I used my Palm V and a Nokia 6130 all the time. It allowed me to keep track of expenses using a database, and sync them back to my office. It allowed me to keep track of my email, using the IrDA connection between the devices. It allowed me to reboot servers when needed from a restaurant using SSH. It allowed me to edit code remotely from another country, again using SSH.

I had a need and a use for my Palm. It wasn't a toy to me. I have a need for my current iPhone, though in many ways its not as flexible or capable as my Palm/Nokia combination was.

This is complete and utter rubbish. It may not be time now, but that doesn't mean that it won't happen. Media is converging, we are beginning to see a move away from traditional broadcasters towards creators dealing directly with the end users. It's going to take a little while before its possible, but it will happen.

The evidence? Youtube for one. The production values are increasing, more content providers are releasing via YouTube and surviving on the advertising revenue generated from there. WWE for another, they're in the process of going direct to customer, cutting out the middle man. More content providers will go this way once there is a reliable revenue stream.

If content providers go this way they will want their content to be available across all of these devices to maximise their reach. Perhaps it'll go the way of gaming, with the manufacturers paying for a small subset of exclusives initially but will that be sustainable in the long term? It's doubtful.

Just a requirement? Ah, that's it then. Everything is possible, it just needs a requirement. Isn't that requirement someone coming up with the idea of what they want to do? Couldn't this be considered inventing it? You now see how a patentable idea comes about.

Hindsight is always 20:20. In fact the best ideas, those that become second nature, are often considered obvious after the event. The real question though is, if they were so obvious, why didn't someone else do it before?

I disagree, ensuring that your population doesn't starve is the proper role of government. However we've been trying to stop people starving in the same spots in the world for the last 40 years with charitable efforts. Its about time that we admitted that the current approach has failed. Instead its created a gravy train of NGO executive posts and kept people in a near starving position, all the while excusing the local government from fixing the problem in a vaguely racist manner. "They can't solve it themselves, they need our help".

There is a further argument that the actions of the NGOs, and developed government aid, undermines the local market preventing the poor in these countries from rising out of poverty and aid dependence. What price can you get for the grain you buy if much more is going to be shipped in for free by an NGO?

Money makes the world go around. We've yet to reap the peace dividend that should have resulted from the end of the cold war. It turned out that finding other ways to employ those people that were making arms to combat the Soviet threat was too difficult for the politicians. Instead they have identified new threats so as to keep the arms business going.

That said the cost of this is minuscule compared with the UK maintaining its *independent* nuclear deterrent, though who we are deterring now I've no idea.

That's not 100% true. The majority of phone boxes in cities have been replaced by see through ones, you still see the red phone box in rural areas. In some villages the red phone box is considered a listed building and cannot be removed, though some of them are no longer functioning phone boxes.

I've not taken a flight in the last couple of years, between a number of European countries, that I've not used a QR code on my phone as the boarding pass. Given that its a QR code even if you take a snapshot of someone else's how are you going know what details to swap out? The other information there is for the user only, its not used by the scanner.

We can't even guarantee that building football stadia here on Earth. Given that any colonisation would be taking place in a hostile environment your requirement absolutely rule out any attempt.

Given you believe that we have to start getting off the planet your requirements will have to be relaxed, in which case it becomes a question of what is the acceptable risk. There is an assumption being made in the negative comments that a one-way mission would be a short one that would involve a premature death. I'm not so sure that this is necessarily the case. A mission that involves no planned return is different from a suicide mission. If you sent a one way mission that relied on re-supply from Earth you would, in all likelihood, get an increase in funding to ensure that no one was responsible for the explorers dying due to lack of supply. Could you imagine the backlash against a politician that even suggested cutting off the supply lines?

The Mars ONE hype has brought focus on things, one of which is why is space the most expensive thing that humans do. Its expensive because of the assumption that you have to engineer for every possibility imaginable. If you reduce the possibilities then the engineering simplifies and the cost reduces.

Its not necessarily a 'suicide mission' just a mission that would not involve a planned return to Earth. If such a mission has quantifiable aims and those are met wouldn't that stop it being a waste of resources, depending on the cost you place on a non-returning astronaut?

There have been many endeavours over history that people have undertaken knowing that there was little, or no, prospect of return. What is different about this being in space?

This is all about political correctness. It's lynching someone because his beliefs don't match those of the hive mind. What is the point of having the right to free speech if you are condemned for exercising it?

How does this get modded as insightful? People feeling depressed and clinical depression are two very different things. Its easy to laugh off and make glib comments. It doesn't make them true though.

When were these old days of which you speak? Winston Churchill, yes that one, suffered from depression which he called his "Black Dog". Greater access to healthcare, and better trained physicians, will always increased apparent incidence of mental conditions. Is it right that in previous times these people would suffer in silence?

I wear glasses to read, I'm wearing them now. I don't need to wear glasses for anything else yet. Casting my eyes around the office, over the glasses because they are distant, I can see a fair few people in glasses. So perhaps there is a market for glasses after all. Google Glass I can't see a use for though.

Speak a lie often enough and its accepted as the truth.

Apple is not, and never has been, mainly a marketing wonder. They have made good use of marketing but the success they've had is based on quality and usability rather than simply marketing. Check out the user satisfaction surveys of Apple users.

Yes phones in Japan were more feature rich than phones elsewhere when the iPhone was released but that was largely due to carrier limitations. I had a number of Nokia 'smartphones' whose facilities were crippled by my local carrier. Apple changed things partly by refusing to give the carriers the ability to cripple the iPhone.