Comment round-up #1, 15 May 2010

One of the great things about blogs is that they allow people to voice their opinion of an idea in the exact same place where the idea is first given expression.  I've been very happy with the conversations I've had in the comments section of the posts, but I get the feeling that a lot of these gold nuggets are passed by because they occur in older posts and I imagine few of my readers obsessively check all of my old posts to see if any new comments have been written.  I figured it'd be worthwhile to an first Interactive Illuminatus comment round-up, where I collect my favorite discussions so far and put them up to give people a chance to review what's been said since they last read the post.