I found "White House Resolution 451" more interesting . . . this proposed burning all the books in the Library of Congress to generate electricity.

Manhattan will never be under water. Wall Street will always get yet another bailout.

No but their job is to serve the greater good and legislating on energy efficiency in that regard is no different from mandating health and safety standards, or telling the local coal plant that they can't simply produce cheaper energy by dumping sludge into the river rather than disposing of it correctly.

Every single decision ever made by a government results in picking winners, whether specifically by technology as in this case, or by trade agreements, setting minimum standards, or in some cases even granting specific monopoly by flat out funding a project using tax payers money.

And right there you underestimate the influence and use of a social network, doubly so with your comments on jobs.

Facebook is used for more than just posting pictures, it's used for event co-ordination. Everyone of my friends who have decided to quite Facebook out of some principle eventually came back. Why? Because no one saw them anymore. They disappeared off party invite lists, they didn't keep up with other's lives and missed big things like people moving away, etc.

For many people Facebook is far more important than email, or even phone. I would say 3/4 of my messages I get via Facebook rather than SMS. I just went through the job market and the job I actually got I got over LinkedIn, not a career website or via email. One company I applied at flat out said they only advertise jobs on LinkedIn at the moment as that gives them the coverage and applicants they need and sure enough they had all their job postings on the social network for the unemployed.

Now this all very demographically specific. But for many people out their social networks are their ONLY means of social communication and quitting that social network is akin to no longer talking to any of their friends.

I'm intrigued as to what the inputs to this algorithm were. You know, garbage in = garbage out and all that. Especially given that (I assume this predates genetic tests and ultrasound) things like roundness of the bump or which tit itches most have been proven again and again and again to be utter bollocks.

Also, don't they have neutral colours there?

I really wonder about Russians sometimes, and not just when they have elections.

Please explain how ~30-80 cents/gallon** taxation becomes "subsidized".

When invading other countries to, umm ... combat tairsum and impose demorcacy, costs 40-90 cents per gallon.

Sounds like you are, in fact, buying mid-tier cables on sale, not buying junk cables.

Because it's the tip of the iceberg. If you make something that's designed to allow users to track their usage then it could be used to formulate an ID by a computer as well. Sure the combinations may be higher, but combined with your OS, Browser version, plugin list, screen resolution, language, ... snip ... remaining battery life, you end up with a pretty unique fingerprint without any individual item being very unique to you.

Now you understand how banking works. That's now a flaw in the system, that is the system. A savings account is a sort share in the bank, it's not at all a bundle of money in the vault.

If the user can track a battery life remaining then the computer can too. That's one of the fundamental problems in making something that is designed to be tracked by one thing but not another.

Sure, all that's true, but most modern recessions aren't caused by lack of money supply, but instead lack of demand. If businesses don't see any worthwhile investment opportunities at any interest rate, additional supply won't help. You can't push on a rope. Stability (and its counterpart, uncertainty) is the chief concern for most recessions: when businesses and consumers reach the point where they believe they understand the "new normal", can cope with it, and have survived, only then do they start spending again.