Is this not somewhat akin to trying to measure the depth of a saucepan of boiling water ?

if facebook has been a good investment. All sorts of sounding off by ''experts'' on the basis of some volatility in the first few days of trading is nothing but hot air. Only the future can tell, I am not arrogant enough to pretend that I know & I can't remember where I put my crystal ball.

They do this because Apple claims that it is Apple bringing the clients to the app_developer/service_provider. People seem to accept this distorted view. In reality: a big reason that iPlatforms are successful are because of the apps, where would these gadgets be without Angry Birds, Drop box, etc ? By buying through apple I would accept the same sort of transaction fee that the credit card companies charge merchants, but 30% is just taking the piss.

But: Apple get away with it because: (a) the cost is on the service providers, not the individual consumer; (b) apple deals with the app providers one by one, and each has little negotiating power because Apple has done a divide and rule. The only way that Apple would change its mind is if a large fraction of the app providers were to act together (aka like a trade union against a large employer), but that just isn't going to happen.

That is how science works: people testing other people's ideas and results. I don't know about your use of the word ''dissent'', since that implies ideological views, these are the very antithesis of the scientific method.

''Unanimous'' is a very high bar, one lone odd ball stops uninamity. What we should be looking for is what proportion experts in the field agree on the main points. We now have many more climate scientists who agree that there is a climate warming problem than the number of experts who agreed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. However: great political action and spending was put to bashing Iraq, much more than has been put to addressing climate change -- which is something of far greater danger than Iraq ever was. But that is politics for you.

Terrorists, rogue nations and paedophiles are the usual justifications for large expense or intrusion to privacy. I feel sure that these things can be pressed into service here ... after all: think about the children!

PS: have they contacted RIAA for suggestions yet ?

some people have more grandchildren than others - evolution favours those people. Some ''traditional'' pressures physical are not so important (eg: resistance to polio, the ability to run fast & catch a meal, ...) others have become more important (ability to live while grossly overweight).

The mental pressures (ie differences) are often overlooked, eg: ability to produce lots of kids in a high pressure urban environment. Good mental ability seems selected against: those with good education tend to have fewer kids. The need to feel to work hard to produce much needed food for the family is not important, the ''social'' will provide the food if you don't; in fact since (in countries like the UK) the more kids you have the more money you have thrown at you: I fear that we are breeding people who are ignorant and don't work.

I expect to get flamed for the above: unfortunately the numbers seem to support my thesis.

Protozoans were discovered 150 years ago, but they have been hard to investigate. It seems that there may be several different groups that are all classified protozoans, some may be very different from others -- RTFA.

I suppose that versign will be grabbing .idiots and .greedybastards for their own use -- they seem accurate descriptions of why they are doing this.

Will all CPU instruction be given the same time allowance, or will it be a case of to each according to its need?