I get the humorous Microsoft-bashing potential of this, but... I think they're actually thinking along the right lines here. It's not news anymore that any sort of public profile on the internet can land you in trouble with an employer. Certain categories of online services (e.g. dating services) depend on a person being willing to divulge potentially embarrassing information about themselves. People will continue to want to take advantage of these services, but given the opportunity to avoid embarrassing yourself in front of potential employers / friends / etc., I think one would choose the option of having this sort of information kept secret.

But haha, yes, comic books are taboo. Scott McCloud would have some choice words.

...this will do little to solve it.

When I was living in China, I met several families with children and teenagers. Though almost all young people there have your run-of-the-mill Facebook-style "internet addiction", those who stood a serious chance of ruining their lives by spending too much time online were either spoiled senseless or totally ignored by their parents.

Based on the mercurial history of climate science over the past few decades, we might also need a National Climate Service Service to help us track changes in the climate of climate science research...?

Yeah, my first thought was basically, "Ah, Google got a hold of them. That explains why they've been quiet for so long." It's kind of funny that even Google admits they don't quite know what's going on ("various institutions are still in the process of characterizing the chip"), but the fact that it actually, you know, works, has to count for something.

To my knowledge many species of bacteria can survive indefinitely in practically any environment, but not while actively metabolizing. I am curious whether any of the species the article is talking about could actually survive and spread, if they would just stick around for a while and die out, or if they would only survive in a dormant state.

When I was in elementary school, I came up with (44713649/1500)^(1/9), which I believe is accurate to 11 decimal places, and is useless for any purpose but proving that I don't get out much.