Interestingly you already delivered everything that is necessary to set up a scientific experiment to evaluate the efficiency and reliability of memory: language.

Since you didn't learn how to form your thoughts into words and even turn those words into symbols at the very moment you expressed those thoughts in this forum, you relied on your memory to do so. And since others were capable of reading the outcome of your thoughts, it wasn't your very own illusion of rules of communication, but rather a collective knowledge, -to use your words- several men's memories, you relied on to engage this communication.

qed

Among all that propaganda bias and the discussion above most is a matter of personal preference. Looks, Features and even stability can work for one or the other package.

In my books compatibility is the biggest issue. I don't want to have to care, what programs the person i transmit my documents to is using. In that book OpenOffice scores way higher than MS Office. Not only is MS Office in my experience incompatible to itself (different versions, even language versions of the same iteration cause problems), also OpenOffice is more compatible to MS Office than the other way around.

Since the game offers no way around Valve's Steam, I won't buy it. A pitty, since i was looking forward to Civ5 for a while

Your VLC must be out of date if it cannot handle it. My 1.1.4 plays Webm just fine. There are links to others here

That day holds no surprises and past that day everything can only get worse

I know, it's not in the computer, but still. Headsets appear to be the worst component in terms of durability. I haven't had a single hardware failure with my PCs at home in over 10 years, but seem to have to replace my headset every 6 months, give or take.

We will all remember 9-11 as the day Kin raised from the dead, won't we?

As a matter of fact Crysis is one of the killer applications for the zSeries has to offer... Financial Crisis that is...

I think the impact on our society would be minimal. Scientists would know that the chances of life evolving elsewhere is higher than initially thought and theologians could acknowledge the enormous power of their respective deity. For any interaction the physical barriers are too hard to come by to ever interact with any aliens.

Instead of spending resources on insignificant things like SETI, we should rather spend them on finding nano-tubes that would allow the construction of space elevators. We should rather spend the resources on a plan of being able to mine the asteroids belts and we should spend the resources to create fusion power plants.

In a nutshell, Google Wave is^H^Hwas the love child of Internet Forums and Instant Messengers. IMO it's a great tool for Collaboration; not so much for traditional ways of communication. It gives you a great level of control over the discussion and who takes part in it and presents it in a way, you could easilly follow it over a great of time.

...4) MS Customers are happy to pay for bugfixes

I've observed this myself when a consulting firm I worked with suddenly couldn't open an important presentation anymore. The fix cost them iirc around 3500 €. When asking them why they'd stay with a product that would render it's files unusable, they responded that they were actually pretty happy with the response time and the price didn't bother them at all.

I have to agree, that the visual impression of the pictures in TFA are not very convincing, however if you take a look at the pictures of Alpine Glaciers you'll see that the time of the year isn't really an issue. There's a distinct difference between a blanket of snow and a glacier.

The fee is being issued for storing information of people who are not customers of facebook.

This is probably the last we will all hear of this case, because the court applied German law. Facebook is US based, so if taken to court in Germany they'd have to apply US law. As a result of this Facebook can ignore the court's decision and nothing will ever happen. If i was in Facebook's position, i'd just appeal against the initial decision. The appelate court will most likely dismiss the case entirely.

Actually the whole thing was started by the German minister of Consumer Protection Ilse Aigner. Her quotes upon quitting her own facebook account do reveal how competent she is...

I guess someone at the court got under severe political pressure

I've been working for one of the major 3G companies and even with free Videocall minutes packages the traffic only made for a single digit percentage of the total traffic. No matter in what country.

The only times i used video calls, and i had them for free, was to show the recipient the surroundings i was at. For instance, when i was at a party.

In most situations where it is convenient to make a phone call it is not to make a videocall. That and not the price is the reason for it's low usage

Summary and Article both got it wrong. It wasn't a survey and not limited to TV or film. Writers and Editors of Entertainment Weekly came up with a list of the 100 characters with the highest impact on Pop Culture.

This is barely news, especially not for nerds; It qualifies for idle at best