I tried to open an Amazon account a couple of years ago and belligerent is the only way I could describe them. I never did open an account them. Is it worth the effort to try? It seems very US-centric even once you pass through their positive/negative dichotomy they call an application.

No. PayPal's business model is based on making the transaction really easy and then taking a moderately exhorbitant chunk of the money transacted. For me in Australia to get money from Armenia (for example) PayPal is brilliant and worth every penny. For me to get money from the other side of my city the cost is the same and yet becomes astronomical when the service is seen in perspective. I allow 25-30% to PayPal for every transaction. The reality is higher or lower but it averages out to that amount.

True dat!

Every contested PayPal transaction I've ever seen has been settled in the buyer's favour. No appeals allowed. Currently my personal balance is running my way but the injustice of it chafes.

Three digit ID? I thought it meant IQ. So I don't really have a seven digit IQ? ... *sigh*

Emphasis on the captive user base when comes to eBay. I doubt that anything will come of these changes as long PayPal and eBay are the same company and they have no widely recognised competition.

Does anyone know of any effective competition to the eBay/PayPal behemoth of faceless people in gray suits?

They are probably the most intelligent comments I've ever come across concerning climate change. Thank you. Thank you very much.

But with regards to geoengineering I would have thought we'd like to keep the albedo (light reflected off the ground) bright and glary in the Arctic regions to keep on reflecting heat back into space. That window is closing very fast.

The two questions are:

One: if those tiny shelled organisms that eat algae are unable to form proper shells due to the CO2 turning seawater into carbonic acid and this process is irremediably progressed then why isn't the clock at 12:00 just before it tolls? I've even read that the algae will turn the oceans into a hypoxic wasteland once these creatures that eat them are removed from the foodchain.

Two: if the heat problem is recognised by everyone then why are we waiting like crabs in a pot and arguing over why it's getting hot rather than seeding the upper atmosphere with ultrafine particles that will cool things down for decades? Surely there is money to made from that?

I'm just curious and not grandstanding any particular point. I think we're already doomed no matter what we do so if anyone can give reason to change that opinion I'd be grateful.

Would that be Dieter von Mitblumenkohl by any chance? (that is dieter fun with cauliflower for those who don't care)

Some of Dean Kamen's inventions, and they are far too many to list, are serious and lifesaving or serious and useful. Some are astonishing like the whhelchair that lifts the person in it to standing height when they need to. Other inventions of his are kind of fun but rather silly. My personal favourite is an analog clock with oval gears that slows down during work hours and speeds up during lunch break.

Well, with all due respect, the English throne is Dutch and the person on it is Upland Dutch. I've been to Dutchistan including the provinces of Limbourg and Holland and the people there are irremediably polite, spectacularly good company (emphasis on spectacular, not your average place), and irrevocably private.
You my friend are as the Danish could be except with freckles and taller.

Those words are nearly all Dutch. Cunt is French/Latin.

Every word carries meaning or meanings, pronunciation or pronunciations, and emotional weights for each variety of those permutations. I believe the study of this is called advertising.

Swear words carry high emotional weight. If they didn't they wouldn't be swear words. Normal words such as crucified, the normal Roman way of killing recalcitrant slaves, can also carry enormous weight and yet the word crucified is not a swear word in any context. The normal way the English killed robbers, hanged, also carries a lot of weight but less because there is no morality attached to murder by hanging while there is morality attached to murder by crucification. Good morality from Roman perspective and bad morality from Christian perspective.

Then, once you have an emotional weight for each word (and the emotional weight of phrases and phrasing takes this into very permuted territory) the emotional use requires understanding to apply. That understanding is required and is why Watson failed.

Solutions to this knot in the rope, the requirement for machines to have emotions, do exist in theory but none is in any way close to application.

Look at photos of modern American soldiers and compare them to, say, photos of WW2 American soldiers. I choose soldiers because they are a trained group of people employed by the Federal Government. It could of course be any contiguous group of American people.

Next work out how much it costs to get one kg of mass into orbit.

All that prime American beef is going to stay right here on Earth and it'll be jockeys that colonise the solar system and turn into space puddings in the process.

Now that's the grain of truth at the heart of every comment about 3D. If it's not a hologram it's not good enough. Since the 1950s there has been 3D after 3D after 3D but all anyone wants is the hologram of Princess Leia from the movie.

And it seems likely that alcohol is more closely connected with selecting sexual partners.

But jokes aside alcohol does have calories, the absorbtion of alcohol interferes with the conversion of other food types to energy rather than fat, and it inhibits the absorbtion of nutrients so you have to eat more to get the same level of nutrition. Drinking alcohol regularly has to have an effect on body weight.