What's something that we cannot touch, taste, or otherwise sense, yet affects us often?

What do you mean there's more than one answer!?

From an article found on ZDNet, written by Marc Orchant;

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" So David from 37Signals dropped the f-bomb in a particularly myopic post wherein he tries to argue that we don't need offline functionality from online applications because, "like dude… we're all connected ll [sic] of the time and why don't you read a book or something when you're on a plane?". This unsurprisingly (and perhaps by design?) screed has generated an emotional comments thread (now 200 deep and sure to get bigger) in which folks from around the world do their best to educate the author (and presumably his pals at the company) as to the reality outside the world of a developer living in a major US city. It's great intertubes drama if you're a fan of that sort of thing. "

The whole post starts about offline versus online applications, then transitions to how the web is changing.

As for what I think about offline versus online applications, I think that offline applications should still exist. I wouldn't trust both the server and my connection to said server when making something important. Without a stable internet connection, it's a real pain. I'd much sooner trust my computer than my internet connection. I would say that I'm personally very biased towards offline applications.

From the same article;

" The net generation has never known a world without the network. They have different expectations and experiences than I (we) do. As a result, their comfort level about working online is profoundly different. They approach the idea of work and career differently that we have and they use mobile and net technologies in a dramatically different, and much more personal, way than most of us in the pre-net generation.Have you watched twenty-somethings use MySpace? I have – I sta next to my daughter (22) and her roommate (20) yesterday watching them cruise their social networks – and it's nothing like the way I use the tubes. "

I don't know how these wunderkinds use the internet, but I can say that an adult and a child both use the internet differently. I will agree that the net is changing, and so are the people that use the internet. However, the past is not always wrong. just because the office model seems antiquated nowadays doesn't mean it can't work for future generations.

Well, that's more than my 2 cents worth.

why does Google have such a weird name? What is the story behind it? Wired News - Monkeybites had a link to the Wikipedia article that explains most of them.

Wikipedia Article

As Wired News - Monkeybites so kindly pointed out, something as disputed as the origins of a company name, also on Wikipedia, does not spell reliability. However, it does spell fun.

From Wired News - Monkeybites;

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"Kevin Poulsen has noted the death (and birthday) of telnet on 27B Stroke 6. Microsoft has apparently decided to release the Vista OS without a telnet client, a first for Windows."

If you don't remember telnet, it was the text based system used to contact other places. No, not command prompt.

Personally, I only used Telnet in the very few times I ever played a MUD. But man, some of those times were great.

But don't worry, possible MUD lovers. There are many ways to connect to the MUD servers other than Telnet.

Still, it is sad to see a good program dying.

Oh yes...

Just a warning; there's a Friday the thirteenth coming up next week.

From FunniestGadgets.com;

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“Rocket Fishing Rod casts lines over 30 feet. to reach prime angling spots. Simple pump-and-launch action eliminates snares and tangled lines. Bobber keeps hook safely hidden until it hits the water, ideal for teaching kids.”

Now that is cool enough to get me thinking about fishing. Although... would fishing with a harpoon be cooler?

This is an oldie-but-a-goodie.

From the short Wikinews article;

In Estonia, a mouse made its nest in a cash machine and spent the weekend eating tens of thousands of kroons in bank notes. The critter was discovered after a customer making a withdrawal got half-eaten bills from the machine.

“ At some stage over the weekend the chewed money jammed, and the mouse seems to have spent the rest of the weekend turning the notes into bedding. It probably was attracted by the warmth from the machine and decided to make itself at home. ”
— Kristina Tamberg, spokeswoman for Hansapank Bank in Tallinn.

Experts are now investigating how the rodent was able to get into the ATM.

And, if you're really a stickler for tradition...

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Yes! I am free from that last This Week in News ordeal. Of course, I still need to post the announcement on my rants page, but still...

I'm free!

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Microsoft rolls out a bigger memory card. But what I want to know is who cares?

I have never used a memory card since the N64. And I've regretted it on few occasions.

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Did you know that livers can be cut in half, and still grow? With that concept in mind, doctors are working to make donations of liver to infants more common.

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This is what could possibly be the most dangerous car security system known to man.

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A great math mystery is solved.

And the answer is huge in size.

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Soon, a few diseases can by diagnosed by taking a sample of saliva. Granted, it's just a few autoimmune diseases. But those are nasty, and it's not that hard to just take a saliva sample.

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Don't buy drugs off the internet. They killed a person.

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A burrowing dinosaur has been found in Montana. Montana just got slightly more interesting.

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To celebrate the new registrar, many people participated in a giant group wedding. they did this to combat racism, as the new registrar is black, to which some have taken offense to. Crazy offense, that has no place in civilized society.

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It seems that Wikipedia has officially been banned as a primary source for in some colleges.

How ironic that I read that in a wikinews story.

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Take that, haters of sprites!

It seems that the prior-gen version of TMNT, the one for gameboy advance, fared much better than its DS cousin. The DS version used ugly 3d graphics. The gameboy used sprites. Guess which one is better?

I always knew sprites were better.

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Did you know that Bill Gates never finished college? He left to work on microsoft. He has recently received a degree from Harvard for his accomplishments.

So... he has finished college. Just, in the school of hard knocks.

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A project is underway in Belgium that lets people meet with prisoners. This is mainly to dispell the all too common myths regarding prisoners and prison.

What if Myspace gave you an overall score based on all measures of popularity?

Actually, no. That would make it pathetic.

You know what? Forget you, rants page. I'm going to post my news here. So, just wait for me to get around to posting all that news I've supposedly been saving up. Then I'll post new things. It'll be great.