Oh, I should have mentioned... I've been making payments via NFC on my Android phones for nearly three years. Actually, these days I'd say about 80% of my in-person retail purchases are made with my phone.

Bluetooth, USB, GSM/CDMA? Apple follows standards just fine when they need to.

There are standards. Japan is its own world, but the Google Wallet and ISIS (a consortium of mobile network operators and banks who created the ISIS wallet -- yes they're looking for a new name) relies on standard EMV payment protocols -- slightly modified by the US Visa, MC, AMEX and Discover organizations, but not incompatibly so. Apple will follow the EMV standards as well, or they'll get nowhere, because retailers are a slow-moving, cost-conscious group.

Visa and MasterCard announced two years ago that they'll implement the "liability shift" the end of 2015, which means that from 2016 onward 100% of fraud will be charged to whichever entity in the chain (merchant, merchant acquirer, clearing house, issuer) does not have the EMV smart chip technology implemented. Since merchants get stuck with 98% of fraud, and other links in the chain are moving slowly, this will provide a huge incentive for merchants to install EMV-capable point of sale terminals. That doesn't require them to deploy NFC-capable terminals, but they will, and many of them are.

Not even Apple is capable of creating an entirely new payment ecosystem. They'll play ball with the banks and card associations, or they'll go nowhere.

Ah, you have no sense of humor. That explains a great deal.

Traction, yes. Broad attention, no.

Bah.

It's got nothing to do with intelligence, or even knowledge in a general sense. It's that his comics so often rely on specialized knowledge. For example, a couple of my favorite strips are the "sudo" strip and the "Bobby Tables" strip. The former is only understandable to someone who has at least a passing acquaintance with *nix system administration, and the latter requires some knowledge of SQL and SQL injection attacks. Neither of those things is hard to understand. They don't require great intelligence. But they're not generally known. And to people who require an explanation, they're not funny (I have t-shirts of both, and I have never gotten so much as a chuckle from anyone to whom I have to explain the basis for the jokes).

You'll note, of course, that I'm not actually addressing your real point, which is a snarky argument that only people who like to feel themselves smarter or more knowledgeable than most would enjoy the strip. That's because it's not worth addressing.

I should have qualified this to point out I'm talking about his comics, more than What If. HIs What If series is very accessible, by design.

Sure, as long as your stick figures are saying and doing incredibly witty things.

Actually, Munroe's success is really surprising to me in spite of the brilliance of his work, because so much of what he draws is accessible to a relatively narrow audience. Not all of it, not even the majority. But there's enough that is only understandable to people who know more than most about computers, mathematics, physics, etc., that none of the non-geeks I know really like it.

... And nobody gave a flying monkeys uncle. If a corporation decides to conduct business and expend capital buying assets, or bringing assets into any country that crap is then subject to the laws of that country. It isn't up to individual countries to make sure that their laws all coincide nicely for the pleasure of some corporation. I don't have any pity for companies that start here in the USA and then go to other countires and expect special treatment from either country.

Honestly letting a person control the vehicle because a wild animal shows up in the road way is stupid. I've seen my mother nearly drive off the road and hit trees any number of times to avoid a stupid squirrel, dog or cat. The correct answer is to slow down to avoid the collision if possible and reduce damage and injuries regardless. If there is room to avoid the animal while staying on the pavement then the automated car will no doubt be able to handle that manuever infinitely better than a human driver, as it will be able to respond and analyze the situation impossibly faster than a human can even react, let alone think.

So far as what areas should be authorized first. I would think that the interstates and free ways would make the most sense. They represent the simplest of environments for automated cars and the safest of conditions. That also makes the most monotonous part of long drives easier to handle, and hence safer. When they can handle unmapped roadways at some reasonable fraction of the speed limit you let them go there.

I'm Mormon, and I'll have you know that I have very strong opinions about which local microbrew has the best root beer, you insensitive clod!

I'm still using a wood handled paring knife my Mother was using before I was born. It went through a rough patch when one of my brothers used it to cut a live power cord. But my Father ground the notch out of the blade and put a new edge on it, good as new.

That is the problem with Apple's obsession with small and sexy. Of course if Apple updates the Pro this year all is good but given their history I would not bet on it.

I resent that. What is a microbrew?