Why should I care - the jerk store called and they are running out of you!

I hate to be the cynic, but this looks really contrived. And phrases like the one in the abstract "we learned that science can be cool" (paraphrased) are so old hat and trite. I hear my kid come back from school programmed to say the same thing. It seems that this work could give the children involved what actual scientific work is like. I am concerned that the real reason for this work to further the career of their attention getting teacher. [Just conjecture.]

Another missing option - Commodore BASIC. I love that it was a language and an operating system. Same for the HP 85 and many others...

So it's OK to talk about her "panties" now? Not very civil. And we women just call them underwear nowadays. The 1950s was oh...about 60 years ago.

The non-reversing mirror is cute, but the driver-side mirror with no blindspot actually has applications. I'd buy one now if they were selling them.

You don't believe in me? I'm real! Santa isn't. I don't make all the 49 yo ac comments though.

As a 49 yo grandmother, feminist, and C programmer for 20+ years I feel highly qualified to comment on this. The answer is that in my experience merit alone has been the only factor.

It's even worse than that. The problem of counting lattice points is closely related to the Riemann Hypothesis, the "most" important unsolved math problem. Clearly that is what Shaneson and Cappell are after. I've looked at the paper, and it is only 40 pages (compare with the 200+ of Wiles work), and these guys are respected mathematicians. No one has said it is wrong. I don't know the area, but it shouldn't be as hard to check as the Wiles paper. Maybe people are waiting to see if they announce a proof of the Riemann-Hypothesis.

As a 49 yo grandmother, c programmer and feminist, I find this offensive. Additionally from the article:

"The player is are so simple that a grandmother could use it".

This is just agist garbage. They wouldn't have said a grandfather couldn't use it.

What are you trying to say, that mothers are less technically competent?

I think you mean this:

The (real) press-release:
http://www.dragthing.com/blog/?p=285

NBC taking the above seriously:
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/tech/5318008-is-Too-Dirty-for-the-iPhone-63149437.html

There will always be higher res movies to view and process, and more data from the world to be saved. I remember one colleague telling me in 1995 that if I got a 2 gig drive it would never be full.

That makes sense. Added to the cost of the zillion employees they have to comb the thing for video that need to be taken down, or at least to write the software. And the constant legal issues. Throw in just the machines, and now I see that is reasonable as a loss, esp. that they don't sell anything. On the other hand everyone I know generally uses it as a first choice. Maybe in a few years it will make money. Remember the (good?) old days when Amazon didn't show a profit for years?

Yes, but what is the cost of running it that can cause it to lose a half a billion dollars in one year?

Maybe that's exactly what the North Koreans want us to think! It really worked, so they are reporting that it did, and we assume everything they say is a lie!