Where this technology will really make a difference is remotely-fired platforms - drones and robotic gun mounts. The operator paints the target with the laser, hits a selector when the beam hits a good point, and commands the platform to fire. The computer figures out the rest. Fragile meat people aren't exposed to take the shot.

It's expensive now, but this is the introductory enthusiast version. The open source v3 equivalent will be have plans online using easily acquired inexpensive components and a 3d printer.

(As scary as this can be, part of me thinks this is awesome - but then I always play riggers in Shadowrun. ;) )

That was my immediate thought, too. Against pure trolls, IP only companies that don't actually make anything, this would be worthless. Companies would just spin off their portfolios to new "independent" IP entities who produced nothing but lawsuits to avoid the defensive response.

Exactly. Changes to tax codes to try to screw "the rich" will almost never touch them, other than to take some productive money out of the system and waste it on lobbyists, lawyers, and accountants when it could have been put somewhere useful. If I was facing a $2 Billion tax bite, you better damn well believe I'd spend some fraction of that money to find a way to get out of paying the rest. Even the so-called "Buffet Tax" isn't actually designed to go after the places Mr Buffet himself actually hides his cash from the taxman, it's just a feelgood measure to stir up populist votes while screwing those middle class folks who suddenly find themselves "rich" but don't have enough cash to pay for the accountants needed to skate.

I'm with you - the one idea that the big box stores absolutely refuse to contemplate is competing based on _service_ instead of _price_. Most of them already used low prices to kill off the local small stores that provided real service to the shopper and community, now that they're getting creamed by Amazon they suddenly are all about supporting the local store.

You want to be the "local" store, Mr. Big Box Chain? Try some actual service. Stores that make sense, staff that understands the product and wishes to help rather than just upsell warranty packages, "sale" prices that are actually below the normal price that I need less than 2 seconds to find with my phone. Some products I really want to be able to touch and examine with my Mark 1 eyeball, which I just can't do online. Or ask questions in real time, with the product in front of me. Make that happen, make the experience pleasant, and I'll buy from the physical store over the online store if the prices are even close.

Too often I go into a place like Best Buy absolutely intending to buy a specific thing and fail. The stores are laid out to some layout designed to make you walk past as many impulse purchase racks as possible, rather than getting you right to the thing you actually want to buy. The staff isn't judged on whether they are helpful or even friendly - their metrics are all about sales, without teaching them any skills at interaction that might make sales happen. The item might not be in the place it should be, but good luck finding a minion to check the system for where it is, or whether it is out of stock. Forget service, try to go to Best Buy and not get angry.

As long as the brick and mortar guys lose on both sales and service to the online retailers, they're inevitably going to die, unmourned. I acknowledge that they probably can't win on price. How about, just for giggles, trying service, just once?

Hey, up until 5 years or so ago there was still a brand-new, never sold, never left the lot, Studebaker sitting in the dealer showroom right in front of a huge window.

Of course, the dealer had died decades earlier and the heirs were *still* arguing about the inheritance and kept it in limbo, so the property was kept untouched all those years, gathering dust and fading under the sun. Not too far outside Pittsburgh, I saw it a few years before it finally disappeared. My dad used to drive past it every time he was in the area visiting family or on a business trip, from well before I was born up until he went by a few years back and it was finally gone.

So a factory new Studebaker has actually sold more recently than a copy of Novell WordPerfect.

Wow. More than 30 comments already and no-one has brought up Microsoft killing the cpu if it thinks your copy of the OS is pirated. Must be a slow day. ;)

Some of the sites are for designated terrorist entities - it is already illegal to do business with them. (In fact there is a large fine attached.) No 1st Amendment protection in that narrow case, it just isn't enforced worth a damn (hello YouTube and WordPress, I'm looking at you), so maybe British pressure will raise the temperature a little.

Otherwise, no, there probably won't be anything done as lunatics and creeps of all stripes are generally allowed to say whatever the heck they want here in the US. It isn't freedom if only the right kind of speech is protected.

You missed the extra special terror for the agoraphobics who are already panicky about traveling in the first place: they're not so limited as the acrophobics, they freak out over all three dimensions.