Of course, from the consumer’s end this will probably be a very pricey convenience for a long time, once it’s available at all. But from a business perspective, it just goes to prove that there are still little things right under your nose that you could improve, and likely make a bundle doing so.

Ouch. I’ve often thought that today’s conservatives weren’t the brightest bulbs on the whole, and wondered whether there was some causal link there, but to have it bluntly spelled out like that is pretty damning.

Maybe these studies should be publicized a lot more. Nobody wants to be labeled a dunce, so it might cut down on racism, homophobia, and Tea Party Republicans all at once.

(I have to point out that this refers only to today’s conservatives. Conservatism was a respectable position twenty or thirty years ago, it has just been hijacked more recently by the anyone-different-must-be-destroyed crowd, and the politicians willing to pander to them.)

(Of course, I’ll believe it when I see it — too many of these pie-in-the-sky tech advances get mentioned once or twice, then vanish, never to be seen again. But it’s exciting to think that it might actually work.)

[...] I remember reading a science fiction story about a computer worm that searched for people this way: going from computer to computer, trying to identify a specific individual.

I immediately thought of The Adolescence of P-1, one of my teenage favorites, and I was tickled to see that someone else had the same thought in the comments.

Un-freakin’-believable. And just this side of actually criminal. Dodd is a former senator — he should know that the money-for-votes relationship is illegal, and must remain an unspoken truth. Now he’s confirmed what everyone knew was the case, but had no evidence for: that SOPA/PIPA were written by the entertainment industry, and that that industry considers its donations to be bribes and expects the laws they want to be passed because of them.

(Hint, Mr. Dodd: the polite fiction is that campaign donations are no-strings-attached gifts, presumably because the politician in question has views compatible with the gift-giver and the gift-giver wants to help ensure that the politician is elected. Crossing that line is illegal. I shouldn’t have to be telling you this.)

If the MPAA doesn’t fire Dodd over that comment, they’ll prove they’re just as stupid and out-of-touch as he just shown himself to be.

EDIT, 2012-01-25: Hm, maybe this was actually criminal. Some people think so, anyway. I rather hope that this probe happens, though realistically I expect Obama and other politicians won’t dare to upset the MPAA any further by investigating them… unless, of course, enough people demand it. I also expect that, if such an investigation is started, it will be a sham, and everyone will know it.