microsoft is a company sitting on 25 billion dollars. they apparently sold $3-4 billion in bonds? they are *raising* prices during some of the worst economic times that a lot of people of have seen.

    it's like they have a pressing need for more than $30 billion?

    for a company that needs to sell operating systems to maintain their future, it doesn't make sense.

e

several years ago 'neural nets' were the big thing and they were thinking that they could make them 'learn' and do useful things.

i always thought that traffic control would be an interesting application. if a computer could look at video of an intersection (and streets leading to the intersection) and figure out where cars were and weren't, you could make traffic lights a lot less annoying.

so our CAPTCHA might be a picture/video of cars and a request to count them?

eric

if you want fantasy to become science fiction (or science?), read "there will be dragons" by john ringo.

this is an amazing book (start of a series) if you have ever played d&d.

e

you should watch some mythbusters!

i think they managed 12 or 13 folds.

of course they started with a sheet of paper the size of a house and made the last fold with the help of heavy machinery!

eric