Another interesting instance of a non-English programming language is Glagol, which is written entirely in Russian.

The most interesting thing about it, as the Wikipedia article describes, is how the Russian words it uses are very different from the words used by Russian programmers nowadays to describe the same concepts. The words in common usage today are often chosen based on how similar they sound to the English equivalent, e.g. operation => operatsiya; function => funktsiya; comment => kommentariy, etc. This is the case despite the fact that a lot of these Russian cognates have somewhat different meanings from their English counterparts.

The words used in Glagol, on the other hand, are much more elegant and more accurately describe the concepts they represent. It's unfortunate that the effects of English being the programming lingua franca include making conversations between Russian programmers more clumsy.

Veblen goods is the term you're looking for.

I became a little suspicious when, after having lived in the Czech Republic for over 8 years, today was the first time I've heard of this Kingdom of Wallachia. When I saw that the Wikipedia article on it comprised of a single sentence, I did a bit of research on this Kingdom, which I thought I'd share here.

Firstly, the NY Times gets a few things plain wrong. They claim that the Kingdom of Wallachia is in the north-east of the Czech republic, when it is in fact in the south-east (see official map). Furthermore, they claim that "[Wallachia] became one of the country's biggest tourist attractions", which they've seemed to have pulled right out of their asses, since it is not mentioned in any major Czech tourist sites at all. CzechTourism.com (the "official travel site of the Czech Republic") mentions Wallachia in only one article, without a word about it being a "kingdom" of any kind. It's also suspiciously absent from a list of the most visited tourist destinations on the same site, the list of Czech tourist attractions on IgoUgo, and has a general lack of web presence.

I eventually found the official website for the Kingdom, after searching for its Czech name "Valasské království", and found it to be very lacking in information in English. An interesting reversal of this can be found on the official website of the town Roznov pod Radhostem, where the official Wallachian Kingdom information centre (that also issues passports) is located. While the site has a page on the information centre in English, Polish, German, and French, there is no mention of it on the Czech version of the site.

At about this point, I realised that the Kingdom of Wallachia is even less newsworthy than even Molossia or the Conch Republic, so I stopped wasting my time on it. I suggest Slashdot editors and readers do the same.

Not that I disagree with your point, but "Taken" was released quite a long time ago outside the US, and is already available on DVD where I live (Australia).

I only noticed this fairly rare occurrence when I checked The Daily Show website today, and saw Liam Neeson promoting Taken as an upcoming guest for Thursday, which made me think: didn't I just see a huge "rent Taken now" poster in the Blockbuster window on my way to work?

I just want to point out that when a blind person walks down the street, the last thing they need is music coming out of their headphones, blocking noises from the environment.

Now, if you manage to integrate effective guided GPS navigation for pedestrian walkways into such a device, then you're in business.

Actually, this is a big improvement over the last major exhibition the museum hosted, which was on the life of Princess Diana (see link).

The museum's location within Sydney, despite being near the city centre, is such that it's really difficult to attract foot traffic from wandering tourists, so almost all visitors are people that actually set out with the intention of visiting the museum. This unfortunately means that these "big name" temporary exhibits are really needed to bring in visitors, even if their subject matter strays from the theme of the museum.

For such temporary exhibitions, the museum charges A$20 (for Diana) or A$24 (for Star Wars) on top of the A$10 admission price, but it's really a way for the museum to raise its profile and bring in more people, rather than actually make money. Apparently for the Diana exhibition, the ticket revenue wasn't even enough to cover the full cost of hosting the exhibit.

Editors, please, be more specific when mentioning Georgia, and clarify if you're referring to the country or the state.

To me and most people around me, the title "City In Georgia Planning Virtual World For Civic Interaction" suggests that the article is about an impoverished city in the Caucasus trying to use technology to better preserve its ancient heritage during new architectural developments.