Wolfram Alpha seems to be a good step in this very direction.

Either that or he's very good with car analogies.

I would think they are both equally secure. Pretty much anything gets through with little or no control over active-xxx elements.

> perhaps also because geeks are not good marks for the sorts of products generally plugged via spam

I need my viagra and I certainly would love to cozy up to the wealth of the Nigerian prince you insensitive clod!

Can't you read? He has "no identity". Do you want him to spell that out for you? Oh wait...

I wasn't aware of the PDF issue with Kindle. Yeah, having to send documents to Amazon for conversion everytime I want to use a PDF would suck quite a bit. Among other things, I use my reader (Sony) as a reference store, so if I have important notes and such written in OneNote or I find a cool article I want to perhaps read on the way to work or whatever, I just push everything to a single pdf and carry that with me on the reader (Sony supports PDF out of the box). I get a lot of reading done while travelling so its important for me to able to print a pdf from any of the multitude of applications I use and carry that on my reader.

While I agree that an ebook reader can't compete with the soft touch and feel of a book yet, you really ought to try one. I've got a Sony Reader and its really not all that bad. The absence of backlighting makes it really easy on the eye, I charge the battery once in a couple of weeks -- admittedly I don't spend TOO much time reading -- but yes the battery life is reasonably long and the reader comes with a soft cover so you can hold it like a book although it still has one screen (yes the cover protects the screen as well).

What I like about e-readers is that I can read multiple books in parallel -- depending on my mood, I just pick one and continue where I left off and switch to something else when I get bored (ADD?). The one thing I'm missing with my reader (its an older model) is a built-in dictionary which I believe Kindle and Nook both have. The newer versions of the Sony Reader have them too along with note taking features. But yeah, its quite a nice gadget and I've done hours of fun reading on it. If you can get your hands on one (borrow?) for a short while, give it a shot. Takes a getting used to but you might be pleasantly surprised.

Only on /. does a reference to masturbation trump an equally plausible reference to having sex.

That's all very good and you are probably right, but to prioritize my priorities, would you be kind enough to share the msn id of this 15 year old?

Sincerely,
I-have-no-claim-to-fame-yet-but-this-15-year-old-will-get-me-there-ly you'rs

Heh, yeah there was this secretary at my workplace in India who had a doc file called "Bangme.doc" which one of us noticed while shoulder surfing. Out of curiosity we opened the document while she wasn't around only to find out that it was a schedule of the partner's Bangalore Meetings. Big big let down.

[Citation or car analogy needed]

I'm still waiting for my wave invite. Insensitive clods!

You can even find MD5 dictionaries online which have precomputed hashes. You can just search for the one you need and it will give you the reverse MD5. I would assume authorities already have tables of precomputed MD5 hashes which reduces cracking time significantly.

I hear ya! A client of mine seems to use the word "small" a lot while scope leaping. Let's add another "small" box here and mebbe a "small" drop down there, as if making the controls smaller would somehow reduce my coding time. I went along for the first 2 leaps, then I started budget leaping. The controls don't seem so small to him no more. Bitch.

It's OK, when the shit finally hits the fan, you'll can come here and re-read my "I told you so" rant. PS: I told you so.