How about we wait to calculate the next closest approach until after it's left Earth's gravity well. I know our understanding of spatial dynamics is pretty much complete (between Newton and Kepler, we have almost all the knowledge we need), but we've only known about this thing for, what, 3 days? Also, there's the whole "Orbital predictions indicate that its flight path will be significantly altered by this close approach" thing, which tells me we aren't 100% sure which way this thing will be leaving our neighbourhood. I don't want to be thinking that we won't be seeing this thing until 2022 when it comes a knocking in 2020.

Ben Heck was the first name that came to my mind. He may even be able to improve on the design. No offense to Mr. Yankelevitz, but Ben Heck's controllers, even the prototypes, have a fit and finish that I don't quite see in Ken's work.

I have to agree with this. The vast majority of Windows laptops are cheap POSs. The hardware in a 2008 MacBook is still just as good as most sub $1000 laptops, and hardware headaches are less likely.

If Google has a product that the user is searching for, you don't have to be a genius to realize that they're going to promote it in their search results. Is it anti-competitive? Probably. Does it make good business sense? Definitely. Is it a little bit evil? Maybe. I think the crux of the situation is that they're not demoting competing products (a search for "map quest" returns mapquest.com as the top result, Google maps is just above the wikipedia entry), but rather promoting their own products.

Now to fully address Foundem's complaint, a did a search for "shopping" on google.co.uk, which according to Mr.Raff, should place Foundem high in the results. The usual suspects were returned, most of them .co.uk versions of popular websites. Google's own shopping site wasn't on the first page, but rather the second, and Foundem was nowhere to be seen. Did Google demote Foundem out of anti-competitive desires? I think the more likely answer is that Google promoted their shopping site above what would (I suspect) be a normal page three or four result.

Hell, to Atlantic Canadians, Ontario and Quebec is Eastern Canada, and we're east of that! Manitoba and Saskatchewan (and Alberta depending on who you ask) is Central Canada. Sometimes, on rare occasions, Northern Ontario (the place of snow and rock. There are 13 people who live there. All of whom are named Frank. Even the girl. (Cookie for whoever gets the reference)) will be lumped in with Central Canada. Never, ever, will Quebec be considered Central Canada by any Maritimer or Newfie.

Who is using Windows Mobile? Release this for iPhone or Android and then you can make some money.

"[A]ll of the four laptops I've bought since then have omitted a line-in jack."

[Jamie Hyneman]Well there's your problem[/Jamie]
Of course laptops have started leaving out the line in jack. This is because the input gain on a mic-in can be brought down to a line in level, and as a previous poster mentioned, is already stereo. Anyone serious enough to need a line in will most likely be using a PCI Express card, or at the worst an on board 5.1 audio chip (which will almost always include at least one plug that can be used for line in). The extra complexity to include a line in on a laptop simply isn't worth it for most manufacturers. For much less than $1000, you can get a brand new computer with a decent sound card to do what you want. Suck it up if it means that much to you.

If I remember correctly, the original AdBlock had this option, albeit a global one, so that pay-per-view ads would still earn on page view. As you say, what we need is a way to specify that visiting (as an example) arstechnica.com should always download the ads there, but never display them. For sites that you don't frequent, the difference doesn't make much of a difference in their cash-flow. For ads that are pay-per-click, it doesn't matter at all, because you weren't going to click them anyway.

Netbooks are not primary machines. They're not meant to be primary machines. Netbooks are for people who have a desktop or very able bodied laptop and want something (more) portable, but don't necessarily need something very powerful. I will exclude MIDs, UMPCs, and the new tablets coming out from the PC segment, since they aren't netbooks and would only hurt those numbers. What we end up with is desktops, laptops, and netbooks. Desktops will always hang around, albeit in ever decreasing numbers, simply because of enthusiasts. Laptops, AFAIK, are currently the dominant primary computer being sold. This is because people want something that is portable, powerful enough to run apps that used to be dominated by the desktop, and don't care as much about upgrade-ability. That leaves netbooks only as secondary machines, or for people who need a computer only for the sake of needing a computer. The former group, by nature of it's definition, cannot occupy more market share than that of desktops and laptops combined (10% by Mr. East's estimates). That leaves more than 80% of all netbooks in households without a laptop or desktop. The later group are better served by crappy laptops anyways, as much as I hate to admit it. Even if we presume that the maximum number of netbooks are in households with a desktop or laptop, and that households only have 1 desktop xor 1 laptop (ha) in addition to 1 netbook, and for the sake of easy math, any house that only has netbooks (or the disqualified MIDs and tablets) has exactly 2 of them, you're looking at 80% of households without a primary computer. That number rises sharply when households only own 1 netbook.

Maybe what Mr. East meant to say is that 90% of the computing market (ie anything as capable as a smart phone and above) will be non desktops. That I can believe, and probably wouldn't even question it if I were told that today. That segment includes smart phones, MIDs, UMPCs, tablets, netbooks, and laptops. Even if we exclude laptops, the former 5 combined make up a respectable portion of the market. But smart phones and MIDs are not PCs, and UMPCs and tablets only make up a tiny portion of the market. That essentially leaves netbooks by themselves.

...was a research project. Basically we picked a chemical compound (it couldn't be an element or a single element compound) and had to do a poster on the history, common usage, etc. I think water was disqualified for some obvious reasons. Of course, the computer wasn't necessary, and this was around the time that wikipedia was discouraged as a source (especially a primary source). However the fact was that traditional encyclopedias only contain maybe a paragraph or two for a given subject, and attempting to find something substantial on one chemical in the library was difficult, if not impossible.

Granted, this says nothing of the other possibilities of using a computer in the class. Statistical modeling of reactions, physical modeling of compounds and their interactions with other compounds, all could make use of the computer.

Adblock does a fine job blocking interstitial ads on most sites I visit. The ad "plays" without video or sound while I read another page. By the time I switch to the chosen video page, the ad is over and I'm ready to watch the actual video. Required registration, OTOH, is the biggest annoyance of mine, since a rarely see annoying banner ads, let alone static banner ads.

...or you're just not looking hard enough for an internship. As a comparison, I was earning $12-14USD (adjusted for exchange rate) 2-3 years ago as an engineering intern. Also, internships should pay more than your previous. If you'd be taking a pay cut to work at this place, then you're probably not going to learn anything. If you received your certificates since your last internship, that's even more reason to pay you more. Expect to be treated as a junior member of the staff. Yes that can mean go-fer and make-work projects, but they'll be tasks related to your job, not getting coffee for the more senior members of your team. In return, you should be treating this job like it's a permanent one. That entails you to certain rights, like the same dress code as everyone else, the same breaks and lunches, and an appropriate office space. You're better off looking for another job.