That's a concern of dictators and managers.

Free Software is free of those, too. If I'm doing what I'm doing because I want to do it, I don't give a metric ratfuck about your ideas of efficiency.

Thanks. I work in a bondage-and-domination efficiency-driven profit-based business culture for my meager pay. Don't try to "improve" my free time that way too.

That's nice. Now you have a head attached to a dying body stuck in an iron lung.

Not to mention that it does nothing for every other organ failing for lack of functional innervation. Which is all of them.

Hell, if you're going to this much trouble, just attach the head directly to artificial life support. More effective, far simpler, and less limited than your preferred solution.

"paralyzed from the neck down" == "suffocating in minutes", since all respiratory impulses are carried on the somatic spinal nerves controlling the diaphragm and the intercostal muscles. Never mind the fact that severed autonomic nerves means no information from or control of any organs: digestive system shuts down, heart never responds to physiologic need and could spontaneously fibrillate... most organ systems shut down.

Sorry, it's absolutely required to effectively re-fuse the entire spinal cord plus the independent segments of the parasympathetic nervous system (such as the vagus nerve) through the dissection plane. Otherwise, you're just attaching a head to a dying body.

Above anything, I would like people to say, 'Okay, she's human.

I'd insist on a genetic test before believing even that, from her.

A genetic test would probably reveal that she is, in fact, a cancer. A walking, talking, lying, murdering, moneymaking malignant tumor.

I think that qualifies as irony. "I don't have cancer, I AM cancer."

"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.

-- Every fascist, ever

In the second scenario, there's really no need to care about people buying things, or really whether or not they starve en masse for that matter.

Well, mostly true, but the Robot Overlords will probably have disagreements with each other, and the peasants make damn fine cannon fodder.

That has no chance of being prevented by this.

Of course they do. They get state laws passed banning aftermarket/DIY electronics, in the interests of (safety|emissions|"The Children"|stopping terrorists|whatever the moral panic of the day is).

After that, all it takes is a state regime of vehicle inspections at registration time, and the ability to detect non-standard parts (electronically, and physically). Plus denying registration for a modded car.

On this, the 5th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, I don't think citing the glowing success of sub-oceanic pipeline technology is going to be a very compelling argument.

Still, spilling fresh water into the sea is probably a little more benign than light sweet crude.

That way you can play the exciting and suspense-filled game of "what's going to break first while I tighten all of this down... the nut, the bolt, or the wrench?"

Or maybe you buy the $5 forged steel wrench, the 25 cent steel bolt, the 10 cent nut, and just 3d-print a fake penis.

Of course not. They said "We asked these five, and they denied it. The sixth is the defendant." What wasn't said was "We asked him too, and he denied it too, but that doesn't matter because he's a lying cheating scumbucket, and his denial is just further proof of his guilt."

Once upon a time, we expected our intelligence agencies to spy overseas but leave our local privacy alone.

Now, spy agencies tap every domestic communications channel, but apparently spying overseas is bad.

"Unbiased" and "Honest" are capitalized. That's cruise control for credible.

You can't explain that.

Bugs Bunny always pronounced it "Albakoikey" in his faux-New Jersey accent. I don't think Tuscon or Flagstaff or Barstow has the same mispronunciation humor potential. And it's a funny word even when pronounced correctly, TBH.

That's the best AT&T's vaunted legal strategists could come up with?

"You're not the boss of me, FTC!"

/facepalm

That's pretty irrelevant. Wal-Mart's success is fundamentally based on the premise that low immediate prices swamp all considerations of durability and reliability. You buy stuff at Wal-Mart because you don't really believe it's cheap fragile junk, and the low price gives you incentive to keep on foolin' yourself.

The retail prices are lower, at the point-of-sale. The average Joe Sixpack consumer is not doing a TCO calculation, so the sales model works for them.