"Defaulting on all Euro debts, exiting Europe, bankrupting the banks, issuing a new currency is a viable solution. Yes it's a horrible hang over to live through but it means removing the horrendous debt burden for the next 50 years."
If they do not tend the root of the problems, they might as well do this every 50 years. Things like 14th month payments (while it was a thing) or tax evasions that could reach industrial levels on their own will make things hard, even without the IMF or EU interfering.
Also note the dates: Tomb Raider's TressFX happened in 2013 while Crysis 2 and the 'flat-surface tessellation' happened in 2011 (with Patch 1.8 I believe).
"It's just an extension of the systemic AMD problem: they [very likely] have the best hardware but their Windows drivers are horrific and not only do they not have developer support; they actually play the victim because others take the initiative."
Like how a Project Cars developer or spokesman claimed that AMD did not help for months only to be completely disputed later on? Also, ask Kepler owners about their current driver support in recent titles. They are not happy.
"NVIDIA set out to optimize the game as best as they could for their hardware."
AMD helped optimise several titles that worked just as well on NVidia (excep that one Tomb Raider fiasco, what was solvable doe to the openly available TressFX code. Can we say the same about hairworks?). But somehow many NVidia titles are optimised in a fancy way that always hits hard on AMD cards (Crisis 2 and Batman AA come in as uncovered examples).
"AMD didn't set out to do anything: once again they sabotaged themselves by not getting involved."
That is true, but I like to believe that if a group can solve a whole class of problems with a new language, that means they can spend more time and effort on other types of security problems.
Well, this was not the first time they adopted something early and left most of the world behind: widespread adaptation of the ogm then the mkv containers, followed by the complete swap to h264 over XviD, and I believe the abandoning of "must fit either onto a CD or DVD exactly" ripping and encoding rule was also a first.
The colder oceans are notable natural CO2 absorbents, plus we have to mention the effects of life itself: photo-synthesizing plants and unicellular creatures. Like the historical ones that fixated enough carbon to create today's wast coal, oil and methane fields.
As I recall, there is a group of creatures that may did the first big wave of carbon fixation at the beginning of life, binding CO2 and releasing the important O2 that enabled the appearance of complex life forms, but I can't remember it's name.
The currently mined gas deposits in Siberia are at least 600 meters below the ground level, normally deeper (generally at 1-2 km). The thickness of permafrost in most areas is a few ten meters, with the more cold areas reaching 300-450 meters, so there little to no overlap between the two.
"So is it old, buried organic (flora, fauna) matter thats causing the methane ?"
Yes, I believe so, though it could be still younger than the normal gas and oil fields (personal speculation).
1.) I think it may be possible, using a mix of infra and normal optical observations with a good algorithm to identify it on the images. Another but even smaller possibility would be the inspection of differences in the gravitational field * (though there may not be enough gas to be measurable this way).
But for either of these to be even remotely possible, we would need a good idea of what to seek, namely a not-yet-popped methane lens under the permafrost.
2.) Unlikely. Suppose if we manage to find some intact ones, tapping into those would be dangerous to a currently unknown extent, maybe even compared to the normal hazards of working with explosive and flammable hydrocarbons. Secondly, the amount of gas may not be enough to clear the costs.
"Having to restart after installing an extension is another. Every time I see the request, I can't help lose a bit of respect for it."
Restart-less add-ons have been around for long years, so if you see one that wants you to restart Fx, you can blame it on the addon's creator (I know there may be some edge cases where it is a must, but those are pretty rare).