A couple of years ago, Google translate gave a big bump to the whole concept using UN documents (which are usually in 5+ languagels) as a reliable translation. It has a lot of hiccups, but translations often went from unreadable babble babel to something that often ranged from a decent translation to something you can figure out if you put some thought into it.

Agreed. For me, the turning point was about two years ago when I was reading a report of a convention in Poland. It took me about halfway down the page to realize that it was actually a link to an automatically-Google-translated version of an original in Polish, as opposed to something written in English by a non-native speaker of English who occasionally used some slightly odd phrasing. It's definitely not perfect, but it's gotten really, really good.

If I'm playing an RPG I want to play an RPG that gets the RPG things right, if I want to play an RTS I'll play an RTS not some shitty hybrid RPG/RTS/FPS/Puzzle/Adventure/Collectible Card/Fighter/Flight Simulator game that does nothing well.

I know, we could call it Spore!

People seem to misspell this all the time:

Cajones: drawers, of the sort that slide in and out, or a Latin American musical instrument comprised of a wooden box you beat like a drum

Cojones: male gonads

It depends on how you define "likely". If you're randomly picking one of three different lines, then you'll only be in the slowest line on 1/3 of your checkouts. However, since the slower lines move slower, you'll spend more than 1/3 of your waiting time there. Say the three lines take one minute per customer, two minutes per customer, and three minutes per customer and are the same length in terms of customers. If you visit repeatedly and randomly pick a line each time, you'll be in the slow line on one-third of your visits, but you'll spend fully half your total time waiting in line in the slow line.

Do you think Apple, Dell, HP, or the damn OLPC project actually develop anything?

Yes. Apple's designing their own mobile CPUs now.

Maybe by making it less difficult than smashing down a brick wall with your forehead? That way, us filthy casuals with lives that keep us from enjoying the subtle nuances of replaying game sections ad nauseam can enjoy it

You post on Slashdot and they're your friends. They may not be hardcore tinker-happy nerds compared to you, but they are compared to the other 99% of the population. Their response is not indicative of how well the iPad will sell.

I agree that it's a good thing, but that's because humans are terribly adapted for spaceflight. The ridiculous costs for getting live humans out to space for a short jaunt and then back again are in no way offset by our ability to do anything useful out there. The only reason to send people into space is for publicity grandstanding. The money it would cost is far better spent on developing more capable robots that can get there at a fraction of the cost and risk, then be abandoned once they eventually fail years later.

Well, it may be a geeky company, but Google provides high-quality headphones free of charge to all employees.

That's what Fritz Lang's classic film M is about. If you are mentally ill and commit crimes as a result, do you deserve leniency because you cannot help yourself, or do your deserve death because you cannot reform? (The ending is, admittedly, a bit of a Lady-and-the-Tiger cop-out.)

The gasoline-filled tank is under the seats? Call me old fashioned (and it won't be the first time) but I'll take a pennyfarthing, thank you.

Are you crazy? Why would I buy a GPU now if they're going to be 570 times faster in just a few years? I'd just be wasting my money!

Exactly. 200 dB is just over 31 times more powerful than 185 dB.