"Is anyone else afraid that Facebook and Google are unintentionally driving us all towards ignorance?"

If Google+ actually is doing that, it has to do it quickly, before it gets cancelled.

If I were you, I'd go quickly.

Most of them are back in the nineties.

Whatever you do, don't switch to CNN.

"Perhaps what you describe was adequate for the vast majority of users, but somebody who wanted direct access to the Internet, including, for example, the ability to (perhaps slooooowly) FTP to an available Internet FTP site would welcome it."

CIS had an FTP client as well.

Before I got a Sysop account at Compuserve, I paid $9.95 if memory serves.
All the companies were there to download updates from, you could download libraries, utilities, examples, FAQs and Howtos, talk with the programmers, whine to the quality assurance people, you could buy books, jeans and coffee an some other stuff, play multiplayer games (all text) send email to the world, read usenet newsgroups, get email newsletters (tweets with no limit, for the young whippersnappers amongst you) and later also use the web.

Why would people pay the double for what exactly?
Do I have to RTFA for that? :-)

"No, we're already there. Name one thing the Russians did that the US Congress doesn't assume that it has the authority to do to a US company."

Since those companies _own_ congress, they would do it to themselves.

"Wait, I've been told that evolution "stopped" 10,000 years ago ..."

Your priest lied to you.

Think of it as evolution in action.

Steven Seagal, crime fighter, will destroy the houses of the offenders with a tank.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/er...

"Businesses in Ireland are subject to the EU Data Protection Directive. What happens when those conflict with US rulings?"

What happens? Some MS employee with or without Irish roots will never see the Old Country, unless it's the inside of a prison cell.

@Now they have automatic lane centering. The car uses cameras to read the paint stripes and keep it centered in the lane."

I already see the next article:

Youngsters 'hack' the street by spray painting lanes into the abyss to fool Mecedes S cars.

"I am surprised that people still want to use OpenVMS. "

Most Railways electronic Dispatching Systems run on OpenVMS, even the latest versions.

It's a bit like the Space Shuttle, you can't change anything without a crapload of red tape.

The only thing I don't understand in the article, is that they have been running it on x86 systems for 10 years.

"He straps a filter on to a fan and this is noteworthy? Ok then."

Wait until the shit hits the fan, and you'll be glad it had a filter.

"leaving many graduates temporarily unable to complete the exams needed to practice law."

And that's a bad thing, because ... ?

"... the body they see does the same (those electrical stimulators mildly shock muscles to force a friend to mirror the user's movements). It's an imperfect system, but a fascinating example of the power of virtual reality. What else might we use VR systems for?"

Are you kidding? Brainwashing!

My guess is strapping somebody on a bench with an OR and giving him violent electroshocks to the testicles each time they see a Qur'an or a half-moon in their virtual reality and an electric orgasm if they see ham and ribs, is the first thing SOME people are going to do.