Which proves exactly how out of touch our legislators are in technical understanding, and once again makes it rather obvious that we have the government we deserve. (Also, how normative the surveillance culture has become that *anyone* should think data should be stored forever, for all time, no matter what it is.)

What kind of human being are YOU, who can't realize that a communicative patient should get to decide that HERSELF?

The usual "This is not medical advice" disclaimer applies to the below.

Yes, there are methods of communication involving computers and gaze recognition. (For example: http://www.tobii.com/en/assist... or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... ). I read in ye olde days there were analog 'gaze boards', and maybe your sister-in-law can develop codes (eyes left yes, lip up no...) But you also need to have conversations with her physicians - maybe they want her working / tiring by blinking for a therapeutic or rehabilitation reason... And the care team for your sister-in-law should be better in touch with what's out there as resources for her and be able to discuss that with you, or you should look into changing that team. (Moderated by knowing the care team will want to get some data over time to determine the best course of action to take - they may need to wait long enough to get data before they'll make a recommendation.)

In any event, deep sympathy for you, your wife, and family!

You flirt dangerously with TL:DR and lack of paragraphs. But I got through anyway. In rebuttal:

1) The farmhands - fewer than ever and fewer still - don't have jack squat. But I never met a farm owner who didn't buy all new vehicles (pickup and car) every three years or more often.

2) Farmhands often live in squalid conditions. But farm owners usually have the finest homes in the county aside from the few physicians and lawyers who still practice and live rurally.

3) Horses also die unexpectedly, break legs / etc., can be injured during the reproduction process, and have far less power than tractors of fifty years ago. If horses were truly superior to power in terms of productivity, they'd still be in use today. Duh. And if modern computerized tractors weren't more efficient and profit-making than tractors of fifty years ago, they'd never be bought. While farmers must have new personal vehicles, most I've known in life will never dispose of equipment unless swapping makes them more money.

4) It is common sense that, were farmers to truly co-op and fight, food prices would go more to the farmer. But they don't.

5) Yes, deglobalization is a nice thought. Go for it. But, when nobody buys your bug-ridden crop because the processors can get healthier meat shipped from over a border cheaper than you can produce it... Good luck.

6) Yes, farmers and hands do work long and laborious hours. So do many others, and I feel much more for the fast food fry cook than the average farmer or hand. Just sayin'

SEED IT!!!!!!!

Yep, instead of a $10 wrench a $5 knife will now do the trick. That's progress!

Sorry, I am a computer. "Find the flaw in this argument," does not compute. I guess I will never be a real boy.

So EMA will know it's an oil explosion and not the start of WW III. That sure fixes the problem!!! In no way, shape, or form, was this immediate knee-jerk feel-good media-soundbyte produced spin control that actually does nothing in terms of real safety. Gosh, just love it when politics takes precedence over real substance - reminds me of the final years of the Soviet Union.

The news is the Apple has received enough LEA requests for information that they've put together guidelines as a pre-emptive against being bothered about things they can't do.

I suppose we could be heartened that it specifically states upon receiving a warrant thus-and-such are available? Until a three-letter agency gives them a Sekrit Not-A-Warrant Order requiring the information. And that, Government, is the whirlwind you reap when you play fast and loose with the Constitution - there should be no trust of you, ever.

Who, AFAIK and comparing their biographies, did far more for NASA recruitment?

AC should be modded up, not on the validity of the article but for recognizing this is not a black and white situation. Internet access should be placed on par with phones and electicity: Privately owned but state regulated. (And yes, states don't do perfect jobs with those two industries but it is much preferable to the oligarchy now present.)

Until we know who designed the glasses, there will be no telling just how popular they might become... If they can only capture 20% of the Mantis-3d-Glass market share, will they have failed?

Because a smartwatch was already tried, the Fossil Abacus. I owned one, and while it was cool it does indeed get pretty tiring to make sure it was recharged every night. Things may indeed change, but wristwatch companies have far more to fear from smartphones than smart watches.

Sad that parent was modded Funny and not "Painfully but Ironically True." We the People does nothing for change, it is simply an opiate for those pissed off. If I'm wrong (and I'd like to be,) name one thing that Obama has actually changed because of a petition there.

They have news segments? Every time I've watched it's been a panel of pundits yacking... Praytell when do they actually report only news and not urinate all over it with their opinions?