Re: mob named "Clippy". Heard that name was discarded in favor of "Jar Jar Clinks"...

No discussion of the future is complete without a discussion of the impact of Earth's limited resources on humanity and few short stories strip this concept to the bare bones than the good Doctor's story about a teenage girl who surprises her brother by stowing away on his rescue mission to deliver life saving vaccine to a distant planet not knowing that there is only enough fuel aboard to make the course corrections needed to reach the planet with her brother and the vaccines aboard and no extra mass. None. In the precise limited future, her mass, small as it is, is far more than even the worst anticipable problems in flight would require in terms of extra fuel margins. The story and its conclusion open the door to any number of avenues of thematic discussion. Also recommended by Asimov is Nightfall. It discusses the impact of a sudden paradigm shift in a society's fundemental belief system that appears in an incontrovertible and destabilizing manner. Ender's Game has a short story version, by Orson Scott Card. Ethics of war.

I suggest the strike be scheduled for the Ides of March, March 15th 2014.

By having a national strike. The entire US disconnects broadband and cable tv services until prices go down and service promises and flexibility go up with transparency about real time data flow rates.

I'm sticking with VHS! O.0

Kids want quality games. My son (age 11) very much wanted a Wii U for Christmas, and got what he asked for, in part because he had so many Wii games for the original system. Unfortunately, he was disappointed with the Mario style games that came with his unit and the other new games because: 1) They were too cartoonish and not much of a "Visual effects" improvement, cf the gaming possible in the iPhone 5; 2) The ideas in them were old hat and most of the "new" games seemed liked releases for the Wii hastily repackaged and modified for the Wii U. 3) Nintendo does not seem to be making games that are different enough to hold his interest. Nintendo's Mario and all of the originals even with new levels and powers are too much of the same old thing. Those who grew up with them may find them nostalgic but today's kids have no sense of nostalgia. They want a sense of reward for their gamesmanship and most of the games don't give you that. Further, Nintendo made a huge mistake when they did not make his Wii Mii's transferable and useable with new games. Yes, he can use them with his old Wii Games but why couldn't they figure out that kids who had spent hours customizing 50 or more Mii's might not want to use them on a supposedly superior system. That's really what turned him off at the start. What a no-brainier too! That's the problem with a gaming system designed by grandparents who think the same old thing will do. I'd bet some young guys at Nintendo brought some of these things up and were shouted down. Or worse. But it's not all bad, it's the only TV remote control we have that's too big to lose! And it's rechargeable!

I didn't include my Fitbit in my poll response because its still too primitive for what I think of when I think of wearable computing which is at least the processing power and utility of a smartphone sans cancer damage potential. I tend to think Dick Tracy's watch meet's the Enterprises talking computer with a bit of projectable keyboard and display thrown in for good measure. I optimistically suggested the end of 2015 as a potential delivery date especially since so much of it is already near to shipping if current commercials are believable. But still, they may be a long way from what users really will want from wearable media which may include: emergency response and rescue, advanced communication, google glasses like photography and journaling, pulse monitoring and other vitals, and advanced worldwide networked weather monitoring and of course entry codes to everything you could reasonably expect to unlock, open or drive with the apps necessary to control them. Still, force field generation is likely to require power generation a century ahead of us. Hmm, well, given Tesla, maybe less.

Schrodinger's! Bang! The cat may be alive but I just shot my auto-correct gremlin and killed him dead, I think.

SchrÃdinger's! My darn autocorrect has a half-wit of 0!

...that Cheshire cat of SchrÃdinger's from the quantum cradle to the quantum grave, which may be side by side, or not!