Joe Nocera had an excellent column in the Times on the pseudo-scandal of Solyndra, the failed solar panel manufacturer that received a $535 million federally guaranteed loan. He notes that, while the Obama Administration may have fast-tracked the deal for political reasons, it’s counterproductive to claim a scandal just because an innovative young company has failed, for many of these companies are bound to fail. Here’s Nocera:

If we could just stop playing gotcha for a second, we might realize that federal loan programs — especially loans for innovative energy technologies — virtually req...

The new social networking features unveiled at this week’s f8 event showed just how thoroughly Facebook intends to knit itself into the real-time flow of our lives, but judging by a conversation I had with a source at the social networking giant, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Facebook’s mobile app is GPS-enabled, and the company can track the locations of users in real-time. “So if you’re in a bar or restaurant, wouldn’t it be cool to know that say, three of your Facebook friends are hanging out right across the street?”, my source asked me.

“No, actually, that would creep me out,” I replied. But h...