So you're suggesting that the pumps are adding enough energy to move millions of tons of earth and rock? Really?

That's nonsense. All they're doing is breaking loose enormous energies that were already there.

The fact that we were recently wrong about the stability of the area isn't really relevant. The drilling couldn't add enormous amounts of energy to the substrata, in the form of stresses that required shifting enormous amounts of rock to release, so you have to assume that the stresses were already present. When or how would they have been released without the drilling is an important question, but they would have been released eventually. Is this way of releasing them better or worse? I don't think we know that.

I don't see anyone claiming that they didn't. What would you expect?

I think the two are complementary. Google's reverse lookups often don't find matches for personal numbers, but do a great job with businesses -- it's particularly cool if the business has actually set up their Google page; you get not just the business name, but imagery chosen by the business. For personal numbers, I think Google only finds people who have their number in the Google profile. Given that most people don't bother to configure their Google profile, there are a lot of misses.

FB, of course, is the dominant social network and thus it's much more likely that their lookup for any person that calls you will find a match.

Of course, in both cases you have to balance the convenience of the feature against the privacy implications. Personally, I trust Google far more than I do Facebook to behave responsibly with my data, and for that reason I'm heavily invested in the Google ecosystem (I also work for Google) while I deleted my Facebook account years ago after they unilaterally changed my privacy settings without informing me. In fairness to Facebook, I think they've gotten somewhat better about such things, but I still don't use them. Others feel the same way about Google, and if so they should disable Caller ID by Google.

Have you actually used an Android Wear device, rather than just reading the docs? If not, your comments about battery life also have to be called into question -- particularly since you have to be comparing against Apple's claims, which are almost certainly optimistic. Most everything else in your list is of subjective value. The two factual complaints are incorrect.

FWIW, I have used a Moto 360, and have an LG G Watch and an LG G Watch R. The G Watch R is what I'm currently wearing.

I should also point out that I'd actually like to see the Apple Watch succeed. I'm an Android engineer, but I'm a big fan of competition, and I think Google is far more effective when it's being challenged. But at least so far what I see in the Apple Watch is a few differences which are irrelevant, and a few which appear to be bad ideas.

I have no doubt that Apple will sell a fair number of watches on the strength of their brand, but that sort of competition doesn't benefit consumers. Good ideas, well-executed, that make the device better than the competition in important practical ways are what we need... and I don't see them in the first generation Apple Watch. I don't think Jobs would have launched this device as it is were he alive.

I hope I'm proved wrong.

The Pebble Time, however, really does look interesting. I guess that's my biggest complaint about the Apple Watch... it's eating market and mind share that could go to more interesting and innovative devices that really could push Google.

Nope, you can mute any app. There are two ways to do it. If you swipe left on the notification you get a screen (possibly after a couple of swipes; depends on the type of notification) that offers to mute app. Tap that. Alternatively, if you open the Android Wear app on your phone, go into settings and tap "Block app notifications", you can add apps to block.. and remove blocks, too.

Are you sure?

Sure. The same is true in many places in the western US, and some much more so than Texas. But if that's your normal driving routine, that sucks, and not being able to use an EV is the least of your problems. Unless you're a professional driver, that is. In that case spending all day driving isn't a waste of time, it's a living.

For the vast majority of people in the US who own two or more vehicles, choosing an EV for one of them works very well. Whether or not it's more economical depends on many factors. I'll tell you, though, once you get used to the way an EV drives, it's hard to go back. When I bought mine, it made perfect sense financially. I moved and things changed so that it may no longer be such a great deal... but I really don't like it when I have to drive the ICEV.

It's not so bad. I paid $75 to rent a car carrier to tow behind the moving truck. Frankly, I'd have had to do the same if my car could drive that far, because we had three vehicles to move (including the moving truck) and only two drivers.

They often drive for 4+ hours per day? That's gotta suck.

You know, your rant would have a lot more meaning if it weren't based entirely on a flawed assumption: that Google is changing non-mobile search ranking based on mobile site quality. They're not. Google is only changing the ranking of results delivered to mobile devices. The goal is to give people searching on mobile devices results that will work better on their devices.

They do know, and they do want that. That's the whole point.

That's exactly what Google is doing. It's pretty clear in Google's announcement: "We’re boosting the ranking of mobile-friendly pages on mobile search results" (emphasis mine). See for yourself http://googlewebmastercentral....

This is exactly the idea behind Lawrence Lessig's[*] brainchild: MAYDAY PAC. It's a PAC whose mission is to end all PACs (including itself). It raised some money and tried some things in the last election cycle, but didn't succeed. However, Lessig says they learned some lessons and are gearing up to try again.

Check it out at http://mayday.us./

[*] If you don't recognize that name it's because you haven't been paying attention to these issues. Among other things, Lessig is the founder of Creative Commons.