Electricity vs. Gasoline?

Are you kidding? It's not an argument about how much carbon it takes to create electricity versus how much carbon burning gasoline creates.  Notice the difference in that sentence in the word "create".  The concept is that electricity is an energy carrier.  That is the point.  We need renewable energy carriers.  It can be anything.  Hydrogen, light, electricity, gasoline, alcohol, water....  BUT, if you use a non-renewable carrier, you are consuming two things.  The energy and the carrier.  Electricity is a renewable carrier.  So, if we are producing it with coal, then that is a problem that needs resolution.  And it can be resolved.  Find ways to generate the energy cleanly -- then use electricity to carry it.

Take hydrogen. It can be an energy carrier also.  There are clean ways to create it.  There are also unsustainable ways to create it.

Microsoft and Skype

Skype is a great app.  It does need some work, especially when you are using it for conference calls.  But the primary change it needs and what Microsoft is ideally suited to do is to make it "grandma capable".  As the internet of things spreads and these tools reach out to the general public, they must be made REALLY easy to use.  As an engineer, I can figure it out, but grandma is not going to bother.  With the race to have a set-top box in your home that is the media center, having a Skype app driven by the WINCE OS or licensed from MSFT would be a good win for Microsoft.  Even if the OS is not WINCE, they could license the app similar to how Netflix runs from you DVD or TV player now.

Good luck Microsoft.

Training dogs.

Once you train your puppy to jump, you have trained it to scale the fence that keeps him/her in your yard when they grow up.

Training cats.

If you let your indoor cat just walk in the backyard -- you have made it into an outdoor cat.  They will not be satisfied with what you think is appropriate, regardless of their age. It's instinct.  If they are very old, and they are not be able to scale the fence and they will stay put.