Ever notice how "uncertainty" has come to mean "something we don't want to happen"? Not just net neutrality, it's everywhere. It's like, everything we support will last forever, everything we oppose is uncertain because someday we'll manage rid of it.

Not Google's loss. Just like the bank, Google is holding their users' property for them: it's the users who lose, and the users who demand better security. But only if the users know their property is actually at risk.

Think about it: if you knew that one stolen password would permanently wipe out your life savings, you wouldn't touch online banking with a ten-foot pole. But you know that the bank (and the FDIC) will cover it, so you don't give a shit.

Because banks have insurance against these losses, while Google doesn't. Next question.

http://economictimes.indiatime...

You're arguing from what you expect, rather than from data.

The number of Americans able to hold a conversation in a foreign language is about 25%. Which is nowhere near "Most Americans".
http://www.gallup.com/poll/182...

This is especially bad since about 17% of Americans are Hispanic. Not all Hispanics are bilingual, of course.

In the UK the bilingual rate is about 38%; in Ireland it's 34%, both higher than the US, despite your claims. Across the EU, it's 56%.
http://www.newscientist.com/ar...

It's understandable that English-speaking countries have lower rates, but even within English-speaking nations, the US is pretty near the bottom.
(Australia is right at the bottom.)
http://yourlanguage.org/resear...

I'm going to skip over the whole "computer language and spoken language are two different things" argument, and focus on the quote. What's the case for forcing everyone to spend two years learning a foreign language? Is that really a better use of students' time than learning something else?

Yes. International conflict happens when societies misunderstand each other, and when they're able to dehumanize each other. The more we are able to understand the language and culture of our neighbors, the harder it is for misunderstandings to build to hatred to build to war.

Now, this isn't a sure thing, nor should it be. But foreign language learning can prevent wars. How many iPhone apps is that worth?

You ever attend a meeting at work where the presenter's entire point is "I do an important job so you shouldn't fire me"? Yeah this is one of those.

Change #1 to "$0.25 / gallon, plus another quarter every decade", and apply an equivalent tax to other fossil fuels, and I'm right behind you. For #1-#3, at least: #4-#6 seem like distracting side issues.

No, wait, you misunderstand, we're the Department of Transportation. If people use less transportation, our expertise isn't needed, and our jobs are on the line!

... with his laptop logged in to the Silk Road admin site, yeah.

Maybe I'm late to the party here, but I only just now realized that Dread Pirate Roberts' actual legal defense was that he'd left the ship to his cabin boy, and has been retired for the past 15 years and living like a king in Patagonia.

Yeah, but all the well-documented epigenetic processes I know about involve modification to the DNA strands, either structurally or chemically. The cell creates new organelles by following DNA blueprints in the nucleus or mitochondria, not by directly copying existing organelles.

So epigenetics might be relevant for this procedure, but I don't think non-genetic material provided by the egg donor is likely to be an issue.

Two problems.

First, the problem that every evaporative cooler has: water is scarce in the hot dry places where evaporative cooling works well.

Second, water always has some minerals dissolved in it that crystallize out when you remove the water. A traditional swamp cooler has an active flow and a reservoir that you have to empty to keep these from building up, but with these "smart bricks", the pores in the bricks are going to fill up with lime and gypsum, and pretty soon they'll be "dumb bricks".

I've got a couple TrendNet TV-IP862IC. They support 720p H.264 video, and speak FTP and (crucially for my application) Samba.

Caught me a burglar with 'em: he came in, poked around, noticed the camera and ripped it out of the wall, but not before the camera sent his picture to the SMB fileserver hidden in a closet. Police recognized him, picked him up, and he confessed to a string of burglaries to support his heroin habit.

I saw that before I posted here, and it proves my point: FLIR can't see through walls, but it can see the warmth of the outside of the walls. So if the bad guy stands perfectly still for a minute or two with his back up against an uninsulated metal wall... not exactly useful, eh?

I have no problem with this, provided the cops obtain a warrant through established judicial process.