We are actually pretty bad at detecting small objects that are orbiting our own sun! I agree that our detection methods have a strong bias for larger planets in near orbits to their star. However, it is still interesting to read that Jupiters are less common than Neptune sized planets.

Still, it's a nice article. I didn't know the counter for exo-planets stood at 900 already. Awesome.

True, but the whole quest is to make a device smaller. You cannot carry a netbook in a pocket (or you actually can, but some people have really small pockets!). I also carry a backpack with a small laptop... a small laptop has many advantages over smart phones or even tinier devices (multiple usb ports, a larger screen, and I can have my favorite distro on it) but some other people think there's a market for tiny devices. Let them. It's nice to see they are finding a solution to one of the more fundamental problems of making things smaller: humans are big and clumsy.

You don't have a keyboard with you if you are on a train or bus. This is the replacement for a smart phone, not your desktop PC. Still, 4 or even 9 wpm (words per minute) seems a little slow? I've seen kids text on the old phones (before touch screens) faster than that.

Faster construction means higher costs.
The simple reason is that you have to pay crews more if they work in the night. Also, the logistics of a project that runs 24/7 is more complicated than a project that runs only a few hours per week. The costs of a few diggers standing idle is small to the costs of the crews or the asphalt factory that may have to run over-hours. Asphalt is a major bottleneck: it cannot be stored after it has been made. It comes out of the factory, still hot, and must be transported to the site quickly.

I bet that in the US, as well as in Europe, they can actually pull off a trick like in China/Japan easily, but they often deliberately choose not to, to lower the costs. Only vital infrastructure is worked on overnight.

Can we complain about Ubuntu's choice for Unity yet?

In retrospect, not the best combination of words. :)

I was just gonna write something similar. It is very common to be able to buy a phone without contract in the Netherlands, and then buy a separate sim-card somewhere. What's all the fuss about? But then I guess we do occasionally blow news items from the USA out of proportion, so maybe I should just take it with a grain of salt and grab another cup of coffee.

Yeah, that is what I meant with long-term development. The Chinese now just try out some ideas. Some will succeed, some will fail. But they try them out on such a massive scale that they will learn all there is to learn. And then they will sell the successes to us at a profit. When us Western people finally see the light, we will be buying Chinese scooters, with Chinese charging stations and Chinese battery packs. And if we decide to go for cars, we'll still be buying their charging stations and battery packs.

The are starting to move away from their heavy focus on simple mass production of cheap goods. They are starting a new focus on high-tech goods, just out competing us on our only remaining stronghold of knowledge. Give it another 10, maybe 20 years, and China is no longer known for dumb mass production, but also for quality.

p.s. Do you have a link about these scooters?

America is a corporate-driven economy, which needs results this quarter and the next. Any strategy that last for longer than 5 years is just not worth the investment.
China is still partially a plan-driven economy, which does not need to have a result this quarter or the next. Pay back times can be longer.

It is incredibly painful to an economy to move away from short term gains to longer term. At first, you only pay, and nothing comes back yet. But after a couple of years, you start to gain from this. Nobody in the USA seems willing to take that first step.

Totally agree. Luckily, Linux Mint still gives me that same feeling. It is just that ordinary desktop.

It's sad that companies (and governments) need to break what was perfect. The problem is that occasionally they re-evaluate whether change is needed. And they they install a committee to investigate. This committee just cannot return with the solution that no change is the best... because then the committee would be a waste of money. So, they suggest change.

The most harmless committees propose a new "look" or logo. The worst will propose a change from a perfect desktop (old-fashioned Gnome) to Unity.

It is not about sacrificing... it's just casting your vote. There are already 3rd party options... just vote for them.

As for the cesspool... I am pretty pleased with my west-European country and my government. It isn't perfect, but it's pretty good. You're welcome to have a look, and we don't even ask you get a visa for that. Just hop on a plane.

True. And it is happening right under all your noses, and the press is still able to report on it, so it's not like you are all caught by surprise... and despite the fact that you can all vote in a democratic system, this has been going on for well over a decade now.

Americans, you've got nobody to blame but yourselves.

Security through obscurity: My data is safe, even if the thieves break in. No way they can find anything in the mess that I call home. :)

But there IS evidence that students are able to graduate quicker from universities, because the curriculum became easier.

Average students in the Netherlands (at a polytech university) used to need about 6-7 years to graduate. This was fine, since studying wasn't expensive. Now, our government doesn't want to pay for those "lazy" students anymore, and they need to graduate in 5 years. Also, the universities are paid for each diploma they hand out, so they have an incentive to make sure everybody graduates. Finally, it is also financially interesting to attract Asian students, but these want to be able to graduate from their Masters in 2 years, which only 10 years ago was practically impossible. The masters was officially 2 years, but almost always took longer to finish.

The result is really that it became easier to get a technical diploma. People enter the job market with less experience. Companies need to invest more to train their technical people.

Do you really think students will struggle to get used to touching the 'next page' button about every 1-5 minutes, while playing their computer games?
Teachers will only catch the odd unprepared student who honestly did not have time to study. The professional slackers however will walk free.

We should give students the responsibility. It is their life, their responsibility. Takes about 18-25 years on average to grow up. And this kind of thing just is not helping to achieve becoming an adult.

Cramming some stupid facts into their heads is only one of the task of schools. Making adults out of them is another. Sometimes those conflict. Deal with it.