One of the expanded novels explained that the kessel run was a gravitational nightmare from black holes so the shorter distance a ship could do it meant they knew the best routes and/or the ship was strong enough to survive.

A number of VPN services allow you to pay with bitcoin to make it harder to tie it to an individual.

That video link in the article of a panoramic view of just clouds instead of a wall would freak me out. Making it look like the seats were flying through the air like Wonder Woman started doing Commercial Flights is not my idea of comfort. Or if you're sitting sunside and trying to nap - could you please turn off the wall please it's too bright for me

Having went to Catholic school and having to do something during religion class, I keep a vague list of points to ponder from the Bible.

• Oral sex is good - Song of Solomon is all for that
• 10 virgin wives? Sure it's a parable, parables are based on things people understand so again.. 10 virgin wives? - Gospel of Matthew
• Killing lots of people is expected if people in another city believe in another god - Deuteronomy
• Wear a hat or go to hell - Leviticus
• Zombies - Gospel Matthew, more than Jesus rose from the dead
• Women are subservient to men, shouldn't teach or have any authority over men - 1 Timothy
• Anything without fins and scales from the waters is unclean to eat. Sorry tasty lobster, shrimp, calimari, catfish, etc - Leviticus
• So many bad animals to eat. escargot, pig - life without bacon?
• Slavery is OK as long as they're foreigners. - Leviticus (Bring this up during discussion of border security for fun shock factor)
• Tats bar you from heaven - Leviticus (Just pick a random passage from that book and you can find something everyone is doing wrong)

Old RPG nick aside, I'm an American so I think my comment would be more self deprecating on a country wide scale. Having grown up around a family business I stopped being surprised at what wouldn't be stolen out of a retail store. I live in a farming area with many 'on your honor' farm stands. Take produce from the stand and leave money in a coffee can type setups. People steal the money cans on a regular enough basis. For these reasons and more I couldn't imagine letting people scan their products when they put things in a cart and it not being massively abused. I'd be overjoyed to be proven wrong.

I agree with you on the self checkouts. While they're sometimes quick for a handful of items, If it's more than a few items then you should get a discount equal to an employee's wage. BUT I'm all for scanning an object when I put it in the cart and just paying for it when I leave, no double handling of products by putting in the cart, taking out to be scanned, putting back in the cart. Almost walking right out the door after finding what I wanted was very quick.

I saw one of the handheld scanner places you describe in NZ in 2005. I was surprised how fast and easy it was. I'm going to assume no one would trust the average consumer not to steal and cheat the system in the USA.

For tech oriented startups location ends up being a big deal. You have to appeal to investors and being in the middle of a cow pasture is a deal breaker. Also from a population percentage there are not as many angel investors around to get something even going. Then staff like having entertainment options that big cities can offer.

There are a few incubators in some of the smaller cities that are still running. Offhand I've read of them in Iowa, Philadelphia, there's even one in Detroit. Not high cost areas. Not the easiest place to attract funding or talent.

Neither, since there is no daylight saving s time.

Or everyone in the US just got swindled out of billions that was supposed to give us real broadband, to the tune of 300 Billion

I thought the same thing when I read the summary. Yet like the real world we want the car to be able to handle not hitting the guy leaning on the shovel.

I've been happy with Phineas and Ferb. Sure it's Disney, still it's just oddball enough to make it worth watching. The main characters are engineers finally something neater than Handy Smurf or the doozers.

If you're talking about the bible it is not a consistent framework. Even the gospels don't agree with each other on the death of Jesus, a central tenant of the religion. Personally I like the Gospel of Matthew. In that account, and only that account, an unknown number of zombies also rose from the dead along with Jesus and went into the city.

I can see some need for an open source big brother. Would either need mounted cams in a yard facing a roadway or a way to mount a cam on the dashboard to read in real time, a smartphone version of the russian drive cam. . There are a few good uses and after that it'd be full of some cyber stalking style info. But if we have already lost our privacy why shouldn't we know what the government knows?

• Neighborhood watch would be helpful - why is this car creeping around the area?
• With enough coverage could weed out thieves / crimes
• Find your elected official and see if they hang around strip clubs
• Find where the kid dating your daughter is hanging out
• Employee said they were home sick? Find his plate and see if it isn't out driving around
• Auto tag police plates and have real time police locations. Like those spot a cop apps to help avoid tickets
• Road rage allows for revenge. Get cut off? Find where the car is parked and put bird seed all over the car, etc

The sky is the limit on what would be created with an open source backend DB. I'd put a cam in the yard and in my car. Sounds amusing.

I always thought it was Found On Road Dead. Or : Recent studies show that 95% of all Ford vehicles are still on the road. The other 5% were towed home.

My mother bought a Ford Explorer with a chrome running board option. Before the 5 year bumper to bumper car warranty expired the chrome was noticeably starting to flake. Except the bumper to bumper excluded that option.. the chome option was only a 3 year warranty. I do have to give it to the Ford engineers to be able to devise a fail date just slightly longer than warranty. Now that's quality work.