You are right for the long term. But web tech isn't here yet. You still can't do anything media- or hardware-intensive in the browser at this point.

What people forget is that science is a tool, and not a religion or a world view. It's a set of practices for discovering useful models. It says a lot about descriptions and mechanisms. But it never says "why" in an absolute sense. It can say why in a causal sense, but the causal chain is endless. And thus, we know that electro-magnetic radiation exists, and what leadas to its appearance and behaviors, but not WHY or HOW it exists at all. that shit is magic!! Trying to say anything final about our infinitely detailed reality is like trying to pinpoint a discrete object in the mandelbrot set. You can't. At the core, reality is magic, and science is a tool for exploring the world and codifying approximate models of the phenomena we encounter.

LS

Guppy? Think you forgot the anonymous checkbox....

It is currently still blocked (posting from Beijing).

How many of these people knew that their highlighting history was being uploaded to Amazon? creepy if you ask me.

LS

Yeah, as if running C/C++ compiled code from python is a trivial operation. I agree, lame solution.

There was a paper on how they were doing this released maybe 5 years ago. I tried setting up firewall rules as they described and I didn't have any success. I could be doing something wrong but I suspect they've figured this one out.

Google already charges for Google Apps, which is clearly in direct competition with Microsoft, with over 4 million customers. But they are half-assing it, which is precisely why they are not making much income off of it. I want the benefits of the web (only one version instead of multiple uncontrolled copies flying about; real-time collaboration; version control; history; permissions control) in a native app (fast, feature-rich, offline). Why is that so hard to grasp? If someone came out with an amazing solution that did all that without charging unreasonable amounts, companies would flock en mass to it.

You are very short sighted if you think that using drop box is a reasonable way to collaborate on docs. Version control? Locking? History? Very stupid idea, I'm sorry.

I think a LOT of people would kill to be able to do proper document collaboration within a real native application environment without having to spend an arm and a leg.

If you aren't aware, google already has over 4 million companies on Google Apps, including some very big ones. The last two companies I've worked at used it as their main document platform. If you work at some government agency that is 20 years in the past, then be my guest and torture yourself and continue to use MS office.

I'd put a billion dollars and 1000 devs on taking Open Office and making it way better than MS Office, and making it work seemlessly with Google Docs and GMail. This would steal Microsoft's main cash cow.

Why the hell aren't they doing this?

It was great knowing you all. I guess it's time we all pack up and leave now that we've been shown the error of our ways. bye.

I got an interview with Google in 1999, and I had the opportunity to have lunch with Craig. He never mentioned to me that he was the 1st employee at the time.

I do remember what he asked me. I was interviewing for the job of initializing their QA department. He asked me how I would look for problems in an indexer that stored MILLIONS (ha) of pages. I had to ask what exactly an indexer was.

On the way out, I spent too much time flirting with the hot red head they had at the front desk, and Larry walked by and saw what I was doing. I don't think that's why I didn't get the job though.

DAMMMMMNN I wish I got that job!!!!!!!!

Creating fake videos of osama bin laden.

This man has done more for my understanding of JavaScript than anyone else. My abilities took a huge leap after reading his clear and deep explanations that get to the heart of JavaScript's design:

Douglas Crockford's JavaScript articles

He covers prototypical inheritence, classical inheritence, how to create private members, closures, engine performance, and other widely misunderstood aspects of javascript. HIGHLY recommended.

LS

Actually this doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Seems to me that linux crashes a lot more than windows at this point. If your computer doesn't get Linux support directly from the manufacturer, it's very possible that running Linux smoothly on it will be a bitch. Example, my HP DV4-3011TX laptop.