They're ending support when it literally annoys just a handful of developers. That might optimize the benefit of dropping support. Any later and they're expending too much effort for the hold-outs. Any earlier and they're shoving too much burden on an active legacy community. They gave plenty of warning too.

I'm not some Google fan-boy. There are plenty of things they do wrong; but credit where due.

First in what? What's the prize?

If the prize is just throwing money down a hole on hardware that will be obsolete the moment it's deployed, then let the other guys win.

If the prize is getting accurate weather forecasts at the lowest cost, then maybe we'd be better off contracting from those countries, using spare cycles from other government agencies that are wasteful and counterproductive (cough, NSA, cough), or writing better software to run on the other guy's hardware and licensing it to them.

The second approach won't allow us to thump our chest and say, "computer that required 10 new hydro-electric dams! BOOYAH! fastest in the WORLD!!!" but it'll accomplish a meaningful goal.

Oh no! An anorexic harlot from nazi Germany has failed us as a role model. Again.

I bet you even want to make water available at no charge. You probably think it should just gush freely at the push of a button for anybody. You probably think government funded agencies should install such devices at locations where people are likely to be thirsty. Communist. /sarc.

Knowing the geology is good; but I'd like to see us work on effective ways to use that knowledge.

It always comes down to money, especially when the area is already built.

Yes, if they are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, they're less likely to stab you in the back.

When theory conflicts with observation, You have two choices. You can modify your theory to fit the observation, or your observations to fit your theory. The first choice is what we generally regard as science. The second choice occurs in a number of circumstances including, but by no means limited to: religion, politics, mental illness, and general stupidity.

Note, checking to make sure that your observations are accurate is not the same thing as modifying them. "Did I fail to see the gorilla?" is valid when theory indicates gorillas should be present. "I saw a gorilla because my guru said I should" isn't.

Call HR. The candidates are not liars anymore.

The one thing I still use YouTube for is music. Sometimes you just get an album cover and the song. Sometimes lyrics. Sometimes you get the original video, if it hasn't been taken down. If they put all that behind a paywall, I'll do without for a while and then chose something else that's music-only. The video was just a nice add-on.

I was never a heavy participant on YouTube, uploading just a couple rather lame videos before... wait for it... Google demanded my phone number. That's what made me stop logging in. I just didn't have that desperate a desire to participate

So. Real ID turned me into a passive user. Demands for money will just make me go away.

Da-na-na na-na na-na Batmaaan!

I'm just sort of picturing a scene at the university bookstore. "What? Six thousand rupees for a cheap blue plastic dagger to leave on the desk? That's robbery?"

"Suck it Sanjay. The professor only accepts the standard dagger".

I gave up on conformity a long time ago (I suck at it) but I didn't strive to be a non-conformist (I would have preferred to be normal).

Result? I've found that the opinions of others are all over the map. I stand still, they do the moving.

For example, there was a time when everybody was wearing these glasses with really narrow lenses, like horizontal strips of glass. I hated them. I wanted the kind of glasses I've always worn--thick frames, big lenses.

I get out to California, and for a year or two, people were complimenting my glasses.

Now nobody says anything about them.

Crap like that. I don't care. Then there are other, far more important things that matter... and if you are true to yourself, the rest of the world may or may not like you for it; but at least you don't hate yourself.

Anyway, as for the "hipster effect", maybe it just so happens that there are only so many generic categories. The odds that you'll really stand out for anything just aren't that great. In fact, the odds that you'll even be perceived as unique aren't that great. I've had people tell me I look like somebody I know on a number of occasions over the years. It has happened when I had short hair and a mustache. It has happened when I had long hair and was clean-shaven.

I care more about the price of gas.

Net neutrality means that QoS based on port (e.g., VOIP gets priority over HTTP) is OK; but QoS based on content or the owner of an IP is not OK.

We all understand that; but the mouth-breathers and cronies that will regulate the Internet will generate 1600 pages of crap that nobody can read, just to define "QoS".

Reagan, speaking at the gate.

It knows when you are sleeping
It knows when you're awake
It knows when you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake...

Therefore, Big Data is Santa Claus.
I wouldn't have guessed; but the clues were there all along. He's a communist, which explains the red suit and giving away stuff that kids should be earning; but it still doesn't explain the flying reindeer. We're working on it though. We'll get back to you...