Moore's law has not been an exponential increase in technological capability in general. It has only been an exponential increase in one particular technology - more of the same. I see no evidence that the development of novel technology in general has sped up in any way.
No technology has ever extended life. The so-called gains in life expectancy have only come about by reducing the causes of early mortality and slowing down the diseases of ageing.
It's funny watching techno-religious belief systems emerge in the West as Christianity recedes. This is literally the replacement of the afterlife. Sorry guys, this ain't gonna happen. One day you will die, get over it and start praying.
It's not really a laptop, really a portable all-in-one desktop with a battery, unless you're talking about that very expensive wood & cork thing. Nice that it's not Intel but you will take a speed hit for that.
This is why I don't buy laptop computers... they are still overpriced toys. I mean, on a theoretical level, the idea of a mobile computer is appealing, but in practice they all suck very badly.
Tumblr is an virtual insane asylum for various narcissistic personality disorders. I'm not sure if it's a good thing to keep these mentally disturbed people in one place, or if this is outweighed by the echo chamber effect which amplifies their destructive behaviours.
Chinese people have amassed a lot of wealth but their investment options are very limited. Hence the Chinese stock market bubble, property-building bubble and Ponzi schemes.
Anything for more GDP growth! I wonder if the insane over-provisioning is a genius scheme to monopolise worldwide manufacturing for a century (even at massive cost to their population) or just a drive to keep up unsustainable growth statistics. Either way the game will be up eventually...
I would say games are probably where Japan has most excelled in software, at least in the 80s and 90s. But the code is probably very bad practice by modern standards (hand coded assembly hacks, all game state in global variables). When you only have a few KB of RAM/ROM there is a lot less scope to mess up (although I have come across bugs in cartridge games myself).