The government will mandate better encryption and stronger standards so they maintain their monopoly on being able to intercept phone calls.

Not really. Sailing out of San Francisco Bay isn't all that impressive. And crossing the Pacific... that's a feat, but is commonly done. If it hadn't been that the boat was made out of unusual materials.... people have crossed oceans in rowboats. I've ran the entire West Coast from Seattle to San Diego, and given the choice again, I'd rather cross an ocean. It's safer.

Really you'd have to have the underaged girl tucked under your arm and hold your beer, to get the best grip on your shotgun as that bear charges you.

Sure. It comes with Moose instead.

My cat just drank my beer and chewed up the squirrel.

Seems to me there was at least one or two other books or short stories that featured it as well, but I can't think of them at this time. But yes, at least Number of the Beast. That book gave me a headache. It was like being on a drug trip. With hard science. Which, probably was the idea.

Shades of Heinlein. Seems several of his books mentioned marijuana farms.

Now the heoric and hard working Chinese workers and peasents will no longer have to be exploited by the running dog capitalists at Google! See how the benevolant state cares for it's people?

The internets. Now with clothed women!

Just what will they do with the source for Bob?

It's laziness and for most of the public and unwilling desire based on perceived lack of need to properly understand the metric system. In this case most Americans "know" that a meter is "a bit more than a yard" and since most won't care that much about the size of this thing, when someone says "three square meters", most will round it off to "about 9 square feet". Granted in this case the article should have said for the lazy "somewhat more than 9 square feet" or something like that. Sorry, the metric system never caught on over here except for large soda and water bottles, drugs, wine and distilled spirits.

As long as it can be tie dyed, it will have a following among the hippies.

The pseudo-communists in China need to save face somehow; it's all about appearances. Who knows, if they were pissed at google, they probably would have ordered the word purged from their language or something stupid like that.