Flash is not that 'closed'. Anyone may generated .swf files without paying Adobe. They are not very popular but alternatives exist. I remember a certain Ming project http://www.libming.org/

I'm sorry but I live in Europe and these fugures seem quite optimistic, to put it mildly. Do you have data to back this up?

Have it your way but I would bet on Google.

Darn! [skims the article] Wait a minute, I'm talking about page hits, not what investors think it's worth.

Come on, how many of those accounts are updated regularly? If they were all that active, FB would be Google.

Facebook is the next bubble. There is just too much money investors are trying to put away. FB seems a good bet for them. There will be more FBs in the near future.

The human eye is not fantastic, compared to some animals, but even out of focus movements in the corner of your eye are impossible to miss. Seriously, try it. You can focus soon enough once you have noticed the movement. It's not necessary to have the whole picture in focus, the center will do. About war: You are right that there might not be war all the time, but you never know when an enemy might strike. Just one successful hit with a rock or bite from a snake you didn't see coming, can kill you. Maybe you only need that safety belt only once in your life, it can still make a 100% difference in your time-path between you reaching 85 or you getting smashed into your own dashboard at 25.

Because in a primitive, hostile environment, the main thing is to see the enemy / victim coming. That's one of the reasons why people keep watching anything that moves above static parts. That it also changes color.. well.. big deal. Noticing it moving is much more important.

You can't look at the email headers on an iPhone, the mail app has no option for it.

I was at a friends house last weekend and he demonstrated his new Vaio laptop, which responded exactly like the apparatus in this video. Only it used the webcam, I guess. Like in the video, it doesn't work flawlessly, you easily gesture to fast for it.

Haha, no it won't but I mend that their total and epic failure to control the region, in line with so many others, was impossible to ignore. And still the US (and other NATO countries that get dragged along) just keep desperately starting wars. BTW I've BEEN to Cuba and it's a very, very poor and in many ways crippled, though beautiful country.

Interesting, I guess we agree then, it's the US that keeps pushing other countries (via NATO and otherwise) to send military on 'peace' missions. The last Dutch government fell over supporting the Afghanistan mission for even x more years. Because the Dutch and many others don't believe in forcing peace in such a way. The Russions tried it for years and warned us all at forehand. Before calling Europe a freerider, consider if it wanted to ride along in the first place! The US always just wants to 'protect' everybody so they can be in charge. They dragged Europe in the biggest financial crisis since the 1930's. They start wars every decade with bogus excuses, just so a few people can make a lot of money. Korea, Vietnam, Irak twice, etc. So yes, we agree: Withdraw the US army. Not just now but permanently.

"Ending the web's dependence on Flash is a lot like ending dependence on foreign energy" Yeah. And we all know how well that is working out.