I was just thinking that too ...

Chill man, just have some yogurt.

Nice. But I'll really believe you when you say something unpopular, like that intelligence is strongly heritable and all the consequences of that, for example.

Not that I'm a materialist, in the end ... sure, a love letter "is" just paper and ink, but that's the least interesting thing about it.

And the transformation of your desktop into a dumb "smart" phone is complete!

Now that your screen is dominated by huge "apps", I guess you need someplace for notifications ...

Wow ... I wonder who might be in charge of the executive branch? Slashdot is maintaining radio silence on that point.

... oh yes, clearly the brain has to be the only organ not strongly shaped by genetics. 'cause that's so scientific.

This is all an overreaction. Everyone knows that a single isolated incident of a car bursting into flames after some kind of impact is no big deal. We shouldn't be concerned until at least three reports surface in the news. At which point it instantly becomes SERIOUS BUSINESS and must be investigated!

The current zombie obsession is loathsome and tiresome.

Gives a new meaning to "get a life".

Yeah, cause that works so well for everything else. Nothing's homier than public housing, healthier than a "free" clinic, or cleaner than a public restroom.

Every time there's a story about the trend of automating everything people worry that all the jobs are going to go away and there will be nothing left for anyone who isn't a brilliant scientist or talented artist. Well it actually makes sense to outlaw the automation of C&D letters by bots like the media industry is currently doing. One can make an entirely reasonable argument that this kind of legal activity needs to be performed by a human, not a machine. (At least up up until the point where we get true AI at least, and then everything goes out the window anyways.)

All we have to do is get a law passed saying that each C&D claim has to be reviewed by a real human who is employed by the company whose content is supposedly being infringed, plus specify a minimum amount of time necessary for the review. Huzah! At a minimum of one minute per C&D review (which could certainly be increased to five or even ten minutes if necessary,) 6.5 million C&Ds per week is at least 2,700 new jobs, and if the number keeps doubling every year... In less than two decades we could have an entire economy based around C&D letters!

I learned about a number of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales through my Android phone. And in each case i then went and looked it up again on my PC for review before deciding whether or not to make a purchase.

Yet another thing, along with self-driving cars, Google Books, and Google Glass, that Vernor Vinge's 2006 novel seems to be on track for.

Yep.

If you start off too abstracted, you don't get anywhere, teaching-wise.

Yes, BASIC rocks for learning. It's not half bad for many real world purposes, either.

It fails miserably at being an obscure way to limit programming to a guild, though. Hey, maybe those things are not unrelated ...

I doubt very much that most people had much in the way of "privacy" through most of history. Your average Joe in a tribe or village ... well, his neighbors knew what he was doing, and who with, approximately all of the time.

I happen to like the brief window of modern higher privacy that we had, don't get me wrong ... just saying that it was something of an aberration.

Hrm ... wouldn't it still be Better Than Nothing (tm), though?