The failure of Linux to become the dominant operating system before Android didn't mean that an open source operating system wasn't viable. It just need the right platform to thrive.

My advice to Americans is to avoid dairy while in China. Every American I've known who ate dairy while in China was incapacitated with violent vomiting and diarrhea. Some needed to be hospitalized. The dairy technology and culture there isn't what it is in the west. I once asked a Chinese co-worker why he didn't like cheese. He said it was the smell. If I never had cheese before and then was confronted with a pile of feta I probably would feel the same way.

When I took computer classes there were plenty of people who just didn't "get it". Pointers and memory addresses seemed to be a major road-block for those people. Of course, with high level languages these days pointers aren't a major concern. My suggestion would be that a computer class is mandatory, with a "Computer Fundamentals" class that just taught a little basic architecture and how to be a smart user for those who don't want to learn programming. Programming really isn't for everyone, but you need to know what a computer is and how to use it to be functional these days.

My step-son owns Google Glass and he went with us on a cruise recently. All the reactions I saw were very positive. He allowed other to wear it and demonstrated how it worked to anyone who was interested. If anything, it added to his popularity.

I'm 47 years old and those are my 2 favorite games.

You buy a virtual car online.
You store your virtual car in a virtual garage.
The virtual garage collapses to virtual rubble, and all the virtual cars that were once inside are now gone.

Connections effected my view on the nature of the world more than any other single work.

Ubik is my 2nd favorite P.K. Dick novel, after A Scanner Darkly, which is the one I would recommend for its study of identity and surveillance.

The Father-Thing isn't much more than an Invasion of the Body Snatchers story. If you want to add a P.K. Dick story, I would choose Pay for the Printer which explores the consequences of 3D printers (although in this case the printers are alien beings.)

+1 Insightful to the above.

If I throw the ball to first base then who gets it?

Once you attain a certain level of wealth, money is no longer money. It's just weight that you throw around.

The last valuable commodity shall be fame.

As far as I know the only way to go back in time involves the use of wormholes. Where you arrive in the past depends on the position of the other end of the wormhole. If you want to go to a specific time and place you have to hope someone created a wormhole then and there, and then brought one of the ends into the future using time dilation.

Eventually the pile of corpses will provide sufficient material to create a viable biosphere.