Does the fact that people suffer from side effects before dying surprise you?

Not really, mainly because the two things we are talking about are consumed for their effect. Maybe I am not understanding your question?

This is the first hit I get on Google for "dsm iv caffeine intoxication". Immediately under the title text it says "These criteria are obsolete"

Toxic levels of caffeine: 12,000 mg (for an 176 pound person).

But I find I can only take a single drink of beer in general and it's good but the second drink is hard to get down and I need to hold my breath to get the rest down or just not drink it

You realize that alcohol is a toxin, right? And that more than the average -- i.e. 4 drinks a week -- is not healthy? Then just say "no" to that second drink.

On the contrary...fastest wake-ups in town!

Lee Smolin is one of the tiny minority of physicists who are genuinely thinking about the major problems of the field. I would also recommend Three Roads To Quantum Gravity.

Another I quite respect is Frank Close. I found Nothing: A Very Short Introduction to be quite thought provoking. And that is the point, by the way. Good physics, and in general good science writing, should be above all thought provoking.

Facebook now taps into smartphone microphones "just to get a 'fingerprint' that we don't save". This will drive up data usage as well, and is also being done clandestinely.

Because it doesn't work the same. images.google.com, for example, is noticeably worse in "retro" mode. (1) less images (and those in the old spaced-out-grid display), (2) less images vertically, (3) and when you click on an image, you go to the web site (i.e. you are not given the choice to just load the image).

I use Opera 12 also. I like it for its incompatibility -- it basically warns me when sites are up to something, Agreed about the crazy email folders -- this also impacts RSS feeds, so I have thousands of folders with one small file in each. Maddening. I use Yahoo email but don't pay them the $19. After a rocky bit these past few years, Yahoo email seems to have settled down and...touch wood...I actually like it.

I've had one of these for decades. Engineers don't make mistrakes.

There are all kinds of phones that work when the power is out. We have ATT & Uniden models here at present. The Telcos feed power with their signal -- if your phone doesn't need a power cord, it will work. I think I just saved your house foundation about 10 pounds. YW.

I've used Eudora for 15 or 20 years (lost track). And CuteFTP, v2.8 for about as long. And Word for DOS since v2. And then there is LViewPro v1b.

Ok, I downloaded NetSpeedMonitor and ran some tests.

Netflix on "auto" quality settings, watching "Weeds" for a minute, translates to 60 GB/month (per 1 hr/day). We quickly dialed that back to the middle setting.

YouTube is about one-tenth of that, for regular quality video. HD was triple the regular amount (but it will depend on what you watch). So, 6 GB/month (per hour watched/day) for standard quality. 18 GB/month (per hour watched/day) for High Def. YMMV.

In Sandvineâ(TM)s 2014 Global Internet Phenomena Report, the group found that people exhibiting cord-cutter behavior -- those people who had a significantly high amount of streaming media consumption -- the average consumption amount was 213GB per month.

[Source]

That is our household in a nutshell -- cord cutters. The teens watch zero TV. Same for my spouse. I use TV mainly for sports, and new Top Gear episodes. No ISO downloads, no torrent use at all.

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised by our usage. I'll probably install some program to track it for a while and figure out who and what are the biggest users.

Netflix (one person) and two teens tubing, a lot.