That might be an improvement. Musk reportedly has 14 children by four women. The Order of Succession should be interesting.

That's why I use HTML.

One advantage of the horse and buggy is that they can actually take you home even if you're asleep, if you have a good horse on a familiar route.

At a certain level, you'll NEED 911.

"The Texas capital recorded 99 such calls in Waymo's first nine months of service there"

That's about one incident in every three days, on average, in a city of a million residents. Doesn't seem like an insuperable burden to me.

You keep going on about "its own people". Why is that so important to you? Israel has killed tens of thousands of people in Gaza, including children. Are you saying that doesn't matter because it's okay for Israel to kill anybody they choose, except Israelis? People are people, and dead is dead.

You seem to be trapped in an extreme tribalist paradigm in which it's terribly evil for a tribe to kill its own members but entirely okay to kill members of other tribes, because they aren't really human. That attitude is itself extremely evil. It's exactly Nazi Holocaust thinking: they believed it was okay to kill Jews because they weren't really Germans. Stop it.

Oh, it gets worse ....

* Papa Johns Transforms Digital Ordering with AI Ordering Assistant with Google: "Papa Johns announced a major transformation of its digital ordering experience, designed to deliver speed, accuracy, and real-time personalization .... the first partner for Google Cloud’s newly expanded AI solution, Food Ordering agent, which is helping the pizza brand deploy a fully unified voice and text AI ordering system to remove friction across customer touchpoints." [Don't you just love marketing language?] "Food Ordering agent is a comprehensive omnichannel platform that enables brands to deploy high-quality voice AI agents across mobile apps, websites, telephones, kiosks, and in-car systems." [qsrmagazine: quick-service restaurant]

* Papa Johns Looks to Reclaim Tech Leadership Through AI Innovation: "Using Google Cloud’s tech, Papa Johns will begin proactively suggesting orders through push notifications or email based on learned customer preferences and anticipated needs for upcoming occasions like birthdays or sporting events. ... AI-powered marketing campaigns filled with personalized offers and content."

* "Little Caesars has taken digital ordering to a new level .... its customers can now order pizza using ChatGPT ... letting customers use conversational AI to plan meals, receive personalized recommendations, and customize orders -- all in ChatGPT. Customers can look for special deals and get personalized suggestions based on their preferences, which ChatGPT will learn over time.

* I also seem to remember an article about targeting pizza advertisements to households based on an estimate that they were low on food. Just pair that with one of the smart refrigerators, like Samsung, which knows how much food you have on hand.

A piezoelectric mike wouldn't need to draw any power when inactive (i.e., not hearing sound). A dynamic mike actually generates electricity. (So does piezo, but it's a tiny amount.) Other components would still draw some current.

Depends on how it's implemented. For both privacy and battery life, the best option would be a physical switch that completely disconnects the microphone.

Just be sure to set the switch to "Good" not "Evil": Meet the Robinsons. And keep moving forward.

Maybe in your home .... there also exists paint which can be used to turn entire walls into erasable white-boards, with the additional advantage that the wall is easy to clean. Especially nice if you have children (or whoever) who like to draw on walls. (Not a good habit to get into, though.) The paint is rather expensive and requires a primer ... "fully cured in four days" ... OOO! Magnetic whiteboard paint! I didn't know about that! "Holds four pages of printer paper."

Coincidentally, NHTSA report (2005) on the (negative) effects of driving while conversing using a hands-free device: "Phone conversation was associated with increased delay in responding to lead-vehicle speed changes, which indicates significant cognitive impairment due to phone conversation."

I expect arguing with an AI which will not stop gassing on about nonsense would be even more distracting.

Seems like it would be useful to have kind of a touch-screen tablet device which could integrate timers with recipes. So if the recipe says, "Bake for 30 minutes", touching the "30 minutes" would start the timer. Or saying "start timer" in case your hands might be dirty. Scrolling in response to voice commands would also be good.

And it sounds like you don't cook. Or use timers anyway.

So they're offering a device that is connected to the Internet, has AI, a speaker, and a voice interface and can be moved from room to room. Which sounds a lot like a smartphone without a screen, so what exactly is the point of this? How does it add any value for anybody? I assume it also requires yet another subscription. I guess if it's cheaper than a phone it might appeal to the visually impaired.

I suspect the two of you are thinking of two different versions of Star Trek, one of which used state-of-the-art 1960s user interfaces, including tactile feedback. And my first thought also was that this device was intended to emulate the Star Trek library computer.