Completely hiding the Google bar is not the best idea: You can't log out, you can't navigate to Gmail or other application settings, and you can't see your notifications. But you can change the Google bar to have a white background and black text with just some simple CSS changes:

#gbx3, #gbx4 {
    background-color: white;
    border-bottom: 1px solid #DDD;
}

#gbz .gbzt, #gbz .gbgt, #gbg .gbgt {
    color: black!important;
}

I don't know how you put these on top of Google's CSS with Greasemonkey, but if you can find a way, it should look how you'd like.

HTML manuals can do all the things accused of PDFs, and you won't even know about half of them! Your browser automatically sends your operating system and locale preferences on every request. The hosting site doesn't even need Javascript to access them. But if you did have Javascript enabled, your HTML documentation could also read and write to Flash and HTML5 offline storage databases, often without your consent or direct knowledge! The horrors!

"Wolf said that the document format is also full of other surprises. For example, it is reportedly possible to write PDFs which display different content in different operating systems, browsers or PDF readers -- or even depending on a computer's language settings."

Amazing -- totally unbelievable!! This should be wholly forbidden. Who would want to read documentation that knew what system you were running, or what language you could read, and tailored the display to make it more relevant to you? Text files don't let you do these things! Adobe is clearly going too far.

The constitution and its amendments specify certain inalienable rights that cannot be violated by state and national laws. Strictly speaking, the Congress can pass any legislation it wants, and the president can sign or veto any of that legislation, regardless of constitutionality. It is the federal courts, and usually the Supreme Court, that then enforce the constitutionally of laws through the federal appeal process. If they find that certain pieces of legislation violate the rights granted to the people by the constitution, they can invalidate them and remove them from law.

In my humble opinion, this is the tug and pull that makes the United States still livable. Without it, the United States would still have segregation, abortion would be illegal, most schools would teach Christianity, people accused of crimes would have far fewer rights, and the press would likely be very tight-lipped. Though, on the other side, the 2nd Amendment has caused many very noble-intentioned gun control laws to become invalidated.

Once upon a time the gender bias was real; now it's still perception, if nothing else. I would really love to see this poll re-administered.

That poll is from many years ago (don't remember exactly when, but at more than 1500 polls ago I'm pretty sure we're talking on the order of 10 years.) The internet has changed a lot since then.

The security problem is easy: How about your phone just asks you whether you accept the charges, and you click "Yes". Of course there will always be fraud wherever there's money, but such a confirmation system seems much more secure than existing US-style credit cards.

And you should have more faith in humanity that FB updates won't automatically go out whenever you buy something. We've learned that's a bad idea. But maybe people can choose specific purchases to publicize... like if you buy concert tickets, that'd be fun to have friends know. But the mass market would never install something that broadcasts every purchase; they'd just stick to credit cards instead.

Okay, so you're not a candidate for the Mars suicide mission. And probably not for the Lewis and Clark expedition, either. But that doesn't mean that this guy isn't, and that his comment was infantile hyperbole.

Without people who would die to blaze new trails, there would be no new countries to visit, or people like Jimi Hendrix to meet.

Just because evolution has different values than you doesn't mean it's "turned upside-down." Evolution's "goal" has never been an intelligent, rich, well-educated society.

On the bright side of things for him, it's less than a gigadollar.