I can't speak to the experience of living in NYC as well as you, having never tried it. I've visited and been fairly impressed, at least with everything other than the century or so of grime on every building.

That said, there's a lot to be said for those of us living in the hinterlands (also known as "places beyond the Hudson"). I'm here in Upstate South Carolina, which is noticeably different from Upstate New York, which does not begin at Poughkeepsie! The labor rates are certainly cheaper than in NYC or surrounding areas, but then, so is the cost of living. The lovely three-bedroom split-level house on two acres with a backyard pool that I own here would easily have cost well over 10 times what I spent on it, had I bought in or around NYC. Yes, we have our drawbacks: there's nearly no public transportation here, the arts scene while vibrant is still extremely small, and we have to travel long distances to see most great live entertainment (musicals, opera, what-have-you). Still, to wake up in the morning and see a family of deer slowly wending their way across my front lawn, while munching on the shrubbery that I've been too lazy to prune anyway, more than makes up for it.

"although a solid argument could be made that it may have been more than coincidence that the economy fell part when prohibition was passed and it recovered when it was repealed."

Well, sure, except that you have your timing wrong. Prohibition was passed in 1920, and repealed in 1933. That period saw the boom period of the Roaring Twenties, mostly as a result of rampant stock speculation, and most of that without any significant research into the actual value of the stocks being traded. The crash of October 1929 launched the US and the rest of the industrialized world into the Great Depression, from which we didn't recover in the US until around 1940. Other parts of the world didn't recover until after WWII ended.

So yes, your argument would make sense, if only it weren't incorrect.

I disagree. The image is computer interpreted. To imply that it's computer generated is to imply that there is no physical analog of the object the image represents.

Fleshlight?

...its competitors, Microsoft and Google, are quite good at it... <snip> ...they're better than everybody.

It's time to turn in your /. card, jpmorgan...

(Yes, I used the power of the deleted word, but I didn't change your meaning-- I just had fun with it! As a matter of fact, I agree with you & if I had mod points & hadn't already commented on this thread, I would've mod'd you +1 insightful. Since I don't & did, I decided to crack a joke instead)

Exactly, it's never good to have only one company having monopoly.

You seem to be indicating that two companies can have a monopoly in the same field...

I've tried Bing a couple of times, when the results I needed weren't within the first few pages of returns on Google. I'd say the results were almost comparable.

OTOH, any time I need to information on Microsoft's own site, I find myself going to Google, entering my search time, and inserting the "site:microsoft.com" tag at the end. All because I've found that MS can't figure out how to index their own bloody site. Now tell me, if they can't index their own site, why would I want to trust them with search in general?

As always, YMMV.

Arguably, that list is evidence that WorldCon's Hugo Award is a surefire way to pick a movie (or TV episode) that's not worth watching.

Caveat: Mars Attacks! almost made me chuckle. Twice.

... and Toshiba partners with GE for their nuclear energy efforts.

I can't speak to B&W, though, no clue there.

Yes, but this also means that the poor (at least in the US) would finally have a leg up on the rest of us. Where else can you most often find people blasting their car stereos at 125db and vibrating every window in a 2km radius, but in the slums? (Trust me on this one. I live in a not-well-to-do neighborhood, and am seriously considering building a device to hit those jerks with EMPs.)

Damn but I wish I had some mod points. What you wrote is the most succinct possible description of any generic sword & sorcery story I've ever read!

Sure, counting the hits and ignoring the misses can work for anyone.

That's how road-side crystal-ball gazers make their money.

... is realizing that most people who aren't old enough to be affected by the "Logan's Run" effect probably had to Google to find out exactly what Logan's Run was!

Yes, if you want truly large living organisms, you need only take a look at this thing.