http://xkcd.com/538/

Isn't command and control the antithesis of indestructability? Any software that can be patched can be destroyed.

They're missing a number. Proof is left as an exercise for the visitor.

Grad school is where things went off the rails for me ... I just have no clue what I'd do differently to produce a better outcome.

The avalanche has started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.

The sad part is that this line argument actually went through my head as I was writing and I even stopped and wondered whether I should find an alternative wording instead of glibly expanding the definition of "finite". "Less than M" was the only thing to came to mind from an old linear methods text I encountered in my youth but that seemed too obscure. I'm open to suggestions as to a better word/phrase to use.

I can't be both?

You are assuming that there are a finite number of exploitable ways of attacking the company. Otherwise, all you have done is provide proof that you are open to blackmail and it's only a matter of time before you are blackmailed again. Presumably the CIO is hoping to have slipped away to another company by then.

Facebook is following the same trajectory of all social networking sites from the dawn of the Internet ... people pile in, then eventually take a harder look at the product they are becoming and start to pull away, starting a long bleeding decline. What's astonishing is that once again, a company appeared which honestly seemed to think they were different, that they weren't subject to the same pattern of free-growth and decay-on-monitization.

The problem is that it's not really the drunks you want to get (despite the fact that they did a lot of the damage), it's the instigators in bandanas who started trouble then melted away into the crowd once they had set things in motion. I'm not saying the stupid people shouldn't be dragged out and shamed, but don't pat yourself on the back if you're catching only the "useful idiots"

What if parents didn't try to raise their kids to live in a fantasy world where anything they don't want to talk about simply doesn't exist?

What's the business model being proposed? I imagine such a filtered view of the Internet creates only liability when it fails, not any increase of profit when it succeeds.

At our current rate of population growth, I calculate that in 5425 years, humanity will be a solid ball of flesh expanding at the speed of light in all directions. I'm drawing the line on exponential growth there.

I'm sorry Mr. Smith, but it appears you have an acute case of Toronto.

Every year I was an undergrad, my score in the Putnum math competition dropped (in my first year I got the highest score in my school, second year I tied for highest, third year I was middle of the pack and fourth year I was so stressed about other work that I overslept on the day and missed it entirely).

That's the only emperical evidence I have, but it suggests that higher education was worse than useless for me :)