Because Google Maps compares awfully with Open Street Maps and other mapping services. Moreover, Google has gained too much power, way too large a piece of real estate in the town called the Internet, and knows too much about too many of us. Google should be broken down into pieces, just like Bell once was.

I have a self-built server in an Antec tower case. It breathes out of the top ( the main inlets are front, behind the RAID controller, and one of the sides ). It stands on a table, and never has any problem with hair from the three dogs who regularly stalk around here, insects, etc. Only some dust, but that is normal.

that will break the entrenchment of Google Maps, or contributes to breaking it, shoudl get our well-deserved attention.

Nope. Not the western hemisphere, but rather the eastern. Humans came from Africa, which is in the half of the globe that has eastern longitude. From there, they spread to Asia and Europe, and from Asia to the Americas, the latter movement having been a rather recent event in human history ( less than 100.000 years ago ).

Boycot Amazon. I do, and a lot of people here in central Europe do ( although almost all of the boycotters do live in large cities, with easy access to book stores ). It is actually a physical delight to go, in persona, to a a book store, browse, take your time, and buy -- or place an order for something they don't have in stock. In the latter case, getting the phone call that "your book has arrived, Mr. Faustus" is delightful, too,

As a matter of fact, the simplest theories often - but not always - provide the best and most robust explantations. Your theory is the simplest forwarded yet....

This is an old house ( 100 years ) where I simply can't lay ethernet cables everywhere. So my girlfriend, with her laptop, is on WiFi, over a NetGear repeater in a 220V socket in... the bathroom. The rest of the devices which need internet access are on ethernet: the WiFi router is hooked to a 16-port switch ( got it as a gift from the friendly sysadmin when I was kicked out of my last job ), and from there ethernet to my 2 laptops, NAS, workstation and server, all on the patio which is my working place. SSID is actually RunterVonMeinemRasen ( "get off my lawn" in German ) :-)

jan@saturnus ~$ man popcorn

No manual entry for popcorn

I do, in some way. I think of Apollo and, especially, of Pallas Athena as of certain virtues / skills in human shape.

I have a Seiko watch that runs on solar power. It features day of the week, date, a stopwatch, an alarm, and a second time zone. Oh, and yes, I almost forgot: it looks good, too. So - thanks, but no, thanks.

Land of the free, home of the brave. Fuck, yeah.

......can't wait to pollute this, too.

How about you take a grammar and spelling course ?

Mod parent up. Insightful. The USA suffer from thinking that everything and anything will be solved by "the markets", and hence are an übercapitalist type of hell. One with the infrastructure of a 3rd world country. There clearly is a role for government and local collectivities here.

When I was a very young boy, about 5, my parents had been using an old-fashioned mechanical alarm clock for years, complete with two bells on top of it. As they replaced it, I got it - and felt the irresistible urge to take it apart. Just driven by sheer hunger to see the insides, and understand. Same thing with my father's watch.

It is still the same urge that drives me: using a machine whose workings I don't understand drives me mad.