I realize that you, Dear Reader, are a thoughtful and respectful lot, the Internet tends to be a bit of a motley crew. I fully expect the comments to be on fire later.

In flames they are.

First, somebody needs to explain why some schools have a foreign-language requirement. The job of high school is to prepare students for jobs upon graduation (not so much any more) and/or prepare students for college. How does one or two years of mandatory foreign language study do either?

Of all the fully employed programmers you know, how many of them have degrees in English, French, Japanese, Chinese, Literature, Journalism or creative writing? How many in mathematics or physics?

The Arctic and the Antarctic.

It's a good thing that the amount of ice in the Antarctic is growing.

Antarctic sea ice extent continues to track very high in January, reaching the second-highest monthly extent in the 36-year satellite monitoring record. New monthly extent records were set for each month between August and November, and December was tied for the record (within the limits of the precision).
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicen...

... we'll have news that they have been 3D printed by a kindergarten class in St. Louis.

Who is Neil de Grasse Tyson?

There has been discussion over the past day or so that Bing results for Chinese language queries done outside of China are somehow intentionally edited or incomplete for political censoring purposes. We can emphatically confirm that they are not. The only time Bing adjusts search results is to comply with local law or for quality or safety reasons such as child abuse or malware. Bing search results outside of China are not subject to and are not modified in any way based on Chinese law.

The error we referenced yesterday was one where we incorrectly showed a Chinese âremoval notificationâ(TM) message outside of China to users who have selected to view Bingâ(TM)s People Republic of China version. This message was displayed outside of China with this PRC version of Bing where results were suppressed for any reason (child abuse content, spam, etc.). Again, the search results outside of China were unaltered, and were not censored.

We understand that with casual inspection, users may be concerned about censorship when seeing the âremoval notificationâ(TM) message intended for users in China and some difference in results between Chinese language and English language searches, but again we can confirm this is not the case. The wrong notification message is simply being displayed in limited circumstances, and we are in the process of fixing that issue.

It has been noted that some popular sites such as Facebook are at times not shown in China. The fact that results from such sites are shown in Bing outside of China when using the Chinese language is an easy way for anyone to quickly reassure themselves that the results are not being censored.
The reason results are different for Chinese and English queries however, is because searches in different languages are fundamentally different queries. A result may show lower in one language versus another for a variety of reasons, such as fewer users choosing that link in English results compared to users who searched in another language. As always, however, we are constantly evaluating how to deliver the best results to our customers around the world.

- Stefan Weitz, Senior Director, Bing

http://www.bing.com/blogs/site...

And no, I don't work for Microsoft.

What are the "numerous limitations" you mention in your post?

Primary requirements are Cheap, Secure, Reliable.

Cheap? Free.
Secure? That's up to you but normally, yes.
Reliable? In my experience, yes.

(Reuters) - The U.S. Marine Corps has extended indefinitely its use of two unmanned K-MAX heavy lift helicopters in Afghanistan, a Navy spokeswoman said, noting the aircraft kept re-supply trucks off the road and reduced the threat of roadside bombs.
The Marine Corps sent the new autonomous helicopters, which were developed by Lockheed Martin Corp and privately-held Kaman Aerospace, to Afghanistan in November 2011 for an initial, limited deployment, but has extended their use several times.
Now, Naval Air Systems Command has decided to continue using the aircraft indefinitely, said Jamie Cosgrove, a spokeswoman for the Navy command, which also oversees Marine Corps aircraft.

http://www.reuters.com/article...

2.7 million residents, 1.9 million private vehicles and they got about 30 complaints per day? In the world of social media, that's a pretty big failure.

Ferrari claims that their 1.6 liter, V6 2014 F1 engine produces 600-650 HP with another 160 HP from the Energy Recovery System. Each driver gets just five engines for the 19 race season.
http://formula1.ferrari.com/ne...

Technology marches on.

From the article ... "But some scientists don't find the team's results convincing."

1. Lawyer
2. Warrant

Or maybe three words: Just Shut Up.

Police will continue to bully people and overstep their authority as long as we let them.
http://www.popehat.com/tag/shu...

A stopped clock is right twice a day. The doomsday clock, it turns out, has never been right.

But maybe this time is different.