Something I never understood is why the hashtags need to count towards the 140 character limit - IMO they should be parsed out and stored as post metadata

Totally relevant. And he is a great grandson, this shows great character. It is very rewarding to work together on something you love doing.

Also, it's heartwarming to see some true love and care instead of the sea of self-serving irony/cynicism that oftentimes dominates comments on /.

Excellent point.

I think they made a movie about you. Have you released your inner Tyler Durden already?

IIRC from the times when I used yeast in my PhD research, wild type (that means: not mutated) S. cerevisiae clumps in advanced stationary phase (end of growth curve, nutritional deprivation). Such circumstances happen more often that not in the real life of S. cerevisae: just imagine that in nature it cannot walk to the nearest grapevine and say 'hey lets do some sugar fermentation here'... no it depends on being able to survive in times of drought. ne way it does that is through forming spores, another way of temporarily surviving could be this kind of 'clumping'. So, the 'clumping gene' is already there, it is just expressed in certain circumstances, circumstances easily simulated in a lab situation.

In my mind the argument would revolve around self-organisation versus (old, dormant) organisational information still present in the S. cerevisae genome. I'm bummed I cannot access the original article at the PNAS site, else I could comment on that in a bit more detail.

Companies like Facebook base their income on the information they collect from you, and are therefore in a continuous arms race with you to lure you into giving out more information. I admire your absolute understanding of privacy choices on every level and nuance imaginable, but most of the other people in this world are less aware and more easily tricked... and even if they are rather smart, they make mistakes.

Is it therefore fair to put the onus on the person who has a Facebook profile to protect their privacy? Especially when the founder of Facebook has been on record a few times, stating that privacy is on a slippery slope anyway, and they'll just go with the flow? Especially when the "I've got nothing to hide" argument has been thoroughly debunked, because just about any information can be (selectively) used to incriminate you, even when you're entirely innocent?

As much as I am a fan of individual responsibility, I do believe that this tit-for-tat game of deception between social networking sites and their users is rather immoral on the side of the social networking sites, and that it is a cop out to say that the user is being stupid. This is where Assange draws the line, which is not paranoid, but realistic. They really are after eroding our privacy.

E16 used to check for 'mass quantities of bass ale in fridge'... has this now become reality? I'm impressed

In North Korea, Duke Nukem releases you!

I don't see how this topic is related to having sexual intercourse with your mother.

I love the concept, but I imagine myself stretching over the touchpad area to type, which wouldn't be very ergonomical. I can also imagine that the base of my palms would rest on the touchpad area occasionally as I type.

from TFA: "Microsoft knows free software is not going anywhere ...."

Methinks that line is up for revision. Something like: "Microsoft knows that free software is here to stay..."