Heh. After Robert Jordan stopped writing Wheel of Time main-line novels to work on prequels before dying, I'm inclined to wait until whole series are finished or the authors are dead before I read their work. Makes it a lot easier to avoid disappointment like that again.

Wasn't that the bigger issue actually? FOX/Newscorp trying to push a whole slew of their channels on DISH for fairly high rates, and using FOX News as the leverage, when those other channels aren't popular and aren't worth the money that was being demanded of them?

Personal opinion on the merit of FOX News aside, I can see where it has fiscal value as it's turned on and left on all over the goddamn place. Lobbies, break rooms, waiting rooms, all seem to have left CNN for FOX News and it's rare to find other stations on these days. But, it sounds like it's FOX News that's worth something, not the other, lesser channels, and even then, FOX News' value might itself be overinflated if it's serving as background noise more than actually being watched by the people in those lobbies, break rooms, and waiting rooms.

We don't have any subscription TV because we didn't want to pay for channels that we don't watch. This licensing model that is being pushed on DISH in turn forces DISH to push on to consumers, as if DISH has to pay for twenty channels to get one or two that people want to watch, they must charge for those twenty channels and push them to consumers, even if no one watches them.

I didn't expect to hear myself say this, but good on DISH for standing up to FOX/Newscorp for now.

Heh. Larry Nemecek was apparently hung over during the one he was in; don't know if that helped his portrayal of McCoy or hurt it...

You seem to know an awful lot about a series that you seem so dislike so much.

I can certainly criticize and critique episodes and movies, but obviously I liked/like Star Trek and won't slam it as-a-whole. Admittedly I didn't watch Enterprise beyond the pilot, nor did I see Nemesis or the second JJ Abrams movie.

I've seen a faux-documentary related to Prelude to Axanar that was pretty good. They got a lot of experienced actors to participate, and their costuming and sets were decent, and the writing seemed pretty good too. Certainly good enough to be better than the worst TOS and TNG episodes, probably ranking up in about the middle of the pack. Certainly not Measure of a Man, but not Shades of Gray either.

I think that your friend is, at best, misinformed. At worst he's lying.

There has been discussion through the years of this sort of thing being possible in the future, but it has not yet happened. Cars simply require too much service for there to be the option of not opening for service-configuration.

Yes, but if the underside of the car needs to be accessed to make a battery swapout easy, then being able to drive over the swap pit, so the tech underneath can do the job, then drive out and continue on one's trip will be similar to fueling up, or possibly even faster.

Gas stations used to have service bays with oil change pits. Places like Jiffy Lube still operate that way. I can see those pits being repurposed for this function too, since easy access to the underside of the car and a drive-through bay may really help to keep the time down.

Well, it used to be common for gas stations to also have vehicle service bays for back when cars were a lot more finicky and in need of regular tuning, and part of that was the oil-change pit. Maybe those remaining stations with that setup will find that it's a good market to do electric car battery swaps with the old pits.

No, it's a place where tech people with realistic views of what tech can do and bring want to see the proof that it's worth their while.

I'm still waiting for the killer-app for a smartwatch. I want it to be a central hub of sorts for my personal electronics that anything and everything essentially tethers through, be it over bluetooth or some 802.11 variant, so that everything can have network connectivity. The watch itself shouldn't actually do much- make phone calls as a speakerphone or through a bluetooth headset, provide very rudimentary mapping and navigation, notify of text messages and maybe read text messages and e-mail via text-to-speech, and show task lists and calendar and stopwatch timer events.

Everything else, like having a nice handset for phone calls, or a really good dialer that can do advanced contact list editing, or web browsing, or any other enhanced feature should work on the tablet or other personal device on one's person.

If a car has no drain plug for a fluid service that has to be performed several times a year, or can't handle a simple battery replacement without squawking, then the manufacturer is doing something wrong. Either their engineering is terrible or they're assholes.

No dice, huh?

And replace it with what, exactly?

Seriously, how do you intend to manage all of the addressing, both the IP level and the human-readable level, without some form of central authority?

Happy Birthday to you!

And Happy Birthday to nineteen million other people!

This explains a lot! We're not posting on the real Slashdot at all! We're on someone's bad copy! The entire "beta" thing was just a hijack attempt!

Yeah, bad form, replying to AC that can't even figure out how to quote right...

Advanced service on cars is harder than it used to be, I will not dispute that. On the other hand, I don't have to have my ignition system or valvetrain or carburetor adjusted every few thousand miles anymore. I have to change the oil and filter regularly, lube the suspension, check the fluid levels for coolant, transmission fluid, brake fluid, power steering fluid, and top-off the windshield washer fluid and possibly change the wiper blades, change the engine air filter, and do a brake job from time to time, and after many years, change the brake fluid, change the transmission fluid and filter, change the differential gear oil, possibly change the power steering fluid, possibly replace the spark plug wires, possibly re-gap or replace the spark plugs, and possibly replace a passenger compartment air filter.

If more service than that is required in the first 80,000 miles then the manufacturer screwed up. There should be no need pull the valve covers, or to take the top-end off of the engine, or to pull the transmission out, or to do any of a bunch of other jobs to a car unless it's been subjected to something abnormal.

Electrics eliminate a lot of that. There's still chassis/suspension maintenance, cabin/passenger compartment stuff, and there could even be new tasks like re-lubricating electric motor bearings to prevent premature wear, but by and large, electrics have a lot less of those kinds of maintenance tasks to perform, and likely a lot of them could be self-service with proper documentation.