While I liked the first one - and yes it was a simple mashup of the original 3 - it was good and brought us new characters. Then the second one came out and really felt like the people steering the ship had never seen Star Wars before. And the "apology" from Luke in the last installment was weak ("I'm sorry, I was wrong"). I also think Rogue One didn't help inspire confidence. Solo was pretty good - kept the concept of Team and had the swashbuckling.

But I've personally grown tired of the story. Each movie has been, and probably always will be, a band of small rebels against the super-force who have another secret Giant Weapon, and there's one small Key that holds the super-weapon together. And the rebels have to band together to kick the chair out and destroy the house-of-cards. Oh - and somebody flying the Falcon always kicks the chair out.

(minor spoiler)

And what I really don't like - is that Star Wars has become a "single-super-{person}woman" story. The one all powerful go it her own invincible super-power person. Is this Marvel or LucasFilm? The end of this movie was fairly exciting but unbelievable. I liked Rey's final battle story, that was nice and felt complete. However, there was nothing in the larger story to show that rebel force was out making friends. They just show up in mass? (and violated a Star Trek rule - traveling through space takes time). Maybe it is society - "We're a team of individual specialists who never communicate - but we're a team!"

This final installment was "just okay" - parts were good. Rey and Ren's story was good. Thankfully there wasn't any "Luke I am your father" moments. Those long Princess Leia not talking moments should have been dropped. We all know she's dead - which is tough. But she didn't friggen talk - just stood there, I kept waiting and thinking "Line?" Ugh!!! Tom Hanks talking to Wilson was more interesting.

I'll second that.

I've never heard of "Invisible" (Invisibilia yes). My google-foo is weak on this one -- you'd think such a popular show would be more... visible.

it's a bigger number :-)

1200 square feet or 120 square meters - however you like it. Still - that's a big sheet of skin. I read this and in my mind imagined a giant rolled up "rug" of skin being shipped. Then doctors put it on a giant spool and cut off a few feet, and then wrapped it on patients.

Still - a rectangle 120 meters on a side is huge !! That's seems like a lot.

Although I can't imagine a "million centimeters" A million of anything is impossibly large.

I agree with your assessment. While Pickups are useful vehicles - only once in my younger days did I need/have a plow. Most of the time it was an empty truck drinking fuel.

These days my life is kids in a car seat - and the truck bed would be Hauling Crap to either the beach or the dump. Most of the time (5 days a week) it's hauling kids to school and then getting to work. I don't like 15 MPG - so I now have a Hot Hatch that get's ~30 MPG - and while smaller than a truck it is much more economical and fun to drive. I need a truck on weekends but too cheap to own a 3rd vehicle.

I find the CyberTruck Ugly. But it does seem to meet my basic needs... a "light" truck that allows for Hauling of Crap on weekends and economical for getting to work.

My biggest concern though is Fender Benders. How does the mono-body hold up to repair?! It's cool - like a giant Die Cast truck. It's still ugly like Hello Kitty.

OMG - I hope Tesla doesn't start a trend and GM-Ford starts making fugly trucks.

Frank Zappa was a great supporter of the '

Remember folks, don't eat the yellow snow.

pedantic much?

I haven't determined if this was total mismanagement or a bubble popping? $9.5 Billion cash infusion? what?

For the most part I haven't noticed problems. I have to appreciate it though because Apple has been notoriously slow to introduce features into iOS - for years I've looked at Android friends who had cool new features every week. So now maybe Apple is ramping up software dev to keep us all happy - after all we aren't buying new phones :-) And scaling up brings problems. I do find it hard to believe that they will be able to turn off features and have things work - that no interdependence will exist. However many of use have changed a "private" method to add something new for an upcoming feature believing no side effects. Everyone tests the New Feature and says it works - but all forget to test the old feature with it off (because New is always cooler).

The one and only problem recently that I've had - only because I've started using something I haven't previously.

When I stream music via Amazon Music over LTE for more than say "10 minutes"

Important note: "After a period of time..."
1) music tends to keep playing, but it won't download new songs.
2) All internet traffic in other apps stops (Chrome reports "network not available right now").
        2a) Speedtest and other apps all report they can't access the internet.
3) Stopping music playback allows the problem to clear up within a few minutes (not immediately... it takes "a minute").

I haven't yet tried repeating with other streaming services (such as Netflix). But it wasn't a problem with iOS 12. I don't stream often via LTE so I don't know when it became a problem.

I haven't noticed this same problem over WiFi - I stream music or podcasts all day and perform Google searches etc.

It is tragic. Maybe ...maybe a cure is found before she needs it.

my gosh - I have pounds, many pounds, of plastic blocks in tubs. And each Lego kit comes !wrapped! in plastic bags.

I've given up and now vacuum the floor with abandon.

Maybe this is about pollution in the environment. But I'd have to imagine Lego consume raw materials for, and generates a LOT of plastic.

My kids are a bit younger. The local school started a delayed opening this year, but not ALL area schools did this -- for us it mean Younger kids are picked up by bus BEFORE the high-school kids are. Everyone has a later start time. Bus schedules and afterschool programs were all messed up (buses are shared between districts - and not everyone switched start times - so sharing is harder). And for HS - baseball/soccer programs need to be on the road to make away games but school is still in session. We have union high-schools so some of the elementary buses are shared with the union HS.

This means 1st, 2nd----8th graders are all out waiting for the bus at 7am. And HS students can wait until 7:50am or something. It's kind of a mess - having a 6 year old standing in the dark (we're a bit up north) at 7am. And the school doesn't open until 7:45 -- but it takes the bus that long to make it's loop.

Most parents are giving their kids the extra 30 minutes of sleep by driving kids to school. My preschooler is dead to the world at 7am. Really - I've even lifted her little hand and dropped it back on the bed without any signs of life. You used to put the young kids on the (later) bus and go to work. Now you need to wait until the school opens or get their cranky asses on the 7am bus.

Meanwhile - the whole town is now late to work due to the swap in schedules. The kids bus used to come before the new opening time.

While I support the concept - I can see it becoming standard bureaucracy.

My warning would to make it a Notification so that gov't rule makers receive a heads up to get going - and thinking. But I also believe that gov't needs to create a set of regulation Requirements so that businesses can think about this ahead of time and self-regulate. Then companies know when / how they fit in and what might need to change - both design wise and rule changes.

Granted the nature of the inventions might cause "uh - didn't think about that." But who should be thinking about that?

He was probably an investor - and upon exit they paid him back for his investment?!

Sure - probably plenty of "here share the money" graft or Ponzi like gains.

But maybe they wanted him out and departed ways and divested his money from their organization?!

Maybe.

A) is there a question in this?

B) I don't have a privacy angle. Rather a speed & hassle objective.

Like you said - I can walk into a store and buy something using either Cash or a credit card (or Apple Pay). I scan my items, swipe, and walk out.

Online though.... omg it's a different story. I have to sign up. create a password, answer a confirmation email... and and and...add to cart, okay, okay, yes, no, please...commit.

Although I will say that once I purchased stuff online and had a very Store like experience using PayPal. I bought some auto-parts and the website had paypal integration. I pressed Pay with Paypal and the store received my shipping address & payment in a single click. I didn't have to sign up for anything - parts just arrived. Simple. Now a days I buy from them often. It's simple, I rare even price check, $5 difference isn't worth my time.

Yeah baby. Do it like that.

I used to have a router that was crap. A few updates in the year I bought it then went dormant. But they continued to push out new devices. I called support when I needed help and they said "buy a new device" because mine was EOL. After a friggen year! And get this -- I had enabled the secure Wifi feature (PKTIP or whatever) when they released the firmware for it. The router would run for 15 minutes and then get slower and slower until becoming unresponsive. I figured there was a bug fix for it. Nope - buy a newer device.

I did buy a new device.... from another manufacturer.