but the needed reinvention is less about being able to record the input than it is about the quality of the input being recorded. For all the dozens of channels I have in my cable package, there is precious little input worth recording or watching.

From the summary, the league owns the equipment and provides it to the team only during the game! So the users don't really get to learn to use the freaking things before the games!!! Make no wonder the users hate the things. They have to try and figure out how to use the tools at the very time that they are at their busiest. That's a planning fail on the part of both MS and the NFL.

If (well, let's be realistic - in reality) the cars are not properly secured, they will be hackable. That means they will be hacked. Imagine a car on the highway suddenly jamming on its brakes. Or a car suddenly racing down a crowded pedestrian mall. Or an extremist government deciding to limit how far you may drive in a given year. Or limiting where you may drive. Much easier to do so if the cars are all controlled by computers. Until Snowden, people called me paranoid. Now, not so much.

Just because a technology has been around for a while doesn't mean it's obsolete. We've been using A/C electricity in our homes for a century or more. It still works just fine. For printing, bottom line is we need something to make marks on paper.

Been there, done that, got away from it as soon as I could. Looks dreadful. If the label comes off in your drive (it does happen) kiss you drive bye-bye. If you have a drive with a narrow opening, it may not fit (seriously).

That's an excellent question. There are probably problems that could be solved by technology, but do the relevant techies know about the problems? A previous post mentioned automating testing of, say, TB. Great idea. But how would I, a programmer, know that that particular need exists? I'm not psychic (possibly psychotic, but that's a different issue). If techies are not improving the world, if they're spending their time creating stuff like Angry Birds, maybe they simply haven't found anything more interesting. Or maybe they see a better potential ROI in Angry Birds rather than testing for TB. Solving problems is great. Having a roof over your head and food on your table is better still.

Every time I read about some idiot scheme like this, I'm very tempted to write a program that will take a file and randomly (okay, for well known file types, randomly with a bit of intelligence) change a single bit in the file. Wonder if I could sell it for a buck a copy? Think I'd call it NeenerNeener.

Let's put aside the ethics/morals debate for a moment and consider the math.

To send a spacecraft, using our current technology, to the nearest star would take tens of thousands of years. There is no reasonable expectation that a spacecraft built using our current technology could survive that long, so we cannot simply do this yet. Realistically, we're at least centuries away from being able to do this. That gives us a lot of time to research these planets.

Yay! Rationality!

Because we're not smart enough to keep track of what we have in our own fridge. What a waste.

We don't really understand the effect of mosquitoes on the overall biosphere. Is there something critical to us that relies, perhaps indirectly, on the little buggers? Quite possibly, but there is no one who knows enough to tell us. Better not to go with the nuclear option when we are in such a state of ignorance.

Will older chips still be able to run the latest version of Windows 10?

Approximately 50% of people have an IQ below average. Personally, I blame the government. But we still have to deal with the fact that many users are, to be polite, dolts. If you want proof of that, just look at the people who get elected to office.

And this is a problem. There are potential employers, government investigators, etc, that actively use Facebook data when reviewing individuals. If they are relying on Facebook's assumptions about us, they may well be making decisions that affect us based on incorrect data. I get it that many people don't understand why we wish to not be featured on Facebook. We need to educate them. That may include some tough love ("No, I won't be coming for Thanksgiving dinner this year because I do not want to be featured on your Facebook account.") Sometimes, all of your options suck.

If you push for unions, just keep in mind that you are not getting rid of all your problems; you are trading one set of problems for a different set. It may be a trade you find good, but it is a trade.

A few dozen emails per day, probably not a problem. Many dozens, or hundreds, of emails per day, somewhat overwhelming.

The question is what's the nature of the problem? Email, in and of itself, is not the problem. It's the number of emails. Are you giving your email address to anyone who asks? I'm amazed at the number of retailers who ask for my email address. Maybe we don't need to give out email addresses like candy.

Beyond that, some people seem to love to spend a lot of their time sending out pointless emails. Maybe we need to set up filters to direct their emails to a separate folder that we skim over, say, once a week. Half, to three quarters, of the emails I receive at work are unnecessary and contribute nothing at all to my work - they typically get deleted post haste.