The thing is, reading some random web page is worth some fraction of a cent.

Except that no, it isn't. And it becomes even less so when spammers start setting up computer-generated search engine optimized money extractor pages.

And if a news story, or a blog post cost a quarter of a cent,

Then I won't be going anywhere near your blog or newssite unless I have some specific reason to. And let's face it, the chances are that I dont; I can wait for the rumour mill to do its job, and I'm definitely not paying for propaganda which opinion pieces - such as blogs - are.

Just because Ford didn't go bankruptcy doesn't mean that they came out ahead. I think they would have done better than that, if GM and Chrysler had been properly disposed of.

The chances are about 10% that he's entirely wrong, and about 20% that he's a little wrong, for something like this. You'd probably be surprised if you ever actually gathered the success rate of these sorts of things. That's why the headline is incorrect. It's not conclusive. It's speculative. Good speculation, but still totally non-conclusive.

Actually, dogs are smarter than cats by all available measueres. Free will has nothing to do with intelligence.

Bah! The Internet and the World were only created last Tuesday. Any history before that is just a test of true believers in Last Tuesday-ism I dare you to prove otherwise! Also, don't listen to those Last Wednesday heretics. They're just crazy.

The system would allow people to pay bills anonymously over the Internet through an electronic transfer of funds â" just like Bitcoin.

Bitcoin isn't anonymous.

It would allow for micropayments without processing fees â" just like bit coin.

Processing fees are common with Bitcoin.

And it could kill off wire transfers through companies like Western Union â" just like Bitcoin.

Wire transfers are largely an oddity of the USA. Most of the rest of the world doesn't use wire transfers anyway.

FreeNAS and ZFS are indeed awesome. But before y'all go installing FreeNAS on some spare hardware and think your problem is solved, you need to be aware that ZFS is not a panacea. You can't just drop it on Any Old Box with default settings and expect it to magically keep your data safe unto perpetuity. You need to pay attention to what you're doing.

Some highlights:

• ZFS's design requires RAM to be perfectly reliable, or at least report imperfections. Undetected bitrot in RAM can and will destroy your entire ZFS pool. Thus, a machine with ECC RAM installed is a requirement.
• As if that weren't enough, ZFS eats huge amounts of RAM. The current guideline is 1 GiB of RAM per TB of disk spindles, with 8 GiB as a practical minimum.
• ZFS assumes it has perfect knowledge of disk writes in-flight, and as such doesn't play well with RAID controllers, which can silently re-order writes. If your machine has a RAID controller, the RAID features should be turned off. Don't worry, ZFS has its own RAID features. However:
• Because drive densities are now approaching drive error rates (10**13 bits of storage, with manufacturers quoting uncorrectable errors every 10**14 bits read), ZFS RAID-Z1 is no longer considered sufficient to ensure storage integrity, and you should plan for RAID-Z2 (two parity drives).
• For the same reason as turning off RAID, a "production" FreeNAS/ZFS installation should not be run in a virtual machine. It's okay if you're just test-driving it to get a sense of what it can do, but a live system should run on actual hardware.
• Using ZFS's de-duplication feature is officially discouraged. It may seem like a great idea, but it will gobble all your RAM and return very little benefit. On average, you're better off using compression.

When ZFS dies, it dies in a big and fairly comprehensive way, and ZFS will die if you under-provide it. In any event, you should RTFM before contemplating a build, and know the trade-offs you're getting in to.

Schwab

Just add a Bluetooth keyboard [to an iPad] and you have rebuilt the laptop...

...badly.

I did this eight years ago when my oldest (then only) son turned two. I took photos of him from birth through two (or as close to two as possible since I was doing this ahead of time), ran it through a photomosaic program (possibly even the same one mentioned above) with a "master photo" that would be revealed when you stood far enough away, and produced a large image. Then, I had a few poster sized prints made and framed them. I hung one up in my office, gave one to my in-laws, etc. The hardest part of all of this is going through the hundreds or thousands of photos needed to produce this. Other than that, it's dead simple.

Of course, in my case all the photos were local (not posted on social networks), but the principle is the same.

My dog eats its own poop.

Not a ringing endorsement for the dog food metaphor.

I actually have Iceweasel and Chromium configured to run that way on an old laptop with 256MB of RAM. It's still slow anyway.

Links2, by the way, is entirely incapable of rendering modern websites in a readable way.

So are you saying that new functionality breaks the extension API every time? 'Cause if it doesn't, then even new functionality can be a minor version number.

"from space, we think this might be a very cold place, but we really have no freakin' clue what goes on there, since we've never been anywhere near it, and we don't intend to ever go there"

thanks for the guess. I don't care. Let me know when you discover that the standing air you said gets colder over time actually holds its heat, and that's why you didn't sense any of it from space. let me know when you discover the next in a long line of mysterious and unimaginable natural phenomena that changes every measurement you've ever made -- again.

stop reporting evidence as proof, please. the two are totally and completely independent.

chemistry, physics, calculus, algebra, geometry, statistics, computers, shop, gym, literature, english, psychology, biology, law, history, second language, philosophy, economics, geography, civilization, environmental science, government/politics, world studies, home economics, engineering, fine arts, graphic design, programming.

everything's an opportunity cost, and many skills interfere and even conflict with other skills. my question to you is this: how many of your adult friends don't know how to cook dinner for themselves? How many can't manage their own finances? How many can't build a shelf for their bedroom or a set of cubbies for their children? How many can't clean their own homes? How many can't read a weather map, understand a shakespeare play, or convert between basic units of measure? How many don't know where hawaii is, how to plug in a computer, or count the first ten prime numbers?

Everything has merit and value. That's never the point. You're not learning "everything". The question is what has relative merit and value. And what you'll find is that those people who've been taught the most, can't keep most of it straight enough to use it at all.

A simple blue-collar never-learned-anything-but-a-hammer-and-a-screw-driver can build just about anything small in his home. All by himself, on a whim, quickly. Furniture, shelves, decks, christmas decorations, you name it. The guy who spent thirty years in school, including shop classes, has far more money in his pocket, and far fewer shelves in his home. So he hires the first guy to make things. The first guy is always happy, except when he's short on money. The second guy is always stressed, despite having money.

I was the second guy. It's taken me five years, but now I'm much closer to the first guy. It'll take me another few years of "learning", but I'll get there.