volundr-

You say, "Facebook is really doing nothing technologically amazing to allow that communication," but you're kind of glossing over the immense complexity of building systems to support private and public communication (for free), and prevent an incredible variety and volume of abusive traffic.

Can you name a single alternative at their scale with a business plan that is viable long term and not state run or state supported?

As a rare earth ore, most coal has very little value. From a practical standpoint, this is interesting but not particularly actionable, unless it is a process that is cheap and preserves the other industrial utility of coal.

That's not really what he's saying. As a developer, it is up to you to make things go. As a manager, your job is to support engineers and believe that they will make things go.

That is indeed a leap, and a very different mindset.

From the article: "In place of 20 trees, it uses less than a ton of limestone, as well as 200 kilograms of polyolefin."

200 kilograms of polyolefin, a class of compounds produced by polymerization of alkenes, which are derived from petrochemicals or ethanol, both of which come from water-intensive sources.

Also, is this stuff biodegradable at all? It's basically stone dust infused with an extremely stable plastic. This stuff would last a thousand years in a landfill...