"Have you paused to consider that there might be other lifestyles than your own?"

Sure. I know there are ascetics. Then there are the other vast majority of us. You know, people without your magical 100% perfect memory, people who listen to music [or podcasts], people with children, people who take pictures, and most important people who have myriad other problems not discussed here because their needs are outside my imagination, and yours.

"Why would [using a mic on my watch] be better than the [mic on my] phone?"

Because the phone is in my pocket, as stated in the hypothetical. Before you ask your next question, here's the answer: for the same reason it's more convenient to have a phone in my pocket rather than tethered to my kitchen.

I want one. The specific thing I want my watch to do, besides be attractive manly jewelry and tell me the time faster than pulling the pod (cell phone) out of my pocket, is to vibrate or give alarms when certain things happen or to allow easier interaction with other of my nearby technology.

Oh, I forgot my pod in my car when I went into the shopping mall? I'll know because my watch will vibrate when I'm 50 feet away from the car instead of waiting an hour and wondering why my wife hasn't called me with the dinner plans like she promised.

Oh, I'm at a playground trying to manage multiple children safely? I'll know if one of my children starts to wander away, and the watch will point me in the direction they are wandering.

Oh, I'm listening to a podcast in earphones with my pod in my tight jeans pocket, and someone calls me? I can answer the call in one second by touching my watch, instead of trying to fish the pod out of my pocket and missing the call. I can also use the mic on my watch for better audio quality.

Oh, I want to take a 'selfie' from farther away than my arms reach? I can put the camera on a flat surface, go pose, look at my watch to see what the camera sees, get it framed up right, then touch my watch to start a three-second timer on the camera.

All you people saying NO have no imagination. You are the same people who would say "Why would I need my cell phone to have a big screen on it? All it has to do is show phone numbers and my flip phone already can do that." Have you guys paused to consider that there might be applications beyond your current imagination?

I understand your critique but if you read the story I think the police did what you want them to -- try to pull him over then retreat when he starts a high-speed chase. The article specifies that he continued at high speed even though he was not under pursuit. That is the same policy adopted by my hometown police department and I think it is pretty common.

Agreed. This news item had a lot of impact.

It left me with one burning question: what was the last thing to go through that guy's mind? I mean, other than a lamp pole.

I stopped paying attention to botnet stories a few years ago. Are botnets still always on Windows or do Unix users (Mac, Linux) have to worry too? If it's still all Windows then I'm going to stop paying attention again.

That has never been true. Never in human history has a class of people controlled the economy due to them being the source of economic output. I guess it's not impossible, but did garment workers control the economy? Were automobile assembly-line workers the richest people in the country? Did Roman iron smelters own the means of their own production?

The history of human economy has always been that rich assholes who do no labor lord over the workers who actually produce things. I don't see any reason to think that robots will be different.

"Why the hell would they?"

Well, the historical answer is "because if they don't, we'll cut their heads off". Personally I think that's a lesson that needs to be re-learned every hundred years or so, and we're about a hundred years overdue.

Who said anything about losing jobs? Foxconn is replacing shitty low-end assembly line jobs with awesome high-end jobs making robots. Why would we keep people doing shitty jobs instead of creating awesome jobs for them to do? Even better the robot builders will be much more efficient so all of society will be richer. It's the miracle of economy.

Interesting. What do you think would be clear evidence of planning which could not be explained as fuel for fantasies?

Hard work isn't a value in itself.

Of course it is. You just don't have that value.

Family is only valuable if you are going to put in the effort to raise capable children.

Wrong again. Family has value even if you don't do that.

There are plenty of half-assed families out there raising mouth-breathing dullards, which does nothing to improve society.

Maybe (and maybe not) but it's irrelevant to the value of family.

When people refer to "buying things" as a bad thing, they're usually referring to impulse buying. It may enrich advertizes and manufacturers of useless baubles, but it is generally a waste of resources and loaded with opportunity costs.

Everything in the world has, by definition, exactly the value paid for it. It's a circular argument but it goes right to the definition of "value".

I thought he looked up actual real women in a database to gather information about them which would assist him in carrying out his fantasies. Isn't that a fact of the case? isn't that "taking practical steps"?

It's a hard question. Do we actually have to wait for a monster to murder and eat a woman, or can we arrest him the day before he does it, at which point he has only established a clear motive, capability, willingness, and preparation? I don't know. I don't think the answer is obviously yes or no.

"...that will dictate how they rule on the matter"

You make a good argument but the way the US Supreme Court would rule is by whoever is Catholic.

I will support getting rid of the caps when business costs don't vary with bandwidth usage. Until then, like with electricity or gasoline or water or any other utility, cost should scale with use. I don't have any problem with that. My problem is with the secret no-warning charges.

Maybe but my guess is that the people who run that project disagree with the idea that "0.0" should be the version assigned to the first line of code and "1.0" should be the first version deemed stable and ready for general use.

I agree with that kind of numbering so I agree with the GP in this case. I think software statuses are easier to understand when people conform to the 0.0/1.0 convention.

Everyone gets to number their software any way they want, and everyone else gets to gripe about it if they don't like it.

It is just my preferences as an interested citizen. Because we decided to let NASA focus on all the other aspects of outer space, such as telescopes or rovers, they have completely ignored the one thing that I consider to be the only good reason for it to exist: human exploration of space. I also support big-government spending on science and the environment but to allow NASA to do those things is distracting. This is a conclusion based on my total disappointment in NASA's work during my lifetime (since the end of the 1970s).