We just bailed out the banks, so it's too late to start throwing in votes of no confidence!
Uhm. No. That isn't an either/or. They got bailed out to avert a total economic collapse -- not as a vote of confidence. If anything, the bailout was a symbol that the banks fucked up -- badly.
On the other hand, the bailout should have had a few more strings attached to it, and we desperately need for meaningful financial reform to be passed. Unfortunately, because Obama fought for it, the Republicans are against it, and it's unlikely that the currently proposed reforms will have the "teeth" necessary to prevent the banks from going crazy again.
(Also, very few of the banks were actually "bailed out." Most were provided with a government-backed high-interest loan that they had to pay back, which many already have)
None of those things point to actual corruption, or the fabricated issues which led to the organization's dissolution.
The District Attorney for Brooklyn, the California Attorney General, and the Government Accountability Office all cleared the organization of any wrongdoing.
Other investigations are still ongoing, but are expected to produce similar results.
Newsweek and Factcheck.org found the claims about 2008 voter registration to have been grossly overstated, and largely incorrect. It's also no surprise that an organization that focuses on aiding the urban poor would register more Democrats than Republicans, given that Democrats poll extremely well with this demographic.
Despite all this, the issue is still too toxic for any politician to even mention.
Oh, and those guys who destroyed John Kerry's (admittedly already-weak) presidential bid through that swiftboat nonsense? They're for hire.
A group of dissatisfied conservative alumni used them to remove the president of my alma mater a few years back. They rallied the usual suspects (Limbaugh, WND, etc.) and within a few months the president (and the college by extension) was a liberal bogeyman. In turn, the president was fired, and the state pulled a great deal of funding from the college.
ACORN (who were unambiguously cleared of any wrongdoing whatsoever) were brought down by the same guys as well. That "incriminating" video was very heavily edited -- the ACORN staffers opted to offer phony money laundering advice to the guy because they had called the cops, and needed to stall him.
Oh the US isn't that far behind in maternity leave.
Just because "12 weeks seems like a lot to me" doesn't change the actual fact.
Look at the data, and see for yourself. The US offers 12 weeks of unpaid leave, which puts it basically at bottom of the pile, even if you consider 3rd-world nations.
I'll concur with you about the absurd vacation leave situation though. I get ~12 days per year with no sick leave, and my supervisors make comments like "I'm not sure that's a great idea" every time I ask to redeem a vacation day.
In Baltimore, a series of loud bangs is indeed probable cause (and for good reason too), given that it has an "actual" crime problem. Good on the officer for investigating.
Debatable. Right now, it's probably the best way to deliver HD video to the largest selection of users. If your requirements are even remotely more complicated than serving up a flat file in a browser, it's pretty much the only option apart from Flash (which is too slow to decode HD video on most machines anyway)
Silverlight has done as well as it could have been hoped to. It's a shame that the OSS community threw Mono under the bus, because C#, Silverlight, and Moonlight had lots of potential, and virtually no legal liability (as determined by actual lawyers, not some dude on Slashdot). HTML5's a huge step in the right direction, but even Google are beginning to admit that the spec is lacking in a lot of ways, and even at that, will take some time to be adopted widely -- the situation as it currently stands is pretty dire, as browser makers have begun to take matters into their own hands.
Zune owners also seem genuinely happy with their purchase. It did a lot of things that iPods of the same vintage couldn't touch.
Microsoft's got a lot of smart people working for it. Unfortunately, they've also got a few morons mixed in there.
There are also phones that simultaneously do GSM and CDMA. My BlackBerry Tour works on Verizon's network, but can also roam onto just about any GSM network worldwide (and even has a Verizon SIM card, which is a bit of an oddity I suppose)
The phone's a piece of shit otherwise, but it can indeed hop onto both networks, (and make incomprehensibly noisy phone calls, and achieve miserable speeds for its limited selection of worthless apps during its incredibly short battery life).
That's my work phone. My personal phone is a Droid Incredible, which is a fantastic piece of hardware with some great software underneath it. RIM is going to tank once another company figures out how to capture the "enterprise" market. Their products are godawful.
That's basically what they're doing with the current cap, although it's a bit more complicated than that.
The blowout preventer is still stitting on top of the wellhead, which prevents them from ramming it down onto the floor. Cutting off the BOP presents another huge series of problems, and probably shouldn't be attempted.
The primary issue with capturing the oil is the insane amount of pressure at the wellhead. The oil is gushing out of the well, despite there being a mile-high column of water on top of it. Actually obtaining a seal around the pipe (and at those depths) is going to be nearly impossible.
Don't forget about the methane hydrates too. The extra pressure created by a capping mechanism causes the methane to solidify, and clog the pipe.
Go back to your order, and leave packing feedback. Amazon has a nice form letting you vent about ridiculously-sized boxes.
Ever since they began collecting that data, I've noticed that my Amazon orders do seem to come in more appropriately-sized boxes (although they do still occasionally go ridiculously overboard). Their Frustration Free Packaging initiative is also great for consumers and the environment alike.
Except that's not the case. iOS and OS X already share a ton of code, with the exception of the highest-level UI stuff, which Jobs has repeatedly argued is necessary to do separately for each form factor. In order for MacOS and iOS to merge, Apple would have to do a 360 on this policy. Otherwise, they already are more or less the same OS (I'd even argue that they're already more closely related than KDE and GNOME are to each other).
The "walled garden" approach to the App Store may have had a time and place, although almost anybody would argue that that time has passed. I honestly don't see it lasting much longer, particularly in light of competition from Android phones, and the fact that Google, HTC, et al are being particularly aggressive in terms of hardware and software improvements.
Perhaps the system is designed to act as a deterrent or maintain the status quo? London is a ridiculously safe city. They have fewer murders per year (per capita) than Detroit does on a typical weekend.
Granted, there's a logical fallacy/ambiguity here -- we can't know how much the cameras are helping London stay safe unless we remove them, put them back, and then repeat that process several times.
However, it's disingenuous to knock the cameras for the very same reason.
In a big city, you're probably being recorded by CCTV cameras installed by a nearby business anyway. Nobody ever seems to complain about that, and the potential for "abuse" is much higher.
Each party gets a vote proportional to their share of the popular vote in the last election
Which one? House? President? How are the actual reps chosen? How would this solve any of the issues which caused the legislature to split into two in the first place?
It makes me wonder, if Senators bring in pork to their state to get re-elected, do you think there would be more pork in general if we repealed the direct election of senators, which some claim would give states more say in the Federal government? As is I think the fact that so much party money is on the line to keep representatives 'pure', which greatly distorts the idea of local elections.
Weird. I'd say the exact opposite. With the past election cycle notwithstanding, I've noticed that local politicians in the states where I've lived have been elected on a "getting shit done" basis, rather than an ideological one.
Ideally, the bicameral legislature should be balanced so that the members of the House duke it out over domestic and more "local" issues, while the Senate focuses on issues of equal importance to all 50 states (foreign policy, etc). In other words, your vote for senator should be the most "purely ideological" vote that you cast, as the senate should be involved in the least amount of micromanaging. (This is not the case, which is why pork happens. If big states got their proportional share of resources (or some close approximation thereof), I suspect that few of us would be complaining about it.)
Of course, this brings up the inconsistency that nobody really knows what the states are supposed to do anymore. Although the 10th Amendment seems to make things clear, the remainder of the Constitution is vague enough to grant the federal government almost unlimited power (ie. the interstate commerce clause -- virtually no business is conducted exclusively within state lines today). In many cases, it also makes no sense for individual states to manage things like environmental and health policy on a one-by-one basis. With one or two exceptions, the USA has functioned as a singular entity for over 100 years.
Unfortunately, the states' rights debate has been poisoned by a number of very loud proponents with completely untenable ideas. While I think we can agree that it's completely unacceptable for one human to own another (some southerners still haven't let this one go), there's a reasonable debate to be had over the fact that states like New Jersey get just $0.50 on the dollar back from their federal tax outlays. (The disparity between New York City and New York State is similar). Ironically, it's the blue states that rarely complain about "wealth redistribution" that get hit the hardest.
There are also areas where the state lines (as drawn) make no sense. I wake up in Washington DC, ride my bike to go to work in Virginia, and then hop on a subway train to eat dinner in Maryland. Finding a scheme to govern and fairly tax this clusterf$*#k is a nightmare. Lately, the VA and MD governments have even been using DC's transit system as a political pawn, and threatening to shut it down or withhold funding (which I might add, is primarily used to ferry VA/MD residents into DC for work, an arrangement from which VA/MD benefit vastly, as DC has no tolls or commuter tax). Can you reasonably defend this system?
I wonder if Apple are becoming complacent, or are focusing far too much on their mobile products. Their current product line is an illogical, uncompetitive mess (moreso than usual).
Apart from the usual "Mac Tax, no mid-level desktop blah blah blah" argument, the current product line is decidedly unappealing to a veteran mac user. I have a 2005-era Mac Mini (Core Duo 1.6GHz), and a 12" PowerBook (1.5GHz G4). If it weren't already obvious to you, I'd like to replace both, but don't have gobs of cash to do it, and would also like to get a tangible improvement for my money, and 5 years of "evolution."
We're used to paying 20% more for several intangibles (build quality, form factor, aesthetics) as well as several "tangibles" (OSX, generally top-of-the-line hardware). Right now, many macs cost double what their PC counterparts do, and although Dell and HP haven't quite gotten the memo about build quality and form factor, they're closing the gap, and Windows 7 is actually not bad at all.
Up until today, the Mac Mini hadn't seen a major redesign since the addition of a few extra USB ports around 2007. In 2010, I can pay more than my 1.6GHz machine cost in 2006 for a computer with a slightly better processor (about 2x as fast from what Passmark say), and the same (inadequate) amount of RAM. I installed a 7200RPM hard drive last year (for all of $80), which actually makes the new Mini worse in that regard. 802.11n, and the form factor improvements are nice, but the package just isn't compelling.
The 13" MacBook pro is also a baffling oddity. It's a great machine at a decent price point, and really has no peers in the PC world. However, like the Mac Mini, a C2D is inexcusable on a new machine in 2010. There's not even an expensive option for something faster or with more RAM. The 15" and 17" models are better, though, like many others, I cherish portability more than I do screen size. I'd love for Apple to bring back a 12" model, or simply sacrifice the optical drive for a bigger processor.
The iMac's got better entry level specs and pricing (which have inexplicably not trickled down to the Mini). The top-end model also has an i5, which is nice too, also considering that i7 chips too expensive to be economical for most home users. However, there's no way to get an i5 without a behemoth (but gorgeous) 27" display.
Apple's top-of-the-line workstations used to be defensible, considering that Xeon chips are seriously %*$&ing expensive, and the machines were generally rock-solid and lasted forever. Dell and HP's equivalents weren't much cheaper. However, things have changed, and the Mac Pro hasn't gotten any cheaper. Even a small bump down would be appreciated.
The RAM issue is a bit tricky too. Apple upcharges an extortionate amount on RAM upgrades, and has rather low maximums on most of its machines. Laptops are sadly rarely upgradable very far beyond the stock amount, and even the Minis and iMacs have incredibly low maximums. My G4 from 1999 has the same RAM capacity as my Mini from 2006. That's pathetic.
Apple's always put USB ports on its monitors and keyboards, which honestly makes a bit more sense than on the front of the CPU. The unibody design likely also places a few constraints on where they can cut holes in the case.
The original Mac Mini also had a vestigial iPod dock on its top that was evidently removed from the design at the last minute, as the internal electronics and structure were still in place in the production model.
I have a 2005-era Mac Mini. I love it. However, it's getting a bit slow, and the new ones are barely faster, and cost twice as much. Apple's getting harder and harder to defend these days.
Physicist here (not an astro-, but good enough for these purposes).
Solar activity generally occurs in cycles. As far as we know and have observed, these cycles are fairly regular and predictable in a "big-picture" sort of way.
Although I might not trust the weatherman's forecast for this Friday, I will trust his assertion that it's going to start getting cold around November.
I miss the days when Altavista was king (purely nostalgia, I assure you). I don't, however, miss getting marked down in Spanish class due to using BabelFish -_-;;
This reminds me of one of my funniest memories from middle school: The Spanish teacher hands back a paper with a big red "F" on it to the guy sitting in front of me. She says: "This is very good.....But, it's in French"
Back in the day, refreshing BabelFish would cause the options to default back to English->French.
Slashdot Mirror
We just bailed out the banks, so it's too late to start throwing in votes of no confidence!
Uhm. No. That isn't an either/or. They got bailed out to avert a total economic collapse -- not as a vote of confidence. If anything, the bailout was a symbol that the banks fucked up -- badly.
On the other hand, the bailout should have had a few more strings attached to it, and we desperately need for meaningful financial reform to be passed. Unfortunately, because Obama fought for it, the Republicans are against it, and it's unlikely that the currently proposed reforms will have the "teeth" necessary to prevent the banks from going crazy again.
(Also, very few of the banks were actually "bailed out." Most were provided with a government-backed high-interest loan that they had to pay back, which many already have)
None of those things point to actual corruption, or the fabricated issues which led to the organization's dissolution.
The District Attorney for Brooklyn, the California Attorney General, and the Government Accountability Office all cleared the organization of any wrongdoing.
Other investigations are still ongoing, but are expected to produce similar results.
Newsweek and Factcheck.org found the claims about 2008 voter registration to have been grossly overstated, and largely incorrect. It's also no surprise that an organization that focuses on aiding the urban poor would register more Democrats than Republicans, given that Democrats poll extremely well with this demographic.
Despite all this, the issue is still too toxic for any politician to even mention.
Oh, and those guys who destroyed John Kerry's (admittedly already-weak) presidential bid through that swiftboat nonsense? They're for hire.
A group of dissatisfied conservative alumni used them to remove the president of my alma mater a few years back. They rallied the usual suspects (Limbaugh, WND, etc.) and within a few months the president (and the college by extension) was a liberal bogeyman. In turn, the president was fired, and the state pulled a great deal of funding from the college.
ACORN (who were unambiguously cleared of any wrongdoing whatsoever) were brought down by the same guys as well. That "incriminating" video was very heavily edited -- the ACORN staffers opted to offer phony money laundering advice to the guy because they had called the cops, and needed to stall him.
Oh the US isn't that far behind in maternity leave.
Just because "12 weeks seems like a lot to me" doesn't change the actual fact.
Look at the data, and see for yourself. The US offers 12 weeks of unpaid leave, which puts it basically at bottom of the pile, even if you consider 3rd-world nations.
I'll concur with you about the absurd vacation leave situation though. I get ~12 days per year with no sick leave, and my supervisors make comments like "I'm not sure that's a great idea" every time I ask to redeem a vacation day.
Trying to rape gods kid would surely qualify for extermination
Ah. The Dalek interpretation of the Old Testament...
In Baltimore, a series of loud bangs is indeed probable cause (and for good reason too), given that it has an "actual" crime problem. Good on the officer for investigating.
Attempt at killing Flash with Silverlight: FAIL
Debatable. Right now, it's probably the best way to deliver HD video to the largest selection of users. If your requirements are even remotely more complicated than serving up a flat file in a browser, it's pretty much the only option apart from Flash (which is too slow to decode HD video on most machines anyway)
Silverlight has done as well as it could have been hoped to. It's a shame that the OSS community threw Mono under the bus, because C#, Silverlight, and Moonlight had lots of potential, and virtually no legal liability (as determined by actual lawyers, not some dude on Slashdot). HTML5's a huge step in the right direction, but even Google are beginning to admit that the spec is lacking in a lot of ways, and even at that, will take some time to be adopted widely -- the situation as it currently stands is pretty dire, as browser makers have begun to take matters into their own hands.
Zune owners also seem genuinely happy with their purchase. It did a lot of things that iPods of the same vintage couldn't touch.
Microsoft's got a lot of smart people working for it. Unfortunately, they've also got a few morons mixed in there.
Sarah, is that you?
TeX 3.15 will get released. Subsequently, the universe will collapse.
Worse. TeX 22/7.
Except that one of Einstein's most lasting and relevant contribution to modern Physics is in fact general relativity, in the form of the Einstein field equations. Which he published (correctly) in November 1915, when he was 36.
Maybe.
There are also phones that simultaneously do GSM and CDMA. My BlackBerry Tour works on Verizon's network, but can also roam onto just about any GSM network worldwide (and even has a Verizon SIM card, which is a bit of an oddity I suppose)
The phone's a piece of shit otherwise, but it can indeed hop onto both networks, (and make incomprehensibly noisy phone calls, and achieve miserable speeds for its limited selection of worthless apps during its incredibly short battery life).
That's my work phone. My personal phone is a Droid Incredible, which is a fantastic piece of hardware with some great software underneath it. RIM is going to tank once another company figures out how to capture the "enterprise" market. Their products are godawful.
That's basically what they're doing with the current cap, although it's a bit more complicated than that.
The blowout preventer is still stitting on top of the wellhead, which prevents them from ramming it down onto the floor. Cutting off the BOP presents another huge series of problems, and probably shouldn't be attempted.
The primary issue with capturing the oil is the insane amount of pressure at the wellhead. The oil is gushing out of the well, despite there being a mile-high column of water on top of it. Actually obtaining a seal around the pipe (and at those depths) is going to be nearly impossible.
Don't forget about the methane hydrates too. The extra pressure created by a capping mechanism causes the methane to solidify, and clog the pipe.
Go back to your order, and leave packing feedback. Amazon has a nice form letting you vent about ridiculously-sized boxes.
Ever since they began collecting that data, I've noticed that my Amazon orders do seem to come in more appropriately-sized boxes (although they do still occasionally go ridiculously overboard). Their Frustration Free Packaging initiative is also great for consumers and the environment alike.
possibly something akin to UAC in Windows
Going out on a limb, I'm going to guess that this is the first time that those words have been uttered in that order.
Except that's not the case. iOS and OS X already share a ton of code, with the exception of the highest-level UI stuff, which Jobs has repeatedly argued is necessary to do separately for each form factor. In order for MacOS and iOS to merge, Apple would have to do a 360 on this policy. Otherwise, they already are more or less the same OS (I'd even argue that they're already more closely related than KDE and GNOME are to each other).
The "walled garden" approach to the App Store may have had a time and place, although almost anybody would argue that that time has passed. I honestly don't see it lasting much longer, particularly in light of competition from Android phones, and the fact that Google, HTC, et al are being particularly aggressive in terms of hardware and software improvements.
Perhaps the system is designed to act as a deterrent or maintain the status quo? London is a ridiculously safe city. They have fewer murders per year (per capita) than Detroit does on a typical weekend.
Granted, there's a logical fallacy/ambiguity here -- we can't know how much the cameras are helping London stay safe unless we remove them, put them back, and then repeat that process several times.
However, it's disingenuous to knock the cameras for the very same reason.
In a big city, you're probably being recorded by CCTV cameras installed by a nearby business anyway. Nobody ever seems to complain about that, and the potential for "abuse" is much higher.
Each party gets a vote proportional to their share of the popular vote in the last election
Which one? House? President? How are the actual reps chosen? How would this solve any of the issues which caused the legislature to split into two in the first place?
It makes me wonder, if Senators bring in pork to their state to get re-elected, do you think there would be more pork in general if we repealed the direct election of senators, which some claim would give states more say in the Federal government? As is I think the fact that so much party money is on the line to keep representatives 'pure', which greatly distorts the idea of local elections.
Weird. I'd say the exact opposite. With the past election cycle notwithstanding, I've noticed that local politicians in the states where I've lived have been elected on a "getting shit done" basis, rather than an ideological one.
Ideally, the bicameral legislature should be balanced so that the members of the House duke it out over domestic and more "local" issues, while the Senate focuses on issues of equal importance to all 50 states (foreign policy, etc). In other words, your vote for senator should be the most "purely ideological" vote that you cast, as the senate should be involved in the least amount of micromanaging. (This is not the case, which is why pork happens. If big states got their proportional share of resources (or some close approximation thereof), I suspect that few of us would be complaining about it.)
Of course, this brings up the inconsistency that nobody really knows what the states are supposed to do anymore. Although the 10th Amendment seems to make things clear, the remainder of the Constitution is vague enough to grant the federal government almost unlimited power (ie. the interstate commerce clause -- virtually no business is conducted exclusively within state lines today). In many cases, it also makes no sense for individual states to manage things like environmental and health policy on a one-by-one basis. With one or two exceptions, the USA has functioned as a singular entity for over 100 years.
Unfortunately, the states' rights debate has been poisoned by a number of very loud proponents with completely untenable ideas. While I think we can agree that it's completely unacceptable for one human to own another (some southerners still haven't let this one go), there's a reasonable debate to be had over the fact that states like New Jersey get just $0.50 on the dollar back from their federal tax outlays. (The disparity between New York City and New York State is similar). Ironically, it's the blue states that rarely complain about "wealth redistribution" that get hit the hardest.
There are also areas where the state lines (as drawn) make no sense. I wake up in Washington DC, ride my bike to go to work in Virginia, and then hop on a subway train to eat dinner in Maryland. Finding a scheme to govern and fairly tax this clusterf$*#k is a nightmare. Lately, the VA and MD governments have even been using DC's transit system as a political pawn, and threatening to shut it down or withhold funding (which I might add, is primarily used to ferry VA/MD residents into DC for work, an arrangement from which VA/MD benefit vastly, as DC has no tolls or commuter tax). Can you reasonably defend this system?
You're correct. Politicians are responsible for the allocation of the government's budget, the revenue from which is largely derived from taxes.
Your point?
I wonder if Apple are becoming complacent, or are focusing far too much on their mobile products. Their current product line is an illogical, uncompetitive mess (moreso than usual).
Apart from the usual "Mac Tax, no mid-level desktop blah blah blah" argument, the current product line is decidedly unappealing to a veteran mac user. I have a 2005-era Mac Mini (Core Duo 1.6GHz), and a 12" PowerBook (1.5GHz G4). If it weren't already obvious to you, I'd like to replace both, but don't have gobs of cash to do it, and would also like to get a tangible improvement for my money, and 5 years of "evolution."
We're used to paying 20% more for several intangibles (build quality, form factor, aesthetics) as well as several "tangibles" (OSX, generally top-of-the-line hardware). Right now, many macs cost double what their PC counterparts do, and although Dell and HP haven't quite gotten the memo about build quality and form factor, they're closing the gap, and Windows 7 is actually not bad at all.
Up until today, the Mac Mini hadn't seen a major redesign since the addition of a few extra USB ports around 2007. In 2010, I can pay more than my 1.6GHz machine cost in 2006 for a computer with a slightly better processor (about 2x as fast from what Passmark say), and the same (inadequate) amount of RAM. I installed a 7200RPM hard drive last year (for all of $80), which actually makes the new Mini worse in that regard. 802.11n, and the form factor improvements are nice, but the package just isn't compelling.
The 13" MacBook pro is also a baffling oddity. It's a great machine at a decent price point, and really has no peers in the PC world. However, like the Mac Mini, a C2D is inexcusable on a new machine in 2010. There's not even an expensive option for something faster or with more RAM. The 15" and 17" models are better, though, like many others, I cherish portability more than I do screen size. I'd love for Apple to bring back a 12" model, or simply sacrifice the optical drive for a bigger processor.
The iMac's got better entry level specs and pricing (which have inexplicably not trickled down to the Mini). The top-end model also has an i5, which is nice too, also considering that i7 chips too expensive to be economical for most home users. However, there's no way to get an i5 without a behemoth (but gorgeous) 27" display.
Apple's top-of-the-line workstations used to be defensible, considering that Xeon chips are seriously %*$&ing expensive, and the machines were generally rock-solid and lasted forever. Dell and HP's equivalents weren't much cheaper. However, things have changed, and the Mac Pro hasn't gotten any cheaper. Even a small bump down would be appreciated.
The RAM issue is a bit tricky too. Apple upcharges an extortionate amount on RAM upgrades, and has rather low maximums on most of its machines. Laptops are sadly rarely upgradable very far beyond the stock amount, and even the Minis and iMacs have incredibly low maximums. My G4 from 1999 has the same RAM capacity as my Mini from 2006. That's pathetic.
Apple's always put USB ports on its monitors and keyboards, which honestly makes a bit more sense than on the front of the CPU. The unibody design likely also places a few constraints on where they can cut holes in the case.
The original Mac Mini also had a vestigial iPod dock on its top that was evidently removed from the design at the last minute, as the internal electronics and structure were still in place in the production model.
I have a 2005-era Mac Mini. I love it. However, it's getting a bit slow, and the new ones are barely faster, and cost twice as much. Apple's getting harder and harder to defend these days.
Physicist here (not an astro-, but good enough for these purposes).
Solar activity generally occurs in cycles. As far as we know and have observed, these cycles are fairly regular and predictable in a "big-picture" sort of way.
Although I might not trust the weatherman's forecast for this Friday, I will trust his assertion that it's going to start getting cold around November.
CD-Rs have a short lifespan, but there's no need to be sensationalistic about it. They last a lot longer than 2 years.
I miss the days when Altavista was king (purely nostalgia, I assure you). I don't, however, miss getting marked down in Spanish class due to using BabelFish -_-;;
This reminds me of one of my funniest memories from middle school: The Spanish teacher hands back a paper with a big red "F" on it to the guy sitting in front of me. She says: "This is very good.....But, it's in French"
Back in the day, refreshing BabelFish would cause the options to default back to English->French.
and hundreds of terabytes per day. Any word on what they're using for a database back-end?
Microsoft SQL Server 2000
Express Edition.