"I also have my PC setup in such a way that when I log out, FB gets NOTHING from me.."

This makes no sense. Facebook makes 85% of their money by selling targeted ads on their site. Your personal information (location, age, gender), friendships, interactions, preferences and links clicked while on the site are used to build a marketing profile. If you have an account, FB is mining it for profit. Period.

At $20, it's still valued with a P/E ratio of 50. For comparison, Apple's P/E is 13.5 and Google's is 18.58. To bring Facebook moderately in line with those numbers, they have to more than double earnings. I don't see the magical fairy dust that'll allow them to do that in the short term.

Dear potential enemies: If you want to cripple the US aircraft manufacturing industry at the outset of WWIII, take out this forging press first. Sigh.

It's an election year. It seems that many Americans are genuinely worried about increased surveillance. The idea that it's all ineffectual security theater against an ephemeral and perhaps non-existent enemy also appears pervasive. So why aren't you making it an election issue? Millions of people loudly declaring "I won't vote for you unless you restructure/abolish the TSA" would send a pretty strong message.

There was a story recently claiming that the majority of Facebook logins are mobile. If that is indeed the case, then the telcos are big winners, because soccer moms finally have a reason to upgrade their old flip phones.Most of them are choosing iPhones or Android handsets that come with $60+ data-enabled plans and multi-year contracts.

"the war against crime?" That's like calling life "the war against death."

Columbus didn't sail three Caravels across the Atlantic "just because." The one thing missing in the history of space exploration has been a solid reason to do it. So far, it's been a somewhat aimless pissing match between superpowers -- let's put people on the moon with golf clubs, or float around the planet in a pressurized tin can for 6 months. Whoopee. Things get far more interesting for tribes of bald monkeys when there's a concrete reward involved - mining rights, vast wealth, land, military superiority and so on. Sadly, the whole "space" thing is going to be a bit of a farce until there's profit of some kind to be had. *Then* it gets interesting. And not necessarily in a good way.

I'm not in the USA, yet I have to sit through FBI warnings on every DVD or Blu-ray I purchase. Yes, they're impressive official seals and look very threatening, but the FBI has absolutely no jurisdiction in this country. Why on earth don't they edit the bloody things out?!

It was apparently raining or overcast, seems likely that the pilots flew into the mountain while attempting a sightseeing flyby. That's a completely different story than if there was a mechanical malfunction. Of course, they'll lose sales either way.

The national party will simply claim that the robocalls were the work of a rogue campaign employee in a single riding who misused the organization's confidential database. One guy is going to get hung out to dry and they'll let time cloud the collective memory.

Dora has to be some of the most brain dead programming on earth. A vapid little child wanders around with a talking piece of luggage, interacting with bizarre (and oddly friendly) creatures from a bad college drug trip. There's some weird racial stuff in there, too -- Spanish-speaking people only live in Technicolor jungles with monkeys. What on earth does that tripe teach children that will help them in later life (apart from an aesthetic understanding of the jump cut?)

I design musical synthesizers using Atmega MCUs. They work really well as controllers in price-sensitive consumer applications, but booting linux on one is about as sensible as fixing your car with a spoon.

I bought a used iPad 2 for $300 earlier this week after placing an online "wanted" ad. I received dozens of responses - some with realistic expectations, some wanting basically new prices. Mine was a pretty specific purchase -- the rear camera didn't work, so I was able to exchange it at the Apple Store. The process took all of 10 minutes and the unit I received is indistinguishable from new. From a market standpoint, I suspect 2012 will be the iPad's biggest year. However, the fact that it's so easy to find a used iPad at a substantial discount suggests market saturation.

Easy. We'd stop exporting oil across the border and force you to walk.

You're comparing apples to uranium. Merging two enormous and well established companies -- Chrysler and Fiat, perhaps -- is a monumental M&A challenge in the traditional sense. Absorbing a 20-person startup into Google is completely different. It's all about taking an existing business idea, extending it, adapting it to Google's architecture and scaling it.