Exactly the feeling I got. We don't even have an Federal Internet Commission, and don't seem to need one.

We do need to have the Consumer Product Safety Commission setting safety standards for the Internet of Things. They're properly the lead agency of safety issues. That will probably happen after the first few deaths due to cloud-based control of home devices.

No. It is because people are treating a computer as an appliance. If it works out of the box they keep using it. Also, people won't go out of their way to replace a working product especially one they paid money for.

What you are talking about is the difference between those that see computers as appliances and those that take an interest in the workings of that appliance. And with today's distros being geared to making the install as easy as possible (for whatever level of literacy you have) it is making Linux easier for those that see it as an appliance.

To put this into the proper slashdot car analogy it is the difference between the guy who always puts new gear and tricks out their cars and their wives who get into it, toss the kids in the back seat and goes. That wife really doesn't appreciate the work done by her husband until something goes wrong.

the biggest problem is microsoft's insistence upon having a microsoft account, and use of trickery to ensure they are created, to login to the local pc, or to use the 'store' to download 'free' apps, or to use office 2013.. that's a total pain in the ass that no one should tolerate.

Yet Google does the same with Android. Amazon does the same thing with its platform too. So this isn't unique to Microsoft.

You missed the jokes:

1. Will Smith starred in a recent movie adaptation of "I, Robot". [Minor spoiler alert] His character is tormented by the fact that a robot (applying the three laws) chose to save him over a young girl in a drowning accident because the math for survival worked in his favor, not hers. If the robot had attempted to save the little girl instead, Will Smith's character would have died in the accident and there would have been no story; hence, a boring movie.

2. [Spoiled child alert] Will Smith has a real life young son, Jaden Smith, who is widely renowned as an absolutely terrible actor. But, since his daddy is a genuine Hollywood A-list movie star, he gets to appear in any movie he wants. If Jaden was in a boring movie and a robot saved him so he could keep acting, the movie would be even worse.

I hear ya! I have an HP Envy M7 laptop that has a touchscreen and I never use the touchscreen for that reason. To make it worse, the screen (which is a very good LED HD display) has a high gloss panel that shows the prints extremely well. Why in the world HP chose to put a glossy screen as a touchscreen is beyond me. Touchscreens should have a matte finish to try and hide the print marks as much as possible.

Why upgrade, Windows7 does everything I need.

Good for you. However, you won't be too happy when you get a new machine that doesn't come with anything other than 9. Or when your windows 7 drivers need an update to fix a bug or add a feature and the only available ones are for Windows 9. Or you want that snazzy new program and it's minimum requirements are Windows 9.

Like it or not, the world moves on. If standing still works for you then more power to you.

We won't really know this is true until it happens. I have high hopes for SpaceX - specifically I hope they can do much more with less. Either way though, this is a big win for everyone!

I would grant that "fretting" was poetic license. Consider that the life-saving robot must continually evaluate all factors.

Let's say I was closer to a lava flow than you, but your path was on a slightly more direct course into it than mine, and the robot is located at the lava's edge midway between both of us. I will hit the lava in 30 seconds, but you will hit it in 20. The robot needs two seconds to have a high probability of saving someone, but one second is enough for a moderate chance. Factoring in the motion required, the chances of saving us both is high. As you are in more immediate peril than I, it should intercede on your behalf first, so the robot starts to move in your direction. Now, I change my course slightly so I will hit it in 15 seconds. The robot still has time to save us both, but the chances are slightly lower. It moves on a path to intercept me first. You then change your path so you will hit it in 10 seconds. The chances of saving us both is now only moderate, but still possible. So the robot alters its path again to save you first. Now, we both steer directly toward the lava, with only one second to intercept for either of us. The robot's continual path changing introduced so much delay it was no longer in a position to save either of us. We both die.

To the outside observer, it fretted, but the algorithm made continually logical decisions.

Unfortunately that cash can't magically feed and hydrate all the starving children in Africa or wherever your tears fall for.

If it could, you'd have a point. Unfortunately (for your point) it can't.

Yea, all sorts of amazing things that Android phones have had since 2011?

No, it should be programmed to save Will Smith first, otherwise it's going to be a boring movie. Besides, what if it saved Jaden Smith first? The movie would go from "boring" to "terrible" in a big hurry.

That's like wearing shoes with golf spikes all the time.

Traction control for feet does roughly the same thing as automotive traction control for cars. The basic idea is to keep the sideways force below the break-loose point. This is the down force on the wheel times the coefficient of friction.

For car wheels, the down force is mostly constant. For a legged robot, it changes throughout the ground contact phase So the side force has to be actively controlled and changed throughout the ground contact. It's also necessary to compensate for leg angle.

Legs have an additional option. If a leg has three joints, you can adjust the angle at which the contact force is applied. This is a big win on hills.

I used to work on this stuff in the mid-1990s, but nobody was interested in building legged robots back then. It could be used for animation, but it was overkill for games. I never expected that DARPA would spend $120 million on BigDog. Robotics projects in the 1990s were tiny.

You realize the distillation of that answer is the same? Licensing and greed.

Licensing is the direct cause, but greed is the reason there were exclusivity agreements to begin with.

What? Never heard of centerfire primers doing that. They have to be crushed or heated?