This is important in so many ways - including recognizing a genuine, but virtual, "cyber" entity as worthy of being named a "world heritage site". I'd think that Slashdot, as one of the pioneering forums would welcome this.

I've often said - when the civilization collapses, we will remember Wikipedia the same as we now remember the Library of Alexandria.

Your ass is grass. We own you.

RIM was a "one-trick-pony" company in a world where people needed the functionalities they now get from "ordinary" smartphones but which the telcos and phone manufacturers refused to provide. If iPhone and Android didn't happend when they did, I would probably own a Blackberry now simply because nothing else did Internet and e-mail decently, but they tried to milk that platform without innovating for far too long. They may or may not be in trouble right now but in 2 years - who would want to buy a new Blackberry?

It's easy to be prophetic after the battle but imagine if RIM made the first Android phones instead of HTC - they would be unstoppable now.

And thus the tenets of Free Software relating to code availability and reusability are served with GPLv3 ... not!

With GPLv3 it's an all-or-nothing situation: either the whole world will use Linux and be strictly copyleft, or it will avoid it and companies will reimplement the parts they need in a way that's more closed than before. That is why GPLv3 is a mistake.

I'm not saying the findings are not true, but to verify them they will have to do the same research in another company where tech expertise is completely absent from managers and cannot be relied on by employees. In other words, it may be that at Google it's taken for granted and as such is not noticeable. (even so, it will probably never enter the top 5 characteristics, it just won't be the last one).

I believe something similar happened when Jon Postel signed off (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Postel). For a while, he *was* the IANA.

You know your technology has stopped being a frontier when pioneers like these get replaced by commitees. Globally, it's not necessarily a bad thing, just a sign of times.

Unfortunately... probably not. As much as I'd like to see Google launch an "the end justifies the means" campaign and crush MPAA, after some thought I got pessimistic about the prospect. Though theoretically Google could maybe buy all MPAA members one by one, Google is "new money" compared to it and the battle would be far, far from easy and predictable. After some amount of $$ it matters who you know, not how much you have.

Make it 256 and say the other 255 universes are running on their own shard servers so we can't just walk over to them :)

"Slow performance degradation over time" on SATA controllers? Who wants to bet this is due to some "misapplied security" scheme such as DRM or something related to the TPM?

Like 99%+ of people who read this, I have no idea what you are talking about. Care to give an example? You don't need to directly quote a document, but you will need to write enough details so someone who is an impartial observer (simply because he has no detailed knowledge of whatever's going on in there) can reach a conclusion.

Hmmm, how heavy? Like in "heavy metal" heavy? Like Uranium-heavy? No, couldn't be.... right?

Nothing to see here, move along:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea_soup_fog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_1952

It's probably an inevitable phase in development.

It's like saying Carl Sagan wasn't a scientist! In fact, Clarke and Sagan had very similar fields of interest and work.

Of course it doesn't cost *nothing* but it costs very little - the water isn't free (people will splash out some water) and the chemicals to keep the water clean-ish isn't free (people will dirty the water). In fact, it costs exactly the same, per swimmer, as it does during the day and that is where the problem really is. In addition to that, if the word spreads you allow semi-illegal free night swimming, it is very reasonable that some of the people who would swim (and pay) during the day will choose to swim for free at night, bringing no income to you and only cost. And then on top of it all, if the number of night swimmers really increases, people might conclude that they are entitled to pool guards, working drink bars, etc., which would, even if possible, require hiring night staff which would probably cost more than day staff.

Personally, I don't think this can be "solved" or, really, that there is anything there to "solve". It is human nature to want things for free. It is probably a property of every living thing. The only practical option is to have some kinds of artificial rules that would guard a balance between total anarchy and total capitalism. Thus, most people choose some brand of doublethink - "stealing is bad, but I'm still a good person if I don't steal too much."