>>Artec Group, a maker of 3D scanners and software, said its Shapify Booth, which can scan your entire body in 12 seconds and use the resulting file to create a full-color 3D printed model, is making its U.S. debut this week.
>>The 3D Shapify booths are equipped with four wide view, high-resolution scanners, which rotate around the person to scan every angle.

It's the US, you better fucking hope they're wide view!

The article emphasizes the sentence:

When your captor is a machine, there is no humaneness to be found, and, hence, no one to plead with

The first thing I thought of was that line from The Terminator:

"It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."

Come to think of it, that Terminator quote pretty much sums up arguing on the internet too.

I can't even begin to imagine the ridiculous agreement they'll expect you to sign when purchasing the car. That sound you can hear is every single lawyer in GM's legal department getting an instant erection whilst simultaneously browsing the internet for super-expensive toys to order.

So I read the article and I still don't get how this particularly helps in many, many situations.

Let's assume for a second that a US citizen who ia a Delaware resident and has a will governed by Delaware law has died. How does this provide his/her heirs the ability to:

for example, a) access an account on a database/web forum located solely on a computer in California;
or b) access an account for an online store residing in let's say, Japan or Australia or Argentina?

in example a, the account is located in another state and the owner of the forum/computer as far as I understand it isn't bound by Delaware law. Let's assume for the sake of simplicity that in the case of the forum, the website is being hosted by a Californian ISP and there are no out-of-state colos that hold the same account data.

in example b, the account, store, website and ISP hosting the website all reside not only out of Delaware but out of the country.

I truly appreciate what a law like this is trying to achieve. One of my parents passed away a year ago and although it wasn't vital, it certainly would've been handy to be able to have had access to their webmail account. I don't want to sound like I'm discounting the law because it doesn't affect many people, it's just that from my understanding, the law seems either unenforceable and.or toothless.

Anybody who is a lawyer want to chime in?

So... you're pretty much agreeing with the article you didn't read.

All those things you described sucked because they spent too much time detailing other less-important things such as pot plants.

Although I agree with you wholeheartedly and try to support my favorite artists as much as I can, this is nowhere near as practical for most of the world as one might first think.

One of my closest friends is a mad Dave Matthews Band fan and has been fortunate enough to attend at least four DMB gigs over the past twelve months. I'm sure Dave Matthews and my friend are both pleased as punch about this setup. My favorite artists include amongst others David Bowie and Tom Waits. I live in Japan. Go on and have a guess how many gigs either of them have put on in Japan in the past 12 months.

Now guess how many gigs either of them have put on here in Japan in the past 12 years.

Hint: you could have a nasty accident with a bandsaw and still count them on one hand. Now I'm not faulting the artists or their manager or anybody. That's life unfortunately. Even if my tastes were more mainstream, I still wouldn't come close to being able to see as many concerts as most Americans. I don't see Rihanna or Jay Z or Radiohead hosting many concerts here either. Radiohead hasn't toured here since 1994!

I've seen many of my favorite artists both here and overseas and almost without exception I've gone out of my way to get great (read: expensive) seats because I see great value for money in spending hundreds of dollars in seeing my favorite artists perform live. It's unfortunate for both me and the artists I would be willing to support that I don't live in the continental US or mainland Europe where most concerts seem to be held.

Reminds me of a quote by Edgar Fiedler: "Ask five economists and you'll get five different answers - six if one went to Harvard."

to be honest, from a person who has lived in Japan a very long time, this really doesn't come as too much of a surprise. There are dozens of VERY big chains and thousands upon thousands of stores both parts of chains and independently owned in Japan that exist almost solely for the exchange of used games. Some deal exclusively in games, most usually mix in some used books/manga/anime/magazines/DVDs/clothes but games and manga would definitely be their meat and potatoes if simple floorspace allocation is anything to go by. If there was any possibility that this was even remotely true, there's a very, very large population of Japanese people who would have already risen up as one angry mob complete with the Japanese modern day equivalent of torches and pitchforks and fucking SLAYED Sony.

It's a Beige Alert!

Short answer: Because at the end of the day, having a high-profile and appealing sports program makes them a lot more money than they invest in it.

G-R-A-M-M-A-R

grammar

--The Spelling Nazi

I'd really like to see a decent pic too.

John Badham (director of WarGames) explains it quite well on the director's commentary for WarGames - Movie studio executives insist that when something happens on-screen, it must have an associated sound so the audience knows something is happening. Everyone knows a computer doesn't beep every time you press a key. But just like most people require tactile feedback when typing for optimum performance (one of the multitude of reasons Star Trek's LCARS input interface will never truly be embraced in reality), studios insist the audience needs aural feedback when something is happening.