Simon

"The fruit section of L. aegyptiaca may be allowed to mature and used as a bath or kitchen sponge after being processed to remove everything but the network of xylem. Marketed as luffa or loofah, the sponge is used like a body scrub." - Simon from Bookmarklet

I didn't realize that loofah sponges were fruit. I had previously thought they came from the sea. - Simon

"Conceptual computer artwork of the total volume of water on Earth (left) and of air in the Earth's atmosphere (right) shown as spheres." - Simon from Bookmarklet

"The prosecutors rested their case after asking for a one-year sentence for three executives — David Drummond, senior vice president and chief legal officer; Peter Fleischer, global privacy counsel; and George Reyes, a former chief financial officer." - Simon from Bookmarklet

"Cummingtonite is a metamorphic amphibole. Cummingtonite was first described in 1824 for an occurrence near Cummington, Massachusetts, hence the name." - Simon from Bookmarklet

There is also a molecule called "Fucitol": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Simon

"The winner of the marathon, American Fred Lorz, was disqualified for accepting a ride in a car during the race. Initially, he was hailed a true hero at the finish. But Alice Roosevelt, the president's daughter, had photographed his ride, and he was later disqualified. Fellow American Thomas Hicks received the gold, even though he also was aided by two shots of strychnine and several glasses of cognac." - Simon from Bookmarklet

strychnine? - Private Sanjeev

"MEPs also agreed that restrictions on a user's internet access can only be taken "with due respect for the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy". But an earlier amendment which ruled that any application for cutting off internet access must go through a judge was rejected." - Simon from Bookmarklet

What does it mean in British? - Paul Buchheit

"Fag" is another word with quite different meanings on each side of the pond. Having a fag in England means smoking a cigarette. - Gabe

"Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England founded in 1883, run by the students of Cambridge University " - Simon from Bookmarklet

Some former members: Douglas Adams, John Cleese, Peter Cook, David Frost, Stephen Fry, Eric Idle, Hugh Laurie, John Oliver, Emma Thompson. - Simon

"Owner: News Corporation" - Simon from Bookmarklet

cf.: "The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content" -- Rupert Murdoch. - Simon

"Listeners who tuned in to hear the bulletin on Good Friday itself were informed: "There is no news." Piano music followed." - Simon from Bookmarklet

"When he finds a female, he bites into her skin, and releases an enzyme that digests the skin of his mouth and her body, fusing the pair down to the blood-vessel level. The male then atrophies into nothing more than a pair of gonads, which releases sperm." - Simon from Bookmarklet

I bet many married women can sympathize. - Jim Norris

"When it is mature, the male's digestive system degenerates, making him incapable of feeding independently, which necessitates his quickly finding a female anglerfish to prevent his death." --- So, reproduction be damned... males just do it 'cause they have the munchies? - Aaron D'Souza

"A law that demands consent to internet cookies has been approved and will be in force across the EU within 18 months. On 26th October, it was voted through by the Council of the EU. It cannot be stopped and awaits only the rubber-stamp formalities of signature and publication." - Simon from Bookmarklet

"So almost every site that carries advertising should be seeking its visitors' consent to the serving of cookies. It also catches sites that count visitors – so if your site uses Google Analytics or WebTrends, you’re caught." - Simon

Do you hear that? It's the sound of a million webmasters screaming out in revolt against the disconnect between lawmakers and reality. - Bill Strathearn

Eee pc was released in Nov 2007. Expect Asus to come tumbling down as eee pc stats are included. However, I doubt most people who buy eee pcs would have bought extended warranty. The data could be biased either way. So far, netbook reliability has been quite bad. - Peng-Toh

"King George II imposed the "Dress Act" in 1746, outlawing all items of Highland dress including kilts with the intent of suppressing highland culture. The penalties were severe; six months' imprisonment for the first offense and seven years' transportation for the second." - Simon from Bookmarklet

I was comparing it to the other Continuation War of R5RS vs. R6RS. - Jim Norris

"There are discussions saying ‘You’re stealing my content,’ but publishers have complete control on whether that content goes online in the first place. If they want put up a paywall, again, publishers can put up a paywall. We don’t force you to make it free. The other part of the extreme is even if you’re online, that doesn’t mean that we can come in and force you to index your content with us. And this is the whole robots stuff, where if you don’t want to put it in Google, or even just in Google News, you can block it." - Simon from Bookmarklet

I wish this were reaching a larger audience. I heard an interview of one of the Google news guys by the BBC a week ago where the interviewer spent half of the time saying things like, "Explain how you aren't leeches." It was really depressing. Now that I know a little something about a subject that is in the news frequently, it's unsettling how much I took the media at face-value before. - Ryan Moulton

"IF AMERICA’S newspapermen were looking for comfort, Intel’s Andy Grove was not the man to invite to their annual conference in San Francisco in April. “You are under attack from both sides,” he said—on the advertising side from companies such as Internet auction houses, which are usurping the classified business, and on the editorial side from online news services. He gave them three years to adapt or die." - Simon from Bookmarklet

A pretty insightful article on the plight of newspapers, especially since it was written back in 1999. - Simon

How high can you go... - Simon

"Complainant stated she was using her Apple iPhone and an application called Trapster.com. As I looked at her phone there was a satellite view of her house and the surrounding neighborhood with a yellow ping marking my police vehicle in her driveway." - Simon from Bookmarklet

"One of the things that people say an awful lot about the Apple Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it's very graphical and easy to use. What we've tried to do with Windows 7 is create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics." - Simon from Bookmarklet

Yeah, why bother with the whole "easy to use" part when you can just clone the graphics. That's the important bit for sure. - Bill Strathearn

“My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple’s policies.” – Joe Hewitt - Simon from Bookmarklet

"Now seems like a good time to recall the words of former Palm CEO Ed Colligan, a mere three years ago: Colligan laughed off the idea that any company — including the wildly popular Apple Computer — could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector. “We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,” he said. “PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”" - Simon from Bookmarklet

"Mr Murdoch, told Sky News Australia: “I think we will [remove our websites from Google’s search index]. The people who simply just pick up everything and run with it – steal our stories, we say they steal our stories - they just take them. That's Google, that's Microsoft, that's Ask.com, a whole lot of people ... they shouldn't have had it free all the time, and I think we've been asleep."" - Simon from Bookmarklet

Full interview in HD on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch.... What a nice coincidence :). He shows how wrong he is about how the WSJ accepts Google users for free and expect WSJ visitors to pay http://googlewebmastercentral...., about the French 3 strikes law, etc. - Jérôme Flipo

""But we are better," he replied. "If you look at them, most of their stuff is stolen from the newspapers now, and we'll be suing them for copyright. "They will have to spend a lot more money on a lot more reporters to cover the world when they can't steal from newspapers."" - Simon from Bookmarklet

http://www.youtube.com/watch.... He says so many wrong things, either about Google's "first click free" initiative http://googlewebmastercentral.... that the WSJ is running (free article for Google users, pay-wall for WSJ readers), the French three strikes law (for people illegally downloading, not putting on websites), etc. I'm only at 1/5 of the video, but I expect much more ignorance (lies?) from him now. - Jérôme Flipo

"Saint Nicholas of Myra is the primary inspiration for the Christian figure of Santa Claus. He was a 4th-century Greek Christian bishop of Myra, now in Turkey." - Simon from Bookmarklet

England didn't have turkeys, but they were brought over from the Americas in the 16th century. Interestingly, it appears that "A Christmas Carol" helped turkey become more popular at Christmas -- the reformed Scrooge buys a turkey for the Cratchit family's Christmas meal at the end of the book. I think another reason it became popular was that Queen Victoria decided to break with tradition and opted for turkey at the royal Christmas meal. - Simon

"I'm really outraged by this, I never saw such attitude in software development... ever, in my entire life, and I have 10 years of experience in software development..... this is just unbelievable, such irresponsibility! Going public with this!!! come on!! WHY!?" - Simon from Bookmarklet

Also on this issue see http://www.imperialviolet.org/2009... - Amit Patel

At least for some parts of the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Simon

"Rhaphanidosis is the act of inserting a radish into the ..." - Simon from Bookmarklet

"This article about a criminal law topic is a stub". Criminal law, my <strike>ars</strike> err... word! - Bleys