It's mainly a win for iDevice owners. Probably because of competition from Apple, the new Google Maps has the fast vector-based maps that Google never added to the old (Google) Maps app. The lack of a standard Apple app providing transit routing has led to a bunch of new apps offering this feature, so whereas before we had this only from Google, we now have it from a variety of apps. And we also have turn-by-turn from Apple, which Google not only never added to Maps, but even prohibited developers from implementing using Google's data. Indirectly, it is also a win for Apple, since it adds value to Apple's devices.

You've probably been listening to Fox news or talk radio too much. Try stepping out of the epistemic closure echo chamber and looking at some actual data on satisfaction with health care

So the solution to globalization is to encourage American industries to pollute like those in the 3rd world, so Americans can live like Chinese peasants (and your 3% get even richer)? At some point, it's up to the Chinese people to get their own environmental house in order, but even there we can help by setting an example, instead of letting them set the example for us.

This definitely one of the front runners in the "really stupid objection to global warming" competition. It only takes about 10 seconds on the internet to discover that Mauna Loa is only one of many CO2 monitoring stations. It's valued because it is one of the longest running, but there are many, many others that provide cross checks to verify that it isn't only recording volcanic emissions (even if, by some bizarre coincidence, those were increasing). It only takes a little more time to learn something about the many controls done by the Mauna Loa observatory to ensure that their measurements are not corrupted by volcanic CO2.

Or you can simply go to Skeptical Science, who has already done the work for you, and laid out links to the references that you can verify yourself, just in case you've a mind to make another really stupid objection (like "They're a warmist site, so you can't believe anything they say")

http://www.skepticalscience.com/mauna-loa-volcano-co2-measurements.htm

And lightning has been known to cause forest fires, so we don't have to do anything about our habit of tossing lit cigarette buts out the car window.

A cap and trade program on sulfur emissions led to substantial reductions in acid rain, so it's one approach with real-world evidence that it can work. Because it provides a financial incentive for reducing emissions, the "invisible hand" directs resources to just those areas that are most efficient, and stimulates innovation to develop new ways of reducing emissions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program

Depends on how you measure speed. Both had extremely advanced graphics hardware that handled the most computationally intensive stuff in hardware separately from the cpu, so they could accomplish tasks that competing systems lacked the power to achieve, and did not require particularly fast cpu's (although the cpu's were quite capable. The 65816 in the SNES was essentially an early RISC-like processor, and highly cycle efficient--it was what made it possible for the Apple II gs to implement a full Mac-like GUI of much higher quality than Intel based PCs with nominally faster hardware could handle.) The SNES could handle large 2D sprites in hardware and could scale and rotate bitmaps, which made it possible to reproduce the graphical appearance of arcade games that ran on hardware that cost thousands of dollars, and could produce graphical effects that competing systems could not manage. The N64 was the only machine of its generation that could do true perspective graphics, with antialiasing and correct 3D perspective scaling of textures. The competing systems of the time (the PS1 and Saturn) lacked the power to do this at all--both of them "cheated" by scaling texture bitmaps in 2-dimensions, producing a variety of graphical artifacts including textures that shifted bizarrely as the perspective changed.

SNES and N64

It's not like calculating the probability of a dice roll. There are a lot of empirical assumptions in Silver's model. He adjusts for economic conditions, he normalizes polls for historical bias, etc. He has to decide what distributions to use for his Monte-Carlo simulations. So there's plenty of room for him to refine his methodology based on performance. Sam Wang using a simpler median-based method achieved similar accuracy and he argues that Silver's confidence limits are too wide.

No, the comparison is to what other companies are paying for similar FRAND patents. You can't compare to non-FRAND patents, because FRAND patents are a special type of patent--in order to get its patent approved as part of a standard, a company promises in advance to license it at to anybody a "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" rate. Being accepted as part of a standard is valuable, because often their are many ways to do something, and the patent's value thus comes largely from being required for standards compliance (i.e. "work-arounds" are not permitted). Effectively, by agreeing to license a patent at a low rate, a company gains access to a captive market. Ordinary patents are not subject to this restriction, but that also means that competitors are free to avoid paying by using a work-around.

These are in line with typical licensing fees for other FRAND patents. Remember, in order to get its patent approved as standard essential (an thus gain monopoly access to a captive market) a company commits to license that patent at a "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory rate."

Good way for Google to cut its own throat. Google's searches are a big part of its income, far more important than android.

Apple's reaction is exactly what I'd expect. It's a very clear illustration of the difference between Microsoft's and Apple's design philosophy. Microsoft tends to emphasize a large feature set, whereas Apple favors a smaller feature set heavily optimized for usability. I expect that Surface will do OK, although it probably won't be a runaway success like the iPhone and the iPad. After all, it's a matter of taste--there are some people who like Microsoft's design approach (they often have a collection of multitools), and there will be some uses for which none of Apple's products is perfectly suited, while the versatility of Microsoft's is just what is needed.

I don't know about 7" tablets, but Apple's new 7.9" tablet seems to be selling well, as Apple has already had to lengthen the quoted delivery time.

Most of us already take a cognitive enhancer to help us with school or work, so that ship sailed a long time ago. The most commonly used cognitive enhancer is caffeine, which seems to be pretty benign, although it is at least mildly addictive. Some people also take nicotine, which is severely addictive and (at least as commonly administered) quite harmful.

Then of course there are people who are diagnosed with ADHD. Although there is almost certainly some biological, and probably genetic, basis for ADHD, there is currently no objective diagnostic test that will distinguish people with ADHD from those without--diagnosis is by an essentially arbitrary set of behavioral criteria. Where the line is drawn between "normal" variation and disease is pretty arbitrary. Sometimes, the line is drawn based on the efficacy of a treatment, and at one time it was thought that ADHD drugs like methylphenidate (Ritalin) and amphetamine (Adderall) only benefitted people with ADHD, but this turns out to be untrue, so this also does not qualify as a diagnostic criterion.

So far, the ADHD medications seem to be fairly benign, although they too can be habit forming (except perhaps for atomoxetine [Strattera] which is probably less effective as a cognitive enhancer). I say so far, because it has been just a bit over a couple of decades since we began chronically treating children with these ADHD drugs on a large scale, so if they were going to come down with, say, early Parkinson's Disease in middle age, we probably would have seen at least a hint of it by now, but it's still a bit early to be certain.