For a second there I thought you'd written "PayPal security".

Now now, don't go skipping generations!! As a State Govt, you must endure the throes of Vista also. Only then can proper anti-MS policy bias be formed. You should make that 4 years.

The H1N1 virus does not represent "the grave" for me.

Spoken like a true Darwin Award contender. H1N1 has presented a strain that is very virulent and that has been fatal for young healthy individuals. Of course, you can argue the finer points, weigh up the overall risks for yourself by understanding the disease better (recommended) and come to a decision, but should you chose not to vaccinate yourself against it, you should keep in mind the possibility that you may carry the disease on to people you care about whom may or may not be adversely impacted.

There is, after all, a type of natural selection in effect here. If you change the virus's environment (by vaccinating the hosts) to select against a few strains, then those strains will decline and other strains will become dominant.

The problem I see with this is that it implies that the flu strains are competing with one another when in fact they are not. I don't see why it's not possible for a person to come down with two or more flu's at the one time, thereby all being successful, and one not disqualifying the other(s). The victim would be in a pretty bad state I expect and greatly benefit from having been vaccinated against any one. The (un-natural) selection pressure is real in terms of diminished host environments for one of these flus, and while it may appear that the other flus have been selected "for", eliminating one does not make the others more or less successful.

In line with this thinking then, if a flu weakened immune system is enough to make another less prevalent virus, more successful, then not vaccinating and getting a bad flu may assist a less virulent flu at becoming more successful.

Spot on R.Kitten. Spot on.

That sure makes some rivetting reading. Having read a dozen or so of the bio's I started to get the feeling that some of these guys haven't put that much thought into it. Not that reading such a small and relativly random sample of the 650 is entirely representative, but after a whole series of bad links to a skeptics website, plus reading of an aging Norweigian that reckons he could do with a little warming (Norway is apparently cold), and a mathematician who admits to not understanding why the incoming solar radiation isn't absorbed by the atmosphere but the reflected radiation is; it started to detract from the credibility of the document. Anyone else taken a look at it?

If you come away having learnt just 1 thing, then Singularity U was worth it. All they need to know is how much a "worth it" is worth.

but also for research into astronomy, energy, the human genome, and climate change.

So they'll be running BOINC as a screen saver then?

Just like the reviewer, I struggled getting through Cryptonomicon, but made it satisfied at just having made it. I totally lost it in the Baroque Cycle, thankfully early on it would seem. Now another singular novel, time to give it another shot, and once again comes the drudgery...
Oh well. It seems to me that in writing In The Beginning was the Command Line Stephenson has suckered us all in to hoping that some lighter intellectual entertainment is to be had elsewhere in his writing... eventually. With Snow Crash he sealed the deal. Now we're in for the long haul, despite everthing else. I feel a little ripped off. I must stop buying the damn books, get a library card, or something.

1. Make a book about the command line to get lots of Nerds on board.
2. Write and sell as much crap as you like.
3. Profit.

It may not be his intention but it's how I feel.

We have ourselves a bug-hunt.

CNN are still waiting for the Pocket Holographic Projector edition to come out.
Until then, they're happy to fake it.