Really? I got the impression that while Wodehouse's books were certainly still in print, but for this generation of young English, it wasn't a major cultural force. I certainly could be wrong.

My Dad's an English professor and he is fond of telling his classes that American English is closer to Shakespeare than contemporary British English. Upper class English is actually pretty understandable by Americans; it's the dialects and subculture jargon that get us Americans.

I hesitate to feed an AC troll but:
I was born and raised in the U.S. and consider myself "Indian-American." I live in the U.S. and am culturally, mostly American, but I speak my native language at home, eat that food, and often dress in that clothing.

I'm as American as imply you are, but I am also of my parents country.

I'm Bengali (we're all apart of the same culture group), but born and raised in the U.S. You're intuiting the right answer here (though a quick Wikipedia search would have helped you even more).

My original guess was one of your two suggestions; either it's an old British phrase or the Indian-ization of the English words. A lot of phrases died out in contemporary British English that still survive in India. One of my favorite authors, P.G. Wodehouse, for example, isn't widely read in England anymore, but remains popular in India; a lot of British literature from the Victorian era to perhaps the 1920s or 30s remains popular in India and until recently was most educated Indians' English literature (the growth of American popular culture in India and of Indian literature being written in English is probably changing this).

I read a joke somewhere that the last Englishman will be an Indian; there's a large element of truth to that; English manners, social norms, and cultural ideas from the Raj remain entrenched in Indian culture, even though they are no longer a major force in contemporary English culture.

Anyway, do the needful was in common use in the U.S. and Britain until the 20th century.

Is there a good argument to cover even tortuous actions under this? I'm for a free Internet, but defamation on the Internet is still defamation (for example).

Of course, an anonymous source who defamed someone else could be judged by society; (if you're not willing to sign your name then why should we trust you?). That said, there's a strong argument for a defamation plaintiff that even if the defamer is anonymous he or she is still subject to the harm from an anonymous person's defamation.

I read some of the previews of this game and I am cautiously optimistic but a couple of worries:

1. "the raw action appeal of wading through waves of goblins, spiders, and related denizens" sounds an awful lot like Dynasty Warriors/Musou series and while I understand some people are into that, and that's totally fine, I find the games terribly boring. I could be reading too much into the phrasing here, but it's hard to pinpoint what this game is trying to do exactly.

2. To me, the current gold standard for a dungeon crawl is Demon's Souls. How are they going to top DS's brutality and innovate features?

I'm in law school and I know this to be a fact. While well reasoned briefs can help a lawyer win a case, if the judge has a set agenda (for whatever reason; classism or wanting to follow precedent, or wanting to break from precedent) no amount of caselaw yoga is going to make you win.

I agree with you. As Facebook has been getting worse and worse about privacy (your data not being your own, Facebook staff having access to account, making it impossible to "hide" your account) I have pulled back. I had photos and I deleted them. I had information about me, that's gone. Basically right now all I have up on there is my name, cell phone number, and the schools I attended.

It's still too much information on a site which sees me as a commodity, but the real irony of the situation is, you need an account to control what other people put up of you as well (as much as you can, anyway).

The site itself has gotten worse too; this is the third big interface change I remember that happened today and it's even more confusing and obfuscated. The site regularly has errors when doing anything (for me anyway, under Safari), and it's chat is flakey as hell.

I put up as little information as possible, have as few friends as possible, and hide my account as much as possible. Buzz is just another sieve for that information to get out, so I am hoping not to use it, but as you say, if everyone else starts using it I might have to have another skeleton account there to manage my information and to keep in contact with others.

I actually got Buzzed this afternoon. When I was logging into Gmail the splash screen came up and asked me to try it out. I have been futzing around with it today, but will probably switch it off.

Random thoughts on it;
Google seems desperate to get this out; I thought I had been logged out of Gmail when the Buzz splash screen came up as I tried to get to my Inbox. Going a little hard to the hoop, I think.

Along the same lines, it has a big colorful icon next it under Inbox on the left hand menu. Again, seems desperate.

It autofriends some subset of people you know (I think it's people on your Gchat list), which is kind of weird. I logged in and already had one friend following me. It asks to follow your friends as well.

The site ties into some other sites; Flickr, Picasa, and Twitter, I think (that was in the menu that automatically came up). It also lets you connect to Youtube, Google Reader, and Gchat statuses (it looks like when connected activity on those sites will show up on your "feed.")

The status screen screams Twitter and Facebook. I guess there aren't many ways to do 140 character status updates, but it really resembles those sites.

It took me a few minutes to figure how to switch it off; I thought it would be in settings or in Labs, but there's a small link near the bottom of its window and the inbox (where you can also shut off chat). Again, I am glad they have a shut off but hiding it down there seems a bit desperate.

Otherwise there doesn't seem to be much to it yet. I was hoping for some settings or preferences to futz around with (why do I immediately go into a new program's settings or preferences, and why does it always make me so happy?). I am switching it off I think; while I love Gmail, connected sites makes me wonder about how much information Google already has about me and since my Gmail is my general e-mail, I don't need it mixing with facebook-style status updates or anything, and I am creeped out that it uses my name (from Gmail settings, I assume). I realize those can be changed and if I am careful my e-mail and Buzz will never meet, but I'd really rather just not have them together right now.

Also, you may get more "information," typing down, but I feel like in actuality most students typing notes are acting more like stenographers than note takers. They don't process anything they hear, they just copy it down verbatim. Writing by hand, I have to measure what is being said, digest it to some degree, and then write down the important part. Occasionally I miss something, when the professor is going a mile a minute, but I have never had a problem going up to the professor after the class and asking about what I missed.

This would be more difficult if I didn't do the homework (another reason why so many students take notes on their laptop, I think), but since I usually do, I have an idea of what the cases are about and usually have highlighted important parts of the case. More often than not, my pre-class notes in the case are what the professor touches on anyway, so I just have to underline (I use a red pen in class, black or blue for pre-class notes, and various color highlighting for parts of the case before class) things I have already read, noted, and highlighted.

I am in law school and I don't use a laptop. It maybe that in property my professor was a math major in undergrad and likes doing econ and math to help our understanding of property disputes or my civil procedure professor who likes flow charts and Venn diagrams (there are a few diagrams and some equations in law school). It even helps with BPL formulas in torts. I also draw pictures next to most of my cases to remind me of what happened in them (I do this before reading, usually, but occasionally I have to sketch something during class; in either case I couldn't do this with notes on the computer easily).

Also Plants vs. Zombies, e-mail, and Gchat are terrible distractions.

While the majority of people do use laptops, I and a few others don't. I write all my notes in the margins of my text books and it's worked pretty fine so far. I do carry my laptop to school and use it to get email between classes, to make my notes into outlines, and whatever else.

In either case, I do a lot of people slacking off and playing games in classes or checking email or shopping. I think it's disrespectful to the professor and rude. If you want to slack off, don't come. Since I learn best from the class itself, I also find it counterproductive.

My notes are more thorough, things that are not text can be written clearly, and I don't feel like I am hiding from my professor. I think it has contributed to my grades.

I think he was saying The, IE6, The.

That is partially true, but it was the foresight of the Tokugawa and Meiji governments that also helped Japan make that "technological leap" after WW2. The Meiji government especially helped lay down the framework for modernization and that capacity got tested and used during the war itself. While some physical infrastructure was destroyed some did survive and more importantly the intellectual and social framework for it was already in Japanese society because previous governments saw it as the way to compete with Western powers.

Son, there's something I've been meaning to tell you...

Maybe someone will update Conway's game of life with these new findings... ..and I'll get a cool new screensaver.