Clearly what we need is a blockchain DNS! (I don't know what blockchain is, but I know it solves all problems. I think you get it from a hardware store, but I couldn't say whether it's in the blocks or chains aisle.)

A former colleague of mine left to a startup which some years later was absorbed by Google. The work she does at Google involves access to multiple Google databases (to detect fraudulent access patterns), which is apparently unusual. I asked her about the DNS database; she said that is the one database to which she (and most other projects at Google) doesn't have access. I took from this that Google does track DNS access.

How this will actually be used:

WELCOME TO DESIGNER BABIES INC.
PLEASE INSERT EMBRYONIC DNA SWAB.
GENERATING IMAGE...
[ image ]
PREDICTED RELATIVE BEAUTY RANKING AGE 20: 63%
ABORT / RETRY / IGNORE

I can't comment on the other technologies, but Angular has transformed how I build the interactive parts of web pages.

When you first approach Angular it seems like an over-engineered, incomprehensible edifice, and the tutorial throws you straight into writing your whole website as a single-page application. But once your realise that you can use a small lump of it on a single page to bind some UI elements to javascript state objects, you find yourself using it all the time even for small things. For me at least, it's as much a revelation as jquery was.

If I were a poacher, and the premium for "real" horn was sufficient for me to keep poaching, I'd start delivering the head with the horn. Not sure we'll see printed heads in my lifetime.

If you're using gmail, and you receive an encrypted email, how do you read it without Google seeing the decrypted message?

Because only we can work out how Android fragmentation is the cause.

41 billion is enough to buy what, 4.1 million second hand cars? I'd guess that's >1 car per Uber customer.

The EU referendum is a proxy for a vote on immigration. If limits could be placed on the right to live anywhere in Europe, people would be completely fine with the EU and would likely be swayed by arguments like the need for unity in the face of neighbouring dictators, free trade, energy policy, climate etc. There are other issues with the EU, around sovereignty, democratic deficit, two-speed Europe, etc, but I don't think the average person really cares about those, they're too abstract.

In principle I think if it could be shown that the current rate of overall population growth (about 450K per year, the bulk of which is net immigration) is sustainable, that might have been enough, but in practice people perceive social systems to be overwhelmed and in crisis, or at the very least that government forecasting and planning is woefully inept.

I suspect if there is a referendum, people will vote to stay in, mainly because no one will paint a realistic picture of what it would mean to leave (the fact that the leaked document was intended to remain secret whereas the governor of the Bank has not been secretive about the case for staying in Europe, is a case in point), so all that will be heard is horror stories about how the UK will become Zimbabwe if it leaves.

Nevertheless I predict it will be a closeish vote, rather like the Scots referendum, 55%-45% or so on a highish turnout.

I frequently find myself digging into some Python library for some reason, only to be surprised at how little code there actually is. Python somehow seems to be concise and expressive. I can't say the same for the Java code I've looked at.

People normally reference Seiki at this point: http://seiki.com/company/how-w...

The shop down the road can't avoid sales tax.
The online shop based in Australia can't avoid sales tax.
The online shop based outside Australia can avoid sales tax.

This puts Australian businesses at a disadvantage, i.e., the tax regime fucks your own people.

So the choices are:

* level the playing field by abolishing sales taxes (the market fundamentalist/tax haven model)
* level the playing field by requiring individuals to declare and pay the sales tax (the US model)
* level the playing field by requiring foreign companies to collect and pay tax

Most governments go for the latter.

M-x editctl

Reminds me of a skate magazine I read in the 80s where people would write in to say they still hadn't received the free Nelson Mandela advertised on a previous issue's cover.

Don't dress up your sarcasm in floury language.