Do people who design social networking systems really think we LIKE push notifications?

No, but they know that advertisers get all hot and sticky at the very mention of the idea. They also know who’s got the money.

Why is this a condition? It makes no sense, from a technological perspective at least.

To simplify, ‘scienceblogs.com’ has not always been on the same server and same IP for its entire existence, yet scienceblogs.com will ALWAYS point to whichever server contains the IP that responds to scienceblogs.com. DNS is the architecture that allows this to happen invisibly. So invisibly in fact, that you seem to not be aware it was going on.

There is no reason why a system like this can not be designed for physical locations within a virtual environment.

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Many have decried the Balkanization of the punditry of the internet: that fracturing into tightly connected users who only read those writers who already agree with them. 

A solution is at hand! Or rather, at eye.

I see on the Technology section of the BBC that Google has released some details  of Project Glass, its research into augmented reality glasses, where information can be displayed on either lens of the eyewear.

Perfect! Gven the increasing partisanship of American politics, why not politically polarized glasses? Right and left viewpoints delivered directly to the politically correct eye, our flow of endless information feeding the matching  vitreos body politic!  

There are probably those wo would not appreciate being exposed to opposing views.  A simple incision to the corpus callosum (available for purchasers at a discount from Google Docs) would guarantee that both halves of  the  brain recieve only one data stream. Think of the shouting match Rush Limbaugh could have with himself!

That would give new meaning to Polariods, don’t ya think?”