They are indeed a utility, and what gets my goat about this so-called "debate" is this: I pay for an Internet connection at home; I also pay for the Internet connection at our colocation facility. Google pays their own bills, too, just as their employees do at their respective homes.

Put another way: I'm paying as a customer to access the world of the Internet, and as a business for the world of the Internet to access my sites. How in the *world* does Google need to contribute to payment in this anywhere?

They pay the bills for the world of the Internet to access Google.com and for Google.com's crawlers to access the world of the Internet.

If Google is costing a particular web hosting company too much, there are numerous remedies, including:

1. use the tools Google makes available to reduce bandwidth
2. use generally available network tools to reduce bandwidth
3. charge customers more
4. get out of the business altogether and let someone qualified do 1,2, and 3

OT, I know, but speaking of Bluetooth, I remember not long ago there seemed to be worries-aplenty about security issues with Bluetooth itself, but I've heard nary a peep about this in ages.

Maybe I've missed the press releases about it, but isn't this still the case? Aren't there still major concerns about Bluetooth being insecure?

This Security Focus article on bluetooth in particular is one on the subject that seemed to be widely referenced, but it's quite old: 2005.

Unfortunately, many meetings _are_ a waste of time. But this isn't due to the nature of meetings; bad meetings result when the organizer doesn't know how to facilitate. With the right group of people, meetings can be productive and creative. Comedy writers, for example, can come up with some funny stuff when they're sitting in a room bouncing ideas off each other. Long, bad meetings show that the person in charge is disorganized. For the most part, meetings should be short and sweet. Set a goal for the meeting, accomplish it, then move on. If you need to brainstorm, let people work in pairs for a few minutes, then discuss the ideas as a group.