A xylophone has wooden bars. This would more correctly be called a metallophone.

With that important piece of information pointed out, you can all carry on now.

I will always remember Martin Gardner as one of the key influences in my mathematical leanings. His column in Scientific American was always interesting, even when I didn't know enough to understand half of what he wrote.

Anybody knows if one can get a collection of all his SciFi columns in a single volume or a set of volumes? I would gladly pay significant bucks to be able to have all those interesting articles in my possession.

So long Martin. Thanks for all the wonderfully wasted hours.

Does your ass hurt after pulling those numbers out of it?

Did you just use "begging the question" in its correct, proper meaning? Sir, you are banished from Slashdot forever!

Spanish is my main environmental language. You would never believe it, but things like Excel function names are TRANSLATED to Spanish in the Spanish version of Office. I HATE THAT with a passion, and find it very difficult to read. So it is not only the French (although everybody should have seen it coming from the frogs).