Efficiency of conversion for gas (any gas) compression and expansion is pretty poor, and requires turbomachinery for high yields (which are not so high). In addition to that you would need strong piping for the compressed air (the FC gases run at atmospheric pressure), and you open the gates to a whole new class of problems with high-pressure equipment.

Really, electricity is the most efficient and convenient way to move power around. Efficiency is essentially 100% with proper cabling and safety is well understood. I have no idea what advantages one might harvest from using fuel cells in that context.

Mind you: I am a researcher in fuel cells. I lead a multi-million project in fuel cells, dammit. There are lots of good applications for fuel cells, this is not one of them. This is as stupid as fuelling a vibrator with gasoline.

I'm sure you've read several dozen articles by now about how various data centers were built in various parts of the country due to low electricity costs, only to find that once they had built it, the utilities and local municipalities decided to jack the rates up.

And how are they not going to do the same for natural gas, or any other form of energy? The one you describe is a regulatory problem, not a technical one.

The article does not mention it clearly, but those fuel cells are likely natural-gas powered. They are either very high-temperature cells (800 degrees C) or low-temperature cells (70-120 degrees C) with a reformer somewhere that converts natural gas to hydrogen. In the former case you would need to handle fuel at insanely high temperatures close to a bunch of electronics (you can guess what happens at the first leak), in the second you have to handle a hydrogen distribution network, and hydrogen is a nasty gas to work with (see for example hydrogen embrittlement); nothing that cannot be handled, but providing it to single servers or even racks? Hydrogen-proof piping is expensive, and even worse are the valves.

In any case, gas piping is never going to be as practical as power cords. You cannot bend it, coil it, join it easily, and you will need also piping to collect exhaust gases: since this hydrogen comes from natural gas, it travels with CO2, and you don't want it to accumulate in the data centre. You may also need another line to provide oxygen if the data centre ventilation is insufficient.

The argument that one would do away with power supplies is foolish: simply provide a network of DC power instead for all required voltages. FCs produce DC power, but their output voltage is unsteady and needs to be converted to the right voltage; and there are several voltages that a server requires anyway.

So, if FCs have to be, they need to be placed outside the data centre, and function as their power stations. At this point, one wonders, why should we ever consider to install FCs in power stations? Simply build a FC power station and export to the grid.

The main driver for FCs in power generation in the US is the low price of natural gas due to high shale gas production.

I am soon going to New Orleans for a conference, and the hotel charges $14.95 per day for WiFi. Knowing that hot water is not metered, that's what I plan to do:

1. Assumption: hot water is produced by natural gas, temperature 50 kelvin above environment. Tap capacity 10 L/min. Natural gas cost: ca. $12 per 1000 cubic feet, equivalent to one million BTU.
2. Cost of energy is $12 per GJ, or 43 cents per MWh.
3. Power for heating of fully open tap: 10/60 x 4150 x 50 = 35 kW
4. Cost of fully open tap: 0.00042 $/second, or $1.51 an hour

Therefore, I will let hot water flow free for about 10 hours (every night, closing it at breakfast) and offset the profit they make on WiFi.

It was only later that the climate cooled, and they were forced to change their lifestyle, and finally leave Greenland.

My favourite author, Jared Diamond, had an entire chapter on the Greenland Norse in his book Collapse. They are remarkable because many factors impacted them at the same time, and their demise was due to climate, international politics, and their own stupidity.

Climate did get colder, but the Norse also lost their most important export, walrus tusks, because the Muslims started trading elephant tusks again with the Christians after several centuries of embargo: no one wanted walrus tusks anymore. Also, the Norse had apparently a phobia for fish, which for some reason they were unwilling to eat (or were unable to catch). They were also horrible diplomats and could not have friendly relations with the Inuit (who arrived in Greenland after the Norse), who eventually displaced them. Also, they were a very religious and conservative society, using relatively enormous resources to build a cathedral that could rival that of Nidaros in Norway.

When it was that warm in Greenland, it was certainly warm in Canada and Alaska.

That's a way too bold statement. Latitude is not the only predictor of temperature. I live at the same latitude as Anchorage, AK, but out temperature average is 5-10 degrees Celsius higher because we are exposed to the Gulf stream. Climate change does not have the same uniform effects in every spot.

For an individual to benefit from that corporate income, at some point it has to become their income.

Uh, no. Have you ever heard of fringe benefits? The firm (that you incidentally own) gives you a car, a house, a myriad of services whose exact quantification is to a degree arbitrary. For example, a luxury car or a private jet may be appropriate for representation in a large oil company; but who is going to check exactly the private and work-related usage quota? The IRS is not the NSA and does not have the resources to monitor everyone.

As soon as you remove corporate tax, there will be a rush among small enterprises to buy their owner's house, car etc. If anything, corporate taxation should be levied on income, not net result as it is done today, since it is all too easy to set up a fake company in the Cayman island, sell them a bead for $1, buy it back for $1,000,001, and presto! you have $1,000,000 less net income and thereby taxable dollars.

I honestly believe that the Chinese should switch to some sort of romanization like pinyin, even if it does not have100% of what the Chinese characters provide. I understand the heritage and cultural proudness of having your own characters, [...]

I also honestly believe that English (and French) should reform their horrible spelling. But how would you react to:

Ay ålso änestli b'liv ðat inglisx (ænd frencx) sxuld riform ðer hårib'l spelin. Bat haw wud yu riakt tu:

(Used sx and cx for s and c with accents, Slashcode can't digest UTF8 yet)

This will look ridiculous to most people, because they are not used to it, even if it is a superior way of writing. There is even a famous quotation by Mark Twain on the subject. Note that the irregularity of English spelling is not without real-world consequences, since irregular spelling causes the effects of dyslexia (note: dyslexia is genetically transmitted, but its effects manifest only when dealing with an irregular orthography. Same person who is dyslexic in English may not be in Spanish or Japanese).

And yes, English spelling is just as difficult as Chinese characters or the Japanese mixture of Kanji and Kana. Only, Chinese characters do not cause dyslexia (not to the same extent as English at least).

Britain, France, Spain, all have massive chunks of the globe speaking their respective languages as an outcome of colonialism

More than teaching the locals their language, what they did was either exterminate the locals and repopulate with their own people (as Spain did in Latin America and the UK with Australia), or put together an administrative region so diverse that they have to use the colonial language to talk to each other (e.g. India, Nigeria, most African states...), since choosing one local language may be considered a violation of other ethnic groups' status. Pakistan tried to force East Pakistan to speak Urdu instead of Bengali, so East Pakistan seceded and changed name to Bangladesh. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam were all colonies of European powers at some point, and none uses the colonial language anymore, because they have a strongly predominant local language.

Pay special attention to the whereas lines. They lay out the official reasons we went to war and to the best of my knowledge, the only one that has turned out to be untrue was the continuing WMD programs and stockpiles.

You may have hoped for a massive TL;DR response, but I read some of it. Several other lines were untrue: Al-Qaida in Iraq (it came during the war to support the insurgents, was not there to begin with), the fact that 9/11, I quote, "underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations" (a few knives are hardly a WMD; if anything, 9/11 underscored how easy it is to pull off a terrorist plot with simple tools and some out-of-the-box thinking), the possibility that Iraq would use WMDs in a surprise attack against the US or pass them to terrorists.

If you think the WMDs were made up, then ask yourself why the government would lie to get us into a war and not put WMDs in the sand somewhere to keep it's citizens trusting of it.

I asked myself, and I answered myself that the sheeple would not care if no WMDs were not found after the war was started. Who started the war needed an excuse to get it started, not to justify himself afterwards. No WMDs were found, yet I don't see Bush, Rumsfeld and all other war criminals (because that's what they technically are) being brought to court and sentenced to death by hanging (which is what was normally dished out for the crime of war of aggression at Nuremberg).

But in this case, the use of chemical and/or biological weapons is a no no, and outlawed by the international community for a reason. It's time to destroy any such weapons since Syria's gov does not seem to have any restrain in the use of such weapons.

Personally I do not believe Assad used chemical weapons, and this looks like a charade pulled off to start a war.

• First, Assad has no reason to cause an international outcry by using chemical weapons—he's winning, the last thing he needs is giving an excuse to the US to enter the conflict.
• Second, the US and Western countries were expecting the rebels to win. Currently, they are losing, and the US/NATO seem to want Syria really badly: at this point they really needed a casus belli, and guess what here it is. Coincidence?
• Third, a new war is great to distract the media from whatever Snowden has to reveal.
• Fourth, seriously: war over war crimes? Since when anybody started a war on principles? Cynical as I may be, I won't buy the line that suddenly all our leaders take civilian casualties so seriously.

The rebels have degenerated as they were infiltrated from so many radical groups with different agendas. At this point, if they win they will be just as bad as Assad, only less predictable. Who is the US intending to install in Syria? How are they going to control the nation? Has anyone learnt anything at all from Iraq?

Not a bad idea. I never understood why so many music players don't also come with radio tuners.

In several countries, especially in Europe, this would make you subject to a TV licence, which can be quite hefty. In Norway that is $400–500 a year, other countries vary. In South Korea, instead, it is only $30, so I guess people do not care as much. Sometimes TV licences are on a per-user or per-household basis instead of per-device, so maybe Koreans already pay for this at home.

Also, there are additional charges when playing music or video in public. I had a Nokia 5230 in Germany that actually had a radio receiver, but it would work only with the earphones plugged in. In Italy, the SIAE (the local branch of the MAFIAA) routinely raids weddings to levy fines to anyone playing recorded music (most people hire live musicians instead nowadays, given how expensive the licence is).

Norway here. There are minor antisemitic far-right groupings (Vigrid, Norgespatriotene), though modern far-right ideology is much more anti-immigrant that anti-Jewish. Muslims in their observant clothing in Oslo are far more common than in NY (yes, I have been there), some middle-easterners I know joked that parts of Oslo look like Lahore (and thank the flying spaghetti monster for that, at least there is some decent food around!). Norway has a murder rate 8 times lower than the US, and in one place where you need to defend yourself (Svalbard, from polar bears) you are handed a shotgun after getting off the plane.

I also lived in Germany, and while neo-Nazis are ostensibly banned they do have their stores (Thor Steinar chain) and their not-so-well-disguised party (NPD), plus some others. Also there, muslims wear what they want, and the murder rate is 6 times lower than the US.

Burning coal produces a lot more of radioactive dust

I am quite tired of this, but... Can we let this silly myth die already? Radiation from a coal plant is heavily diluted. Radiation is a problem of concentration, i.e. it is harmful when it passes a certain threshold. If you dilute it enough, radiation is not harmful, not any more than cosmic rays or a smoke detector.