By this logic you're also paying for google's power, air conditioning maintenance, photo copiers and anything else the company considers a requirement to pay for in order to maintain there business. By this logic tax payers are paying for your chair at work, your heating, the IT guy to clear the porn off your computer when you eventually leave.

The idea that Microsoft Office is like a knight in shining armour to lead all from the mire of formatting chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was Microsoft Office that led them all into it in the first place.

First they blocked the file sharing sites, but I did not speak out because I was not a file-sharer...

All they need is two sticks and three diamonds and they'll be set.

Yes, this feeling was exactly the sort of idea I was trying to identify. That to 'us,' the journalist or you or I, it may appear that we are in a 'post-enlightment age' to use the author's term. I would argue that this is and illusion created by the fact the history is so condensed and the future so inclement. We squash all our history into a handful of visionaries and moments of genius, then we look around and ask where they are for the contemporary world. They don't exist, and they never have existed, at least not how we think of them. Rome was not built in a day and nor was the Hoover Dam, these grand ideas led by a visionary are less common because they never really were. The Hoover Dam was a combination of years of planning, development and eventual construction by many many talented men and women.

Yeah, this article's basically of the "Everything that can be invented has been invented." ilk.

IMO this mentality is usually due to the fact that the authors are far abstracted from the realms of innovation within science, business and general subcultures of society. All sorts of amazing things are being thought of, written about, developed and researched, but are out of sight of the main stream New York Times journalism.

PCR machine's not much use without a polymerase. That's where having some e.coli with Taq expression construct comes in. But of course were I to take it out of the lab: I'd be arrested and the media might get hold of it and GM media shitstorm (with lashings of Pop Sci-Fi references) would ensue. Sometimes I am super tempted though. Would be cool to be able to run PCRs in my bedroom.

I'm sure in the early 20th century the same was said about electricity, that we should take a break from it from time to time.

Perhaps there will eventually be an Interweb-Amish, who pick a random point in time to 'let go' of progressing.

I cannot live without teh interwebz. Thomas Jefferson [sic]

Plus, Scotland's not an EU member state. They'd basically be demoted from being part of one the top EU trading partners to a non-entity.

Ring in sick...
Google Pokemon ROMs...
Download Pokemon Gold...
I'll be back in 20 hours...

Wikipedia is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.

I agree with you, I also love Fringe and would be sad if it is canceled.

However they regularly talk about genetic mutation and manipulation, which as a Geneticist, I can tell you is far from 'fringe' science. It always depresses me when in the opening credits they have words like 'psychokinesis' and 'precognition' next to 'genetic mutation.' I'm sure the physicists probably feel the same when they talk about 'nanotechnology' etc. Despite being a fan, it troubles me when they drag in real science into the mix.

I like how you assume the idiot is a man... But yeah he will be.

I'm skeptical about this, where is the evidence that these organisms have been alive for 34,000. Why can't they have just been living, reproducing and dying for 34,000 years. If we found a unknown colony of humans in a cave that had been closed of for 34,000 years we wouldn't immediately assume they must have super-human longevity, we'd more likely think these a the great-great-etc-great-grandchildren of some idiot who got trapped in cave 34,000 years ago.

Denny Crane, Quickly!