Google's social networking features remain marginal for the same reason all of the other social networking sites remain marginal: the value of a social networking application is proportional to the number of people who are already using it. And Facebook hit critical mass first, which means that anyone who wants to "socialize" online with all of their buddies is going to want to do that on Facebook, because that's where all of their buddies are to be found online.

Asking people to also sign up for a second social-networking service is a losing proposition, because it inconveniences them (now they have to check two sites every day) without providing any compensating benefit (why talk to their friends on site B when they could already do that on site A?).

I remember learning Z80 assembly on the "Thrash 80". Great microprocessor. It had two register banks, so context switches, and interrupts, were really fast. There were also some undocumented instructions, and if you knew those you had a lot of street cred with the other teenage nerds. Fun times.

HIs "vision" of education is silly. If the kids are watching a recorded lecture, there is no reason for them to be assembled in one place, and there is no reason that they should all be watching the same lecture. It will be individualized by letting each student progress at their own pace. Except we already have that. It is called Khan Academy, and while it works well for bright, motivated students, it leaves the dumb, unmotivated students even further behind.

Say some kid doesn't quite get what they were talking about in the lesson, and has additional questions. Where would that kid go?

To the FAQ page?

Seriously, while I doubt very much that educator is going to disappear, a great deal of the raw information is quite susceptible to computerization.

The most important thing you need a teacher for at that level is the socialization skills - we have less need of well-educated psychopaths than you might think (other than politicians and such, of course)....

Actually, it is neither. The tallest, measured from its base to its summit, is Mauna Kea. The highest, when measured from the center of the earth, is Chimborazo in Ecuador. Everest is just the highest above sea level.

Previous earthquakes in the region have changed the height of Everest, usually by pushing it up even higher. I have not heard about any effect on its height from this quake. Does anyone know?

Yes. Just type "google" into the search box, and they click "I'm feeling lucky".

So we're going to maybe freeze to death so you can win the argument? Kind sir, a Generac 8000 watt air cooled staionary is around 2300 dollars. And you can easily get over 8000 watts in operating a house. Of course, you could just let the freezer warm up and throw away a kilobucks worth of food. I've got a 6000 Watt generator, and I have to be really careful with the hotel load.

Most very respectfully fuck you and your attitude. I'll be that idiot, and you can freeze. Power outages don't happen when it's handy, and try iving a week or more in your know it all outlook.

It costs a lot of money to have even a little generator and run it. Try the costs of running even a small one for a week or two, then come back with your asshole attitude. You not only pay, you don't get much sleep, because they suck up a lot of fuel. And they run out when they run out.

Did I say fuck you? Fuck you.

Or maybe there's not really all that much NEW stuff that can be done "with a computer" or "in the Cloud"?

It's just possible that the industry is entering maturity, and the only things left are doing the things it already does slightly more efficiently than the competition, rather than in a radically different way.

Note that the very early years of aviation included a lot of innovation, both in terms of capability and use-cases. But the airline industry has since pretty much settled down to "move people about long distances as cost-effectively as possible". Not much has really changed in a long time other than incremental improvements in aircraft efficiency....

Or did everyone really think that computers/cloud-computing/whatever were going to be new and rapidly changing forever?

The Secret Squirrels should not be monitoring all Americans. They should be tracking terrorists!

Great idea! Wonder why noone ever thought of that before.

So, any ideas about how to go about "tracking terrorists"? I'm assuming you're going to start by identifying some of them? And then you're going to do what, exactly?

No, there's not a whole lot of really good reason for warrantless (or even warranted) wiretapping of everyone. Nonetheless, security takes a bit more than "well, we should track terrorists!!!"

Note that the real question is more properly phrased as "how much liberty should we sacrifice in exchange for how much security?"

Everyone will have a different answer to that (mostly divided along "how much of YOUR liberty for MY security" lines. A small number of people will rephrase that as "how much of MY liberty for YOUR security", and an even smaller number will say "I'd rather have the liberty than the security, thank you".

Most of the latter group will, of course, change their minds the first time they lose a job for an extended period, but that's neither here nor there.

What is relevant is that the question won't go away. You can't have absolute liberty and absolute security at the same time. So finding a level acceptable to as many people as possible is essential.

And mostly done by guess and by golly....

They were a civilisation of dentists, and they kept their trove of Mercury around 'cause it's used in fabbing the amalgalm for fillings.

Thanks, Poettering. :(

And! and! and.... The generator costs money to buy use and maintain, and it has to be exercised, because that fuel has to be used - you don't want old fuel in an emergency generator, Stabil or no Stabil. Its just one more thing that the some folks don't take into account when they do their ROI's and other calculations based on something that they just don't like.

And if you want to see some real dollars go away, try replacing your entire house hotel load of power needs with an appropriately sized generator. Running a big freezer, an oil furnace, refrigerator, and all tungsten lights (assuming a person who hates this idea hates cfls or led lights too) is going to get you some serious bucks involved. Don't forget your capacity has to be enough so that you can handle the motor startups on the devices, plus you really need to have enough to handle the draw when a couple start at the same time. Don't forget you need to install a cutout system so you don't electrocute linesmen trying to get you your power back.They frown on that, although the ROI of a couple years in prison isn't too bad with those three hots and a cot

So what's the ROI on a whole house emergency power generator plus installation plus fuel plus maintenance?

Strategically, if I were at war with another country, I would hope that their power generation capacity was in as few locations as possible.

I'm all about conservation, but in the end, it is every bit as much a distraction as that stuff you don't like.

Because in all conservation efforts, the end is people using so little resources that it is effectively zero.

While I suppose you don't believe that, tell me, what is the amount of conservation of materials that compensates for population increase?

Let's say we all use 10 percent less of something. Let's say water.

Each new person on earth then uses up water to the same level the rest of us are using, which is 90 percent of what we used before.

So for every new person, how many people's savings in water have been used by this new person?

So we have to reduce all that much the next year, then the year after that, and on and on. Eventually no one uses any water.

Are you trying to say it will never be viable?