I'd actually say that being a native English speaker is a DISADVANTAGE overall. You come to believe that the world must speak in your language, and never make any personal investment in learning the language (or culture) of another land. I am a native English speaker, and felt "disabled" when I live in Europe amongst people that routinely spoke 4-5 languages fluently (including English). Simply growing up with exposure to those languages is enough to help diversify their brain... and in my experience, their outlook on the world as well.

The world is not nearly as US-centric or English-centric as most of us believe.

Cool... anyone tried it on Raspberry Pi?

Why not just shuffle anyone detected cheating into a separate game room? If they're paying customers, then they can all cheat together, and everyone wins.

Well, maybe it's not a "crawler", but if it copies all outbound traffic it does essentially the same thing while leaving no footprints.

Chew on that for a while. :)

I'm guessing that an AI-type search would be MUCH more computationally intensive than a Google PageRank search (just guessing). I'm curious how the cost of providing that search would affect the profitability or commercial viability of using Watson technology for mass searching.

Remember, to fuel a single searcher on Jeopardy it required racks of equipment. When you're making a few pennies a search - maybe - it might be some time until that equation makes sense.

There goes another mode of transportation. That would be enough to make me avoid them like the plague.

It was one of my favorite lines, as Johnny pulls out a revolver with a barrel about 3 feet long: "It shoots through schools..."

Although clearly inappropriate, I'm disgusted that it's now illegal to say certain words... even in jest. This country is falling apart faster and faster.

Gee... if content is easy to access and affordable, then (most) people won't pirate it. People that still do would have done it no matter what - they're not your customers and you're NOT losing money by them doing so. (sure, it's not fair, yada yada)

But - when content is not easily and affordably available (say, because you "removed content from the web to protect it from piracy"), that's exactly what ENCOURAGES normal people to consider pirating in the first place. Those ARE their "customers" who would have paid a reasonable price for content that they can use in their preferred manner. They're shooting themselves in the foot, which is hardly surprising.

I don't see the idiocy stopping any time soon...

Who cares what equipment they're using... A piece of crap camera in a skilled photog's hands can still get a great photo.

The real story (and tragedy) is they think that non-pro photographers (writers and amateurs) can do the job. Watch the results - photo quality (content wise, maybe not just technical wise) will plummet. Maybe they think that doesn't matter, who knows. And for things like sports, they'll have to use wire service photos now for sure. You can get great photos from AP/Reuters, but they'll be the same photos as other news outlets.

Sad sad, and short-sighted decision IMHO

Madcow

Well, quite honestly, the answer is "YES" to all of the above. The TOTAL environmental impact of each option, through their entire life cycle, should be compared. If you're only looking at one piece or several pieces, then what's the point? It's like saying "Hey, I can light and heat my house with fire and use no electricity, therefore it has NO carbon footprint!"... without asking what you're burning to get that heat/light. If it's wood... you could argue it's carbon-neutral (if it's replanted, yada yada), but if it's oil you couldn't.

So, as complex as the question is, you really need an EXHAUSTIVE comparison for any of these arguments to hold water. The point about batteries though was that most rely on exotic heavy metals to deliver the power/weight/charge/discharge performance we all want, and those are particularly harmful on the environment - both from a mining perspective as well as a disposal/pollution perspective.

MadCow.

I haven't read TFA of course, but does it include the lifetime environmental impact of the battery packs? (mining through disposal) That's what usually has me skeptical of today's electric vehicles.

MadCow.

"The time before the scanners" was last week for me. Flying back from Israel, there are no scanners, and no pat downs. But, even though they're one of the most at-risk for terrorist attacks, the have put in place actual security instead of the theater that passes for security here. They profile. They do background checks. They do risk assessment.

I refuse to use the scanners in the USA, partially due to the unproven safety levels (albeit likely much better with the "newer" ones instead of the backscatter xray ones), and partially due to privacy concerns - or at least the privacy implications.

MadCow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goWuvXz1qC4

Yes, they cook a turkey with flashlights in 2.5 hours. 6 flashlights. (not Fleshlights!).

MadCow.

Or if they want to distribute the final file for reference purposes, simply distribute it at lower resolution than what you require the students to do. Problem solved.

MadCow.