expecting to see me later.

Or maybe just do some final quick browsing to see the run-time.

Then again, my theater is setup for dine-in viewing. So the seats are huge and you can't see what the person in front of you is doing anyway... even if their screen is bright so at most I'd annoy one of the 4 people in my grouping. Between waiters walking around and stuff the previews aren't exactly silent but once the movie starts getting closer I put my phone away. At most I'd be on for like 3 minutes during the previews while the waiter's taking my row's order.

I read TFA, and shockingly didn't know Boonsri was a woman's name. How does that take away from my overall question.

The closest thing to robot-like is that she didn't have to remember street directions. Cyborg or whatever - sure, but not robot-like.

Read my post, the question was the correct term of Robot vs any other term. I'm not seeing anywhere she describes the Glass as removing free will or where she feels less-than.

I'm a programmer.

The source code? Sometimes I might glance at the syntax to see if they just put COMPLETE gibberish in there or an actual well structured statement / for-loop / etc. But I've never bothered to see if it was trying to do anything cute or even close to what it should have been, or if the loop was infinite or whatever.

For command-line stuff, I might look to see if it looks like a real command of just gibberish.

What I DO tend to do is freeze-frame newspapers and stuff where the character is reading a story out-loud relevant to the plot. I like to see if they just copy/paste the same paragraph over and over or use the cliche lorem ipsum .... text.

If he became a robot, wouldn't that mean he was kind of a slave to whatever the Glass told him to do? Like someone was texting his eyeballs messages saying "Order a quarter-pounder-with-cheese and a Dr Pepper"

If he wanted to say cyborg I'd buy it, or if he "felt" like an android I guess I could accept it.

But "robot" tends to imply a mechanical device more devoid of free-will or thought than some of the other phrases. Heck, the blurb in which it's used is describing how it's expressing personality.