In my limited understanding I would expect the energy/maintenance needs of such a network be a tremendous drain on resources over time for potentially no benefit? I suppose the technology that comes out of the consequential research and development may better serve humanity, but using it expressly for financial purposes sounds like a misadventure.

Seeing as I'm about to graduate from CS with a minor in Math, the thing that I find funny is that there is so much focus on "results" and so little attention to process, particularly when it comes to learning. That being said, the biggest gripe I have with math in the classroom is the reliance by instructors and authors on readers to just "get" what is being taught; textbooks that provide one or two examples and assignments far beyond what the text really offers, or make the assumption that every reader is going to reflexively make all the intuitive leaps needed to get to the solution, and a correct one at that. Hey, I understand wanting to pass only the people who are willing to work hard to succeed, but right now the "system" makes people work hard for the wrong reasons. I can't say that I see Wolfram Alpha help the problem I outlined--it's a step sideward, really. At least now we can check our work? haha.

Why is it that game developers feel the need to call their games a killer of some kind? Ironically, I've only heard this expression used in conjunction with the FPS genre. As far as I can tell, no better game has ever truly killed the great game that came in line before it...and more often than not those games that are truly great are fondly remembered years down the line--for me, nothing will ever replace the experience of playing Team Fortress for the original quake, in its pixelated and later GLQuake glory :P