Actually it was 90, 45 and 22 (with some in between) but the explosion in mobile devices and the scramble for smaller, faster cheaper was still at work in that market.
Mobile has sort of reached a point where shrinking the device has only marginal value however. Users want or need a certain screen size and the devices need a certain mechanical strength, so "smaller" components aren't a big value driver. I don't see that faster speeds are going to be a huge value in that market either. Lower power/more battery life is still a bonus and if costs keep going down at each node, the demand will be there.
Now that we're talking about moving away from silicon however, the smaller, faster and lower power are still considerations, but I think the OP is talking about the point where the new technology can achieve that, but only at higher cost. Are there enough products and applications where people are willing to pay a premium for the extra functionality? We shall see.

The ingredients are definitely nasty, so there's concern for industrial waste and exposure. However, the finished material has proven to be relatively harmless in animal studies. I was surprised to learn this, but that seems to be the conclusion, so there should be no immediate risk for using the end products.
I'm not sure about the stability of the compounds or how they degrade over time.

I would get the government out of healthcare entirely. Their 50 year intervention has created an absolute disaster of exploding costs, lack of competition and stagnation of quality. Millions unable to afford even the most basic services, the working uninsured being billed at exorbitant levels to subsidize government programs, etc. etc.
If by "the system" you mean private insurance companies, then you're right. Forcing us to buy their products and entrenching a middle man that adds little value to the system.
Going through health insurance companies for a routine service such as an annual physical is like going through an auto insurance company for an oil change.
Competition and innovation are what drive down prices and increase quality. Governments never do.
I think the automobile model is appropriate. Most services should be purchased directly by the customer from the provider with complete price transparency in a competitive marketplace. Insurance should only come into play only for catastrophic problems. Having a middle man, be it government or insurance companies, involved in every single transaction is a ridiculous model.

Wiretapping laws vary from state to state. In some places, it's legal to surreptitiously record a phone call or conversation. Other states are "mutual consent" states where all parties in a conversation must agree to the recording.

I think companies like SamSung were protecting themselves with the owner's manuals, license agreements, etc. They could argue that the user consented to the recording (as specified in the product documentation) simply by using the device.

It would certainly be interesting if a state attorney general decided to make a case against one of these companies for illegal recording.

Agreed that we are not going to be getting a personal visit from alien life forms anytime soon.

That does not mean that SETI is a waste of time however. Earthlings have been making radio broadcasts for close to 100 years. The nearest stars to Earth (apart from the sun) are only 4-5 light years away. It's also possible that intelligent life in other parts of the universe could be millions of years ahead of homo sapiens in terms of technology. Planning for a visit from aliens is a waste of time. Trying to pick up some signals emanating from elsewhere in the universe is not.

How does a data center drive up land and home prices if there are only a few employees?

Wikipedia has a nice list of countries with whom the USA has extradition treaties and there are associated PDFs.
I know that the CIA has indeed kidnapped people (extraordinary rendition is the sanitized name) from Western countries, and those countries were none too happy about it.
Normally, it's possible to fight extradition in a court. In fact, there are lawyers who specialize in this sort of thing.

Given the state of Russia-USA relations, they probably would have given him a medal. His buddies have so far been smart enough to avoid getting arrested in a country with whom the USA has an extradition treaty.

"Kalinin, Kotov and Rytikov remain at large."

Neither the article, nor the linked PCworld article say much about how they identified these guys by name. I'd be curious to know.

Would you also argue that there is no such thing as epilepsy in people who have no discernible physical abnormalities in their brains?
What would your "simple critical thinking skills" tell you if you observed someone having an epileptic seizure?

I almost consider fiction to be a guilty pleasure. I very much enjoy it, but every time I sit down to start reading a work of fiction, I have the nagging thought that I should be putting my reading time to better use by reading non fiction and learning things.
I could easily slip into 80/20 F/NF if I didn't specifically choose my books to lean more toward non-fiction.
I interpreted the question in terms of "content". Words, pages or whatever. A book like "Capital in the 21st Century" balances out a couple of Iain M. Banks novels.

If the inmates aren't allowed to use facebook or other social networking websites, why the hell isn't the prison just blocking them? Schools, businesses and public libraries seem capable of denying access to certain URLs, why not the prisons?
Putting someone in front of a computer with internet access and then punishing them for using certain websites borders on entrapment.

Having a bad day or are you just an asshole in general? Do you need emotional support, more sleep or professional help to prevent you from making obnoxious comments to people in a tragic situation?
How dare you judge someone to be a terrible parent based on the mere fact that they don't want their kids in daycare or perhaps can't afford it? You want to sic social services on them and raise the possibility of having the kids taken away just because the wife has a medical condition? You're asking personal questions about their psychological well being? WTF?
The guy is in a tough spot and he's asking for a technical solution to a given problem from the computer geeks on Slashdot. He doesn't need a fucking lecture from you on how to best manage his family situation and his wife's medical condition. Nor does he need you to run down a list of worst case scenarios for him and raise the specter of Big Brother taking his children away. I'm sure that he and his wife have gone through the "what ifs" 1000 times already.
The fact that seizures are "unpredictable" does not mean they happen on a regular basis and it doesn't mean they will always be so severe as to constitute an emergency situation. Suppose the frequency is 1-3 times per year? You demand that they pay for daycare and insist that the wife sit around doing nothing because there's a 0.3% chance she might have a seizure on a given day? And that not doing so makes them terrible people?
Perhaps the OP is too polite, so I'll be the first to tell you to stick your judgements, personal questions, opinions and implied threats up your ass.

FYI, It's a common misconception that 'seizure' means that a person falls to the ground and starts twitching and frothing at the mouth.
There are dozens of different types of seizures, the "tonic clonic" seizures (formerly called 'grand mal') which involve these symptoms are merely the worst. The mildest seizures are probably 'absence seizures' which would be hard to distinguish from daydreaming. Other seizures alter consciousness but don't necessarily impair motor function. Some seizures have physical symptoms which aren't readily apparent. e.g. making a tight fist or gripping an object, lip licking or pronounced swallowing.
The description wasn't specific, but I suppose if he needs a panic button, the wife's symptoms must be rather harsh.

The summary states that the technologies were "supposedly" untraceable and the linked article talks specifically about how LE used bitcoin to trace DPR.

Total rubbish and a false dichotomy as well.
I'd like to see the results of a double-blind experiment in which a bunch of "people who truly appreciate high quality" were tasked with differentiating a $500 Ethernet cable from a $10,000 Ethernet cable. With some decent mid range stereo equipment and all else being equal, you would not be able to tell the difference.
I think the knowledge of how much you spent on your equipment probably makes a marginal contribution to your audio bliss, despite the fact that it has no effect on the actual signal quality.