Speaking entirely for myself, the theater has to offer something that I don't get at home.

I don't have a full-blown "home theater." I don't really even have a partial-blown "home theater." I have stereo sound on a 34" LCD TV. If I want to get fancy, I can run the sound through my amplifier and decent speakers. And this is fine for the cute and cuddly romantic comedy or serious drama. The theater doesn't offer anything extra. On the other hand, I watched "Gravity" this past weekend and I remember thinking that, yeah, some of those scenes would be really cool in IMAX 3D. I'm sorry I never got a chance to see it that way (I was planning to do it, but things kept coming up).

I wonder if piracy has an effect on the kinds of movies that end up in theaters. It may be harder to get that quiet dramatic film made than the special-effects laden "blockbuster" that you would want to go to the theater to see.

There is an intriguing aside, though.

Take a movie like the upcoming "Guardians of the Galaxy." This is the kind of movie I want to see on a big screen--lots of explosions, daring-do, grand space battles, a raccoon with machine guns, etc. Conversely, take a movie like "Jersey Boys" and I don't see a real need to schlep to the theater to see it--the viewing experience will be about the same if I watch it in the theater or on my 34" Flat-screen in the living room or if I watch it on the 19" RCA CRT in my bedroom.

Give me a low quality copy of "Guardians of the Galaxy" and it will probably inspire me to see it in the theater. Give me a low quality copy of "Jersey Boys" and I'd probably be content to watch that and not see it in the theater or rent it later.

So I wonder if piracy is having an effect on the types of movies that we see being made.

Maybe they'll use it if they reboot "2001: A Space Odyssey."

But their bad reputation also works well for providing excuses.

"What do you mean you didn't get that check? I mailed it a week ago! Damn post office..."

My favorite, from Yelp, was a search for bike shops in my area had a paid advertisement for a wedding shop.

"I love my bike, but I'm not going to marry it..."

I think it's doable, depending on what you want it to do. Considering you example of the Casio Data Bank 150, about the only thing that needs Internet access would be the scheduler for keeping your calendar in-sync. Personally, I'd drop the phone directory because I have that on my phone. Calculator, stop watch, alarm, etc. are all doable without the Internet.

If the watch is something you glance at ("Whoops! Time for my 2:00 meeting!") or use momentarily ("What is 17% of $7392?"), I don't think there'll be a problem with battery life. But if the theory is that my smart watch will replace my smart phone, I don't think so.

We put so much into it, there was no room for the clock! Of course, sometimes it's good to know the time.

Why?

Look, I agree with you in a long term sense. But the United States didn't have the capability of putting people into space between about 1975 and 1981. Somehow we survived as a nation for those six years.

Some of the issue I have with these things are launch costs eating up NASA's budget. I'd far rather see NASA farm out Low-Earth Orbit flights to Space-X and the like than have them waste taxpayer money on their own system which is only "just as good" yet costs twice as much.

Now, that said, this sort of research is interesting. To draw an analogy, there's the old--and untrue--saw about NASA developing a pen that can write in zero G where the Soviet Union used a pencil. To use Space-X as an example, their solution to building a rocket that will carry 50 tons into orbit is to add more engines. NASA's solution is to figure out how to build a more powerful engine. Space-X's solution is quicker and cheaper but it doesn't necessarily improve the state of the art. I like to see my tax dollars going into this sort of research and development that could be used by American companies 10 or 20 years down the road.

Well, figure a Model E will be around 157 inches if that 20% number is accurate. So the more accurate comparison would be with the Mini Clubman.

Only if you promise not to go back in time and kill Hitler. It's so noob.

In his defense, it can be very difficult to rent a big dodge pickup with a hemi for towing your boat. That's definitely a specialty rental and could end up costing him quite a bit of money.

I always thought it'd be interesting to have an alert for pedestrians--particularly small children--who run out onto the bike path without looking because "Ooh! The Beach!"

Granted, it wouldn't work for the little moppets that run between parked SUVs, so it wouldn't be a perfect solution...

Depends, obviously, on where you are.

Here where I live in southern California, fireworks start about 9:00 and sunset is around 8:00. I grew up seeing the fireworks in New Hampshire, where they would start the fireworks at 9:30 with sunset around 8:30.

Not being a parent, I don't know if 10:00 is particularly late when sunset is around 9:00. I can't imagine that small children would want to go to bed when it's still light out.

I would imagine (a) it's a St. Maarten's thing--nobody wants to take a picture of landing at O'Hare and (b) there are so many people who have camera phones as their primary camera that it's easier for the flight attendants to just say, "No photos" than to say, "Only those people using stand-alone cameras can take pictures--no cell phone cameras."

Sigh. Not this again.

Airplanes don't fall out of the sky because, first, there's a pilot on board to think about what his instruments are telling him. Second, airplanes usually have back-up systems for important stuff.

NASA has a voluntary database of in-flight incidents. There are issues related to "Passenger Electronic Devices" (Event Type category is "Flight Deck/Cabin/Aircraft Event" and value is "Passenger Electronic Device") that don't cause the plane to crash. However, it can affect aircraft radios used for navigation and voice communication and, on rare occasions, will cause the autopilot to disengage--assumedly due to odd signals being received from the above.

So the whole, "I don't know of any planes that have crashed because of a cellphone call" doesn't mean there isn't interference. It just means that the pilots handle it--sometimes by having the Flight Attendants re-check to make sure that people have turned things off. I remember reading about a pilot who got a signal that one of the cargo doors had opened while at 30,000 feet. He ignored it because if that signal had been true, he'd also see a whole bunch of other warnings about depressurization and the plane would probably be acting strangely.

Recently a Maysian Airlines flight went missing. You may have heard about it in the news. Nobody can understand why the pilots would have deviated from their course and had trouble communicating...