This list has nothing to do with influence but attention. There are many people who I know who are influential.

The best influencials are the one's who are invisible.

Half those guys are idiots on the list. Tom: I wouldn't be proud to be on that list.

Wayne: Responsible use of plastic will prevent littering and prevent it from harming animals. Plastic is a very inert substance which means it doesn't react with other substances which means it doesn't release its carbon. Sequestering carbon for many thousands of years is a good thing and I feel that plastic has received a bad rap for the wrong reasons.

Mr. Foremski,

I'm not the best informed scientist concerning plastic, for I am only a high school junior, and it is a very reasonable refutation you have delivered pertaining to carbon emmissons. It would seem better to implement more plastic of some sort, in by creating a material that would stop carbon emmissions, we have reduced carbon pollution and wallah! Problem solved. It would also seem to solve a case scenario with the ammount of trees cut down by allowing an alternative to "

Ka Fung: I can't speak for the author. As for being "too large to fail" then that should qualify for nationalization since it would socialize the profits as well as the losses of such institutions, instead of just the losses.

I'm curious what your stand is on the concept that an institution such as a Bank can be "too large to fail." A little disclosure, I think the idea is a little silly.

Great article. I'm curious, though, I don't think the author mentions the $750B stimulus that Obama wants to put into play (some are saying it'll be at least February before they attempt to get it signed now?). Was this an intention (it didn't get signed) or omission?

Susan: I don't have any investments in anything except this web site. Plastic is very inert, it doesn't react with much at all, which is why it is very good at trapping carbon for thousands of years. Biodegradable plastic returns carbon to the environment very quickly in the form of carbon dioxide. Biodegradable might be better renamed "carbon-returnable."
There is no comparison between the production of plastic and the production of nuclear energy, which is very harmful to the environm

Biodegradable plastic is a good solution but you should really educate yourself on the problems with plastic created from oil, it's effects on human hormones the amount of time it stays around breaking down into smaller and smaller bits. The amount of plastic actually recycled. Plastic is a human horror. the only reason I could imagine anyone making your statements is if they were invested in oil based plastic and blind to reality through human greed. Do you also support nuclear power? Just b

Mroy: The carbon content of plastic is quite high. Plastic is made from polymers-- long chains of carbon and hydrogen--the basic building blocks of oil.

Plastic can be made from vegetable oils, anything that can provide those carbon-hydrogen chains. Fossil fuel oil is the most easily obtained and it doesn't compete with food supplies.

Can you please tell me the carbon content of plastic.

Chrome went out of Beta pretty quick though - didn't that supposedly have to do with Google wanting to package it with PC's, but manufactures not wanting to do so when it is in Beta??

If we're going to use drug analogies, what about alcohol? Going cold turkey with alcohol gives you the DT's which can kill. You can't end up healthier by dying in the process.

This makes complete sense, but isn't it true of much of the high-quality online content AND services we currently get for free? For example, YouTube, or Facebook. Everyone's scratching their heads trying to work out what the business model for these services is - why they're worth the massive prices paid for them. YouTube and advertising don't sit well together, Facebook has already struggled with its attempts to mine its customer base for marketing purposes. The answer is subscriptions,

Here's another missing item that's part of Blackberry but, sadly, missing from iPhone: Telephone number recognition. No matter where there's a phone number entered on a Blackberry (contacts, contact notes, notes, calendar - literally anywhere) the Blackberry recognizes that it's a phone number, underlines it and lets you call with the push of a button. That beats going to my iPhone calendar, memorizing my next appointment's number, exiting calendar, entering phone, calling up the dial pad and

Tom - I agree with you on the severity of the issue of misinformation and the problem that the current business models, offline and online, do not support professional journalism. It is surprising to me that I find few people who share this concern or line of thinking.

It seems to me that the lack of a supportive business model is the result of the temporary situation we have found ourselves in these last 10 years or so with the expectation that content on the internet will be free an

Rob: Exactly. That's why were are doomed to a long, drawn out, recession. It's always better to go "cold turkey." As a former nicotine fiend I know that quitting through small amounts of nicotine in the form of gums or patches was always much more painful and difficult than the short, sharp, shock of the reality of life without nicotine. We need to get off of the addiction to inflated asset prices, and we shouldn't prop them up. Of course, easier said than done. As a nicotine addict I always

But what if writing things down to market value is too painful? Politicians have to stay in power, after all?

Rob

There's actually a wonderful search app: unfortunately you'll have to jailbreak the phone to get it. It's called 'search' (strangely enough...) and is available through the Cydia installer.

C'mon, even the other Steve has a jailbroken iPhone...

It would be nice to see some of your commentary, even if you weren't able to go. I have a friend who is involved in the bay area and it sounds like things are tight as one would expect but for some reason he doesn't seem too sad about it; apparently everything with the title of president, it's ok even if the future is unknown. Sam, Nicaragua.

Your basic point--that interment of plastic in landfills is the only currently-functioning "re-sequestration" program--has some validity, but your analysis is woefully incomplete, given that upwards of 90% of plastic is made from oil, and manufactured through an energy- (and thus, emissions-) intensive process.

And yes, bio-degradable litter *is* less of a problem. See this account:

Thanks Carol. Coming from you that's a seriously great compliment. I don't know how to get it in front of anybody, I'm hoping that if you have a better mouse trap the world will beat a path to your door :-)