What can a search engine possibly compute anything other than the ridiculous 2^2^2^2...?

Who would type that question to a search engine anyway? No, no, Microsoft is confused, you use Mathematica 7.0 for that kind of computation.

The best today's idiotic search engines could possibly hope to do is to add/subtract some numbers, provide unit/currency conversions and that's all. Google is already doing all that.

Unless Bing servers are some clever cousins of HAL, adding some funky math skills to them won't do a bit of a difference. It's a loooong shot before the search engine actually gathers unrelated information and connects it to the actual query, doing some useful computation in between.

Sorry Microsoft, this doesn't fly.

Oh I am sorry! It is completely MY fault! Next time I'll use Windows Ultra-Deluxe SpyWare Cleaner. Too bad it lets 9 out of 10, instead of all.

This pleasant but naive analogy doesn't work.
Because it is not the same thing. You are supposed to be protected after all that BS with UAC, Windows Defender, Active Defense, etc...

The real question is: Why would I have to put up with ridiculous functions like UAC and still have to pay for anti-virus software?

That's even worse because not only do you get only "virtual" mouse buttons, but zero tactile feedback.

On top of that, Macbook keyboards feel. . . weird. Lenovo's and Dell's higher end notebooks are actually enjoyable to type on.

I like the OS. I just don't like the hardware.

I'd believe 30 -40, but not 96. Most people are going to use letters and a small number of punctuation, and I'd wager that testing half of that will get you 90% of the possible choices. If it's just english words, I'll go with 16 as the multiplier, just given the info content of most english.

It can be fairly easily, at least here in the US. $1000 retail value within 6mo (so for example a "so-and-so discography" or "best of <genre>" torrent would probably qualify), or if you're trying to make money, or if it's pre-release.

Graphene has been studied extensively in the last few years. Carbon Nanotubes were on the rise (which are just rolled up sheets of single layer graphite) but the current difficulties to manipulate those to create devices staggered their advance. Graphene ( or Graphite for that matter) is a little easier to manage because it's like a 2 -D sheet and it can be laid/printed off a substrate more easily.

The current major problem of graphene is the lack of a sizable band-gap which is typically required for semiconductor modulation. We may see a breakthrough in the following years if people figure out a way to overcome this barrier.

Just to give an idea for us to see the colossal difference between the 'everyday experience' and the atomic world.

There's really no difference between Hydrogen (Z=1) and Ununoctium (Z=118) when you peek at them from a dimension that is 10 billion times (say the inter-atomic distance is about 1 Angstroms and we live in the meters range) larger than those.

  My point is sustainable, it is at least consistent.

  Your efforts of constantly showing it as simple as the writing a book-demanding money example are insufficient. It's just looking at the problem at a narrow angle, and it's, to me, being an ethical pussy.

You are claiming that our crusade against the big companies hurt the artists as well, huh? Oh, I am sorry to hear that but you are missing this : I am not hurting someone who has written a pathetic e-book and who tries to earn a few bucks by the help of a big company through that. Because he's not very popular in the first place. And as you might guess, unpopular information is uncommon on the internet. What's really common is "wildly popular" information. And most importantly, you can't claim that you should make money for your idea 25 years. You must be kidding me. So you would make millions of dollars because you come up with a mediocre idea under a grand company name? You can't do that. Get used to the idea.

Can't you really see the correlation between big companies (or super-famous artist, take Metallica-Napster conflict for example) and high download rates ?

We are really not hurting small business, because I (and a couple hundred million people who think like me) don't care about that work in the first place! A very few of us might be interested in your e-book (for which you've spent the last three years of your life) and that really won't hurt you. If you really get to be a famous guy and that your idea is really unique, then don't worry. You'll get your share. It'll just not be some imaginary number you are dreaming of. You'll get what you deserve.

I am still paying for books I like in the bookstore. I am just not paying for Metallica. They are already rich. And ironically, they are the biggest pussies in this world.

About that idea of reaching the artists and paying for them... That falls under the same terittory I've just described. If you are big enough to be taken care of a big-daddy company, your work will be ripped, shared and mercilessly freeloaded. Sorry about that. We are not killing you. You won't starve.

And that average guy won't be hit as much as you think. Try a rapidshare (or torrent) search on a very specific book. You can't reach it. IF you reach it, stop worrying.

Good luck with your absolute thinking. That doesn't help much in life. There are gray zones. Beware of that.