Stalin never outlawed typewriters. No idea where you've got that from.

Perhaps here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat.

The term was coined as a pun by Russian poet Nikolai Glazkov in the 1940s, who typed copies of his poems indicating Samsebyaizdat (, “Myself by Myself Publishers”) on the front page. Before glasnost, the practice was dangerous, because copy machines, printing presses, and even typewriters in offices were under control of the First Departments (KGB outposts): reference printouts for all of them were stored for identification purposes.

22. The system of claim 19, the actions of the analysis module further comprising: identifying a plurality of object names having the highest probabilities of having a visual representation within a first visual content item in the visual content repository; and revising a list of labels within metadata associated with the first visual content item, based at least in part on the identified plurality of object names.

Especially United States Patent 8250019 (System and method for interactive knowledge visualization) claim 9:

9. A method for interactive knowledge visualization, comprising: receiving, at a knowledge visualization server, a request for one or more visualizations; retrieving data associated with the one or more visualizations from one or more databases; converting the data associated with the one or more visualizations into visualization data,...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_class#Places_of_high_Creative_Class_populations:

In Cities and the Creative Class, Florida devotes several chapters to discussion of the three main prerequisites of creative cities (though there are many additional qualities which distinguish creative magnets). For a city to attract the Creative Class, he argues, it must possess "the three 'T's": Talent (a highly talented/educated/skilled population), Tolerance (a diverse community, which has a 'live and let live' ethos), and Technology (the technological infrastructure necessary to fuel an entrepreneurial culture).

I would add that the increased possibility of serendipitous interactivity with other Creatives in an urban environment may be one of the underlying factors that leads to the selection of certain cities and not others.

"Make me a general-purpose computer that runs all programs except for one program that freaks me out."

Isn't this just another version of the halting problem, with mathematics replaced by politics?

But hey, now you can accuse anyone you disagree with online of being a 'KGB bot'!

That sounds like something a KGB bot would say!

Great -- a new twist on Godwin's Law.

"He is not God of the dead, but of the living." (nudge, nudge, wink, wink --say, know more?)

It's probable that, hand-in-hand with life extension, will come the ability to tune age to anywhere on the adult spectrum. "Old" age would come to seem only a charming oxymoron. (Due to the massive pruning of neurons occurring at the end of adolescence, one could probably not 'back up' past about 25 or so.) If that's the case, my guess is that most people will settle at somewhere in their 30's -- the combined peak of mental and physical fitness. Given that, most people would then have no problem living indefinitely. The settlement of the universe would then become an interesting lark, as a thousand years, combined with the relativistic effects of near-lightspeed travel, would seem to take no more than a decade would take now. (tip of my hat to Joe Haldeman).

People kind of forget about him, but I don't know why. He was constantly being nominated for Hugos and Nebulas. I read Niven and Pournelle's Inferno long before I read Dante Aligheri's Divine Comedy trilogy -- but it compares quite favorably in retrospect.

I can't believe that no one mentioned Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time ! Chosen by the members of the Science Fiction Writers of America and published in 1970: stories were from 1929-1964. No ISBN in my (tattered) copy, but Library of Congress Card Number 70-97691. Edit: Oh wait: look here: http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Science_Fiction_Hall_of_Fame_Volume.html?id=yPVbDv5DqkoC. 52 of 58 people rated it 4 or 5. You can then buy it right over in the left-hand column. Go, go!

And don't forget Stand on Zanzibar. *And* The Sheep Look Up. Dystopias that stand with the bes--, er, the worst of them.

Finally! Everyone knows he wrote the classic ST episode The Trouble with Tribbles, but he also wrote two other classics: When H.A.R.L.I.E. Was One -- a 'computer becoming aware' book that ranks up there with Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and -- my fave -- The Man Who Folded Himself -- a time travel adventure that makes Heinlein's classic story By His Bootstraps seem simplistic. Message to Hollywood: Make The Man Who Folded Himself into a movie! Please! Not only do you get a mind-bending book that movie-making technology has finally evolved to enable you to present in a realistic way, but you also get a great author who can write the kickass screenplay too. You're very welcome!

(by inventing Scientology as part of a casual bet with Heinlein over who could invent the best religion)

According to Harlan Ellison, who was there, the actual event came about at a Con in NYC in 1952 when L. Sprauge de Camp made a joke that, if you wanted to make money with science fiction, you should just invent your own religion. L. Ron, however, took it seriously.

L. Sprauge de Camp, unfortunately, remains unappreciated.

Since you are dealing with 3D space, you will need *4* points of awareness to keep the center of gravity in balance. You might think that 3 legs and one tail would be best, but then you have to deal with a disbalanced processing problem: triangulation in space, followed by an add-on to balance that. Better to deal with three 2-point axle balancing problems instead. (A:B, C:D, AB:CD).

to insect-sized reconnaissance drones.

'The sound increases air velocity

Use four insect drones to 3D triangulate the position of mosquitoes, which have a unique visual signature in flight. Use a synchronized sound burst from three to push a mosquito directly into the path of a synchronized infrared laser pulse from the fourth, which heats and kills it. Repeat. Good-bye malaria.

The revolution is occurring around the world," it reads. "It is occurring in the private sector, not the public sector. It is occurring despite wrongheaded attempts by governments to micromanage markets through disastrous industrial policy.

Yes, wrong-headed attempts like INVENTING THE INTERNET. The fact is that the private sector didn't even arrive at the Net until the infamous Green-Card spam some *25* years after the net was conceived, designed and built by scientists funded by the US government-funded DARPA. Argh. There's a reason the average age of a Libertarian fanboy is under 25: people grow up and start grasping how economics *actually* works. They discover that the world is not -- and never was -- the black-and-white free market so lovingly depicted by Libertarian utopianists -- and never will be. [SOP] On the plus side, it is good that Libfans exist -- their constant screeching keeps the creeping fascism of neoliberalism somewhat at bay.[/SOP]. Hooray for dynamic tension.