How do you know?

Actually RMS has said that development of the Hurd stalled largely because of the introduction of Linux, but that there was enough work already put in to it that that they didn't want to cancel it altogether.
http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/hurd-and-linux.html

Approx. $2000? Wow, that is an expensive case!

That's what they say about all the landline ILECs as well, but luckily there are enough CLECs who disagree and provide choice in the marketplace, driving costs down. Of course phone service is still over-priced in North America, because of the influence of the gorillas.

Calling small, competing companies "bit players" is a bit disdainful.

One data point isn't well populated :P

There's also Dell Voice and Google Voice might be coming soon, but I imagine that Facebook is piggybacking on Vonage Mobile to beat Google.

I think there's plenty of space in the market.

My daughter, now 10, has had a gmail account for a few years which she uses to correspond to friends and family. About 6 months ago she got locked out of her account because she started creating a Google+ profile (it prompted her to do it), and put in her real birthday. I didn't want her to lose all her correspondence, so went through the painful process of having the account put under my name (and having to verify my birth date). Google's done a lot of things I don't like, but their services tend to be better than the alternatives.

Oh really? Can I get her name and phone number?

Sears catalogue, biatch!

It is on my network!

Yahoo PlaceFinder does address tokenization down to the subdwelling (floor/unit level) that I haven't found in any other service.

It depends what you mean "real evidence" and "significant scale". I grew up partially in the country and I've seen first hand things that I would rather not have, but no, I haven't performed any in-depth studies on the matter.

Here's the thought process: "since this milk will be pasteurized, it's ok if I include milk from this sick cow over here". Are you suggesting that this train of thought isn't widespread? Beyond this particular application?

Here's an interesting article concerning bovine TB: http://www.lung.ca/tb/abouttb/animal/

Heat pasteurization of milk, which means heating the milk to a certain temperature for a prescribed length of time, kills the TB bacteria found in the milk and makes it safe for humans to drink.

Here's a somewhat longer article that to me backs up the idea: http://www.york.ca/Departments/Health+Services/Raw+Milk.htm

The pasteurization of milk was implemented specifically to destroy common pathogens found in raw milk and, secondarily, to give milk a longer shelf life by reducing the number of spoilage-causing organisms. Even under the strictest conditions, cows naturally carry certain disease-causing bacteria which may be passed to the milk that they produce, including Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria, Tuberculosis and E.coli 0157:H7.

I'm quite comfortable with the logic.

Pasteurization is the process that allows farmers to subject their milk producing cattle to the poor conditions that produce poor milk - they feel they can get away with things that they wouldn't be able to without it, like mastitis, tuberculosis, feces contamination, etc.