For my always-on machines I have a couple of Atom 525's with perhaps 30 TB of data storage. The OS for those is Scientific Linus 5.x (someday to be Centos 6.x).

These are plenty powerful enough for the services I use them for - files storage, light duty web serving, personal IMAP, DNS caching etc. and sip at the electrical supply.

They are good enough for light duty web browsing as well.

For more challenging applications (like games, photo editing etc) I have a couple of machines running 4 and 6 core I7s with 24GB of RAM. These only get turned on when I need them.

It's not really extraordinary, but here you go:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.g...

parts of the world relate to each other? who would have thought?

"They are dangerous with high amounts of crime. "
not really.

"They discourage innovation"
  false.
More innovation happen becasue there is more communication.

" little room for building things"
depends on the city. Cities created to support manufacturing usually have a lot of ware housing, and older building; both of which are perfect for start ups.

" They have nosy neighbors who try to mandate what you can do in your own home."
when the byproduct of what you do leaves your walls, then they have every right to do that, and visa versa.
There are also nosy neighbors in the suburbs.

I'm no against suburbs. In fact, I love the suburbs, and hate living in cities.

Killing most projects early is considered a good thing in some circles because it weeds out the garbage and makes more resources available to the more worthwhile projects.

Often you can tell how good a company is at managing R&D by how quickly it kills bad projects.

When I was working in R&D portfolio management we found that a bunch of small projects was much less likely to return something worthwhile than a more limited number of big projects.

It really boiled down to the idea that there is a non-linear relationship between resources devoted to a project and the likelihood of success.

The problem is not waste, it's distribution. Even with the current level of waste, everyone could eat 3 meals and snacks, everyday.
Getting it to people is a lot harder.

If we ended all food waste right now, there would not be 1 less person going hungry.
Hell, we can't even get food to people going hungry in the US without a political shit storm happening from people who think it's the same thing as communism.

An untested theory, with almost most no supported tech even discussed is not ' Figured out'.

"Another hint: your windows are made of sand, so are the chips in your computer, so are solar panels, the glasses of your glasses ..."
no, they aren't. You might want to look it up.

The Sahara isn't a desert because of sand.

"(and the water being overexploited)

There is no such thing."

Yes, there is. Using more water at a rate then aquifers can be refilled is one example.

" that would make much more of Canada hospitable"
briefly.
It's not like the warming will stop just because Canada is more habitable

The CO2 being produced through breathing is a net neutral.
Plants are carbon neutral. They have been since the carboniferous era.
CO2 from using power will be the issue, unless we start a aggressive plan to stop using CO2 emitting technology for power.
By aggressive, I mean 75 years.

we need global encouragement for people to not have more than 2 children. I nice slow draw down to 3 billion over many decades.

Well then, don't drive on public roads.

The internet of things will make my life better. It will make everyones life better.
The data will allow you to improve everything you do.

Its not the tech, it's the usage.

A) EMP impact on vehicles is highy over rated. In testing the worse case was some erroneous dash lights. Which went away after restarting the car.
B) When you're the only one on the road, you will be trivial to watch and find.
C) You should probably learn about cars.

You see those cameras on the freeway? yeah. Anyone you hang out with got a smart phone? Use plastic anywhere?

Instead of railing against the inevitable, spend that time and energy for protection on what, when, who, why, where and how it can be used?

I want a spy car, but that's probably not what you meant. :)