In the best of all possible worlds, it would be a closed-loop system where the steam powers the turbines and then flows back around to be re-heated. As it is now, the cooling water wastes the energy it took to heat it in the first place.

My guess is that this new skin/face will become a new Facebook upgrade that will either install itself and take over your phone or nag you to upgrade until you bend over and acquiesce. I decided I didn't need Facebook on my Android so I uninstalled it. Happily I have the option to do so -- my previous device had it in crapware where my only choice was to uninstall upgrades.

Before I found Reader, I had RSS feeds grouped together in a bookmarks folder. I suppose I could go back to that system but I've gotten used to hitting the same list of unread items (and the option to keep any of them unread) from any of my several desktop browsers or from the mobile device. It really is a shame that something which is useful (but not used by "enough" ad-reading wetware devices) is considered obsolete so quickly. I guess Google wants to invest more of their money in privacy-invading street-view units.

Just So Stories are always amusing because when you start at the end and work backward you can get to almost any starting place you wish to. And on an unrelated matter, those printed maze games are also easier to solve by starting at the end and working backward.

Knowing how Texas has kowtowed to polluters in the past, the intent of this has to be making evidence inadmissible rather than stopping it from being collected.

They have been fixed up a bit to make them more presentable. http://hisvorpal.wordpress.com/2013/02/08/george-w-bush-sooper-genius/

Really, cue Claude Rains and all that.

I've less quarrel with the concept of using a 3rd party to verify identity (that's what a driver's license does when we aren't on line) than with the notion of using the services of a "free" site that gets its revenue by tracking its users and selling that information to advertisers and the like. And do I want to stay logged in to something like Facebook when it is exposing my information (not all of which is bogus fiction) to anyone who has access to their API? And yes, Google is doing much of the same as are numerous others.

I agree. If tablets are PC's then so are smartphones. Including iPhones would increase Apple's count but would drag in a bunch of other vendors.

Yes, shit does happen, but with a hammer an accident usually results in little more than a bruised fingernail. Check out the Twitter feed for @GunDeaths to see just how many people are killed by firearms every day. And almost every one of those is a case where the gun is being used as the manufacturer intended, not an accident.

Java applets were a good idea in 1996 or so when the web was mostly text documents and static images. Now there isn't very much that an applet does that can't be done with equal facility and somewhat greater security by making a web application using any one of a number of technologies. (Admittedly deploying an application server has its own set of security issues but for the most part, they are limited to the server side of the street.) I can't think of anywhere I've encountered Java applets in the past few years -- the ones I recall have all been replaced with Javascript for server-side calcuations.

Truly. Why else target the device to iPhone users? Especially since it will need to support old/new connectors.

Yes. There is a Russian proverb from the Tsarist period that translates into something like: "You can get used to anything. Except dying."

How does pyramid fit into this? The original premium ticket holders get to see the show they paid for either at the price they paid, or at a lower price.

Head Cancer -- what's the EMF rating on this puppy?