Ok, sharing my information because a friend played a game is incredibly stupid, and shouldn't have been allowed, however...

I'm having trouble seeing the negative consequences. The information I share about myself on facebook is information that I am willing to share. My political and religious views are not a secret, and I'd rather politicians be aware of my views in the hopes they'll adjust their policy to match.

I'm concerned when there's a data breach at a company that has my credit card information, or a problem with payroll at work, but not when some information I posted online is viewed by others.

I wonder how often the machinery will think you took something when you didn't. Perhaps the crowd was too big, and it wasn't obvious which customer took the item. I assume most people won't check the receipt while walking out to verify every item listed is actually in their cart. And if they do catch a mistake, what then? How do you prove you don't have something? What if you catch it the mistake the next day?

I'm curious where you shop. Stores near me with self checkout require me to scan each item, and then place them into the bagging area. There is a scale in the bagging area, so the machine yells at you if you place something unexpectedly heavy or light there. And if you want to bring your own bags, there's a problem: If you place them on the bagging area, you must call an attendant to OK the extra weight. Or, you must keep your bags on the floor, and after you scan each item, you must tell the computer that you wish to skip bagging, so you can place the item into your bag.

I was planning to be an average developer, but I guess I'll become one of the best bug hunters instead. Because as an average software engineer, I assume that I'd be way better than average at finding bugs than someone who's already made that their career.

No, I don't believe that Earth has been visited by extraterrestrial life. I don't believe there's evidence. But I'm open to the possibility - I just think it's unlikely.

The universe is big, and we haven't yet found evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. If it does exist, it's probably very far away. So far, we're not aware of any way to travel faster than the speed of light, so any interstellar travel will take a very long time. Additionally, they'd have to decide that Earth is a worthwhile destination. Perhaps they would be able to detect that Earth has the qualities that make life possible, and could have sent an expedition. But if they were looking for signs of intelligent life, those signs were probably not detectable until quite recently relatively speaking. Depending on how far away intelligent life might be, those signs might still not yet have met them.

Is it possible we've been visited? Sure. Is it likely? It's impossible to answer without having more information, but I lean towards saying no, on account of how big space is, and how really far away things are.

I don't know about anyone else, but I've never thanked an ATM when it dispenses cash to me.

Unlike ATMs, having a pizza delivered by a self-driving car isn't a normal experience today, and customers expect there to be a person there. As far as I know, laws don't yet permit a self-driving car to do something like this without a person present. So I think it was fair that the people were thanking the person, whether they saw him or not.

UPS delivers packages to my apartment door, and then quickly walks to the next door. Occasionally, I open the door and get the package quickly enough that the USP guy is still in the building. I'll say "thank you" to him, even though I don't see him, or really know quite where he is. It's possible I'm talking to nobody, but I say it because there's a fair chance I'm not.

It's not about crossing the road. It's about hailing a ride from a self-driving taxi. Until google solves this problem, gorillas will be able go wherever they want by car, which will cause the other animals to get mad.

My dad has a side business, and he uses a dot matrix printer for the invoices. He's been using the same printer for over 25 years, and I believe he's on his second printer ribbon. The printing isn't very dark, but it's perfectly readable.

...As if I didn't already know.

Apple claims that the odds of someone being able to unlock your phone with their face is 1 in 1,000,000. That sounds impressive, but with 7.6 billion people in the world, that means there are 7,600 people who can probably unlock your phone. But where do those people probably live? They most likely aren't randomly shuffled throughout the world. They are most likely the people with the same facial features as you - with similar ethnic backgrounds, and very likely, in similar geographic locations. I certainly look similar to the people around me. And I look particular similar to members of my family. I wonder if it would be very difficult for me to intentionally find someone who could unlock the same phone as me.

I've generally considered the term dirt road to include gravel.... but I suppose if you wanted to be more accurate, one could use the terms paved and unpaved roads.

Cobblestone is a form of paving.

We clearly have different definitions. In my American English, there are two kinds of roads: paved and dirt. Paved means any kind of hardened surface, including asphalt, concrete, etc.

Are your streets not paved there?

Different regions within countries speak quite differently. Homogenization comes from the cities, particularly as people move around, or one city interacts with another. This can happen across an ocean, but it won't be fast. Hearing different accents isn't enough -- if it was, Hollywood movies would have given everyone an American accent by now. People have to move from one place to another, and children have to be raised in areas where both dialects are common enough that they pick up some of each.

I've had a package go missing once at my current address. It was replaced at no cost to me. I have absolutely no motivation to have packages delivered inside my house since I know that if a package fails to show up, I can have it replaced without losing any money.

If packages were frequently disappearing from my house, giving someone (or some company) access to my house would definitely not be a step in the right direction to solving the problem.