As far as quotes go, the only thing that one has over the bog-standard contents of C++ vs Java, PHP vs Python, and Ruby vs. EverythingElse, etc.. net flamewars is that

A) It was made by "a big name."
B) It's more eloquent

Google wasn't the first search engine with a minimalist site design; Altavista started that, and I think you're right about it being an important driver for their success. This was in the days of dial-up, and the difference between loading the Yahoo page and the Altavista one was quite a few seconds.

The model for today's social networks appear to be to deliberately start with low-friction, low-bullshit, come-in-we're-open policies (sometimes after a beta-for-the-leet-only period), become popular, then cash in and pile on the restrictions, rules, ads and dataraping. Not that I begrudge the founders of a good startup their fortunes, and I'm not a big fan of the word "sell-out" and the sentiment that it carries, but in some of these cases that word does apply. When you sell your initial users on being all open and huggy, with the intent of adding massive monetization schemes later (or selling your business to someone who will), then you ought to feel a little bit sleazy about it.

There is no reason that we have to pick one and abandon work on the others. I don't see that the same resources go into solving more than one, except that the meteor and volcano problem have one solution in common - be on another planet when it happens.

The clathrate problem and nuclear war have the potential to end the human race while it is still on one planet, so we need to solve both of them ASAP.

You on the G600 bandwagon, too? This thing spoiled the hell out of me.

Point of order, the annual average humidity is lower in Dallas than it is in LA.

erm, "Linus" not "Linux"

I see to have a macro built into my muscle-memory on that one :-)

On one hand, you hear about him flaming out people who break shit in stupid ways.
On the other, you also hear him accepting blame for not checking things properly himself: "Serves me right for not digging all the way down the mess of macros"

Whatever his eccentricities, he sounds quite fair to me.

Why do you think they have no money? Or no need for financial services like bank transfers or loans? I'm surprised that the image of the average African as a fly ridden naked tribesman grubbing in the mud for meager sustenance, persists to this day. The same idea that prompts the question: "Why would these people need cellphones (or smartphones)?", when there have been so many stories about cellphones having brought about a revolution in local commerce and finance.

Got stuck with Vipre at work for a few years. It was nothing short of a complete disaster, to the point where on some systems, it just had to be shut down completely so the systems would function. Combined with the latest ratings from AV Comparatives (lol @ 88% detection rate and huge false positives) and I'd say nobody should ever run that garbage. It's truly terrible.

ESET's NOD32 is good and Kaspersky is very good. Nothing else has been consistently good for quite a while.

Where the government is phasing out home mail delivery in favour of "Community Mailboxes"... so now I have to go to the big box in order to collect my frequent junk-mail and occasional important stuff.

Sure, there are going to be mediating forces in the environment. Melting is an obvious one. The positive feedbacks have been getting the most attention because they are really scary. It appears that there are gas clathrates in the ground and under water that can come out at a certain temperature. The worst case is that we get an event similar to Lake Nyos, but with a somewhat different mechanism and potentially many more dead. The best case is a significant atmospheric input of CO2 and methane that we can't control.

I don't think I have to discount Trenberth. He's trying to correct his model, he isn't saying there is no warming.

I don't want a teleported camshaft that is printed with a 3D printer that uses chocolate for the printing material.

Actually, printing real-world stuff in chocolate via 3d scanning+printing would be *awesome*,and would probably have a decent market. Those scale model cars that you can buy; print those, in chocolate. You can eat your way through the car and see all the intricate parts as you do so.

Get yourself printed...in chocolate. Then eat yourself. Or take a bite outta the boss!

Lots of fun applications there.

And this year, the effectiveness of influenza vaccine in the USA is around 23% or less. For effective vaccines (measles, etc) with severe consequences for infection, it makes sense, but recent research is showing that people who have previously been vaccinated for influenza are actually *more likely* to get sick with a newer strain (again, NOT an issue with the measles vaccine). For flu, I'd guess that people who are exposed to the live virus in small quantities may build more natural immunity than those that a vaccine, but research hasn't shown the cause yet. There are two ways to get immunity after all:
a) An effective vaccine
or
b) Get sick, suffer the consequences, and naturally build immunity

In the case of (b), if you're infectious before showing visible symptoms (and/or you're not willing to become a hermit until you are clear) then the vaccine is still the best route, and more in the community interest. In the US, where sick days are lacking, many people aren't willing (or able) to lose the pay either. You also end up with dipshit parents who deliberately expose their kids to nasty stuff so that they *WILL* get sick and later be immune... which just seems cruel and unnecessary.

There are legitimate reasons for doing it. Businesses which essentially have the telephone equivalent of a NAT (lots of inside lines, only a few incoming numbers), or forwarding etc.

People with VOIP lines may have only an outgoing line with no number to call back. I've had this and used my cellular # for call-display.

That said, there should be a way to authorize or verify numbers for caller-ID purposes, perhaps by sending a text message or confirmation call with a passcode. Then, only those who have registered a number can use it for caller-ID purposes.

So this-or-that company promises you unbreakable encryption or that they won't poke their nose in your data. Do you trust them? I don't. All it takes is a little firm chit-chat from the national security agency of the country your data is hosted in, and your "safe" data isn't safe anymore.

If you really insist on putting files and shit in the cloud, encrypt it yourself before uploading it. Better yet, run your own server and provide yourself with your very own fucking cloud. Those who want real security aren't lazy and do the work themselves.