So, I just glance over at my Google Sidebar (a wonderful device, by the way), and see "Saudi men who got on school bus excused" in the news section. Of course, it seemed really odd, so I go to the link...

"Mana Saleh Almanajam, 23, and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran, 20, were charged with misdemeanor trespassing after boarding the bus bound for Wharton High School on May 19. They told investigators they got on the bus because they wanted to visit the school and didn't know it was just for students.

"At the time, the men gave conflicting reasons why they boarded the bus and were kept in jail for the weekend, police said. They were released after detectives determined they meant no harm, and immigration agents found that they were here legally."



And then, this morning on the way back from biking, I was listening to the news and heard that some really rich guy (whose name escapes me at the moment) is giving $55 million to Bill Gates for his charity foundation thing. So, the second richest man in the world is giving a bunch of his money to the richest man in the world. Ironic, isn't it?

They were also talking about all these clothing factory workers who live in Jordan. Apparently, since they're so desparate for jobs, they go pay some agent person to find them a job in a factory somewhere. Then they go work at the factory, where they work terrible hours in terrible conditions, getting very little pay, if any at all. So then they have to pay the job-finding person back, but they can't because they're trying to support their family with about $1/week. So, some agency went in to investigate and found out about it, and they're going to prosecute. But the factory managers were complaining about it, saying that it's not really their fault, it's because of all the American importers who insist on the lowest possible prices so they can make more of a profit. It's like, how can people really go to clothing stores and pay ridiculously low prices for stuff when they know how it's made? I thought it was pretty disturbing.

Google is making three buildings, each as large as a football field, in Oregon with the sole purpose of housing servers. Granted, Microsoft and Yahoo are both doing the same thing, though perhaps on a slightly smaller scale.

Just for background, in March, 2001, Google had 8,000 servers running. In 2003, it was around 100,000.

"Today even the closest Google watchers have lost precise count of how big the system is. The best guess is that Google now has more than 450,000 servers spread over at least 25 locations around the world. The company has major operations in Ireland, and a big computing center has recently been completed in Atlanta. Connecting these centers is a high-capacity fiber optic network that the company has assembled over the last few years."

"Google is like the Borg," said Milo Medin, a computer networking expert who was a founder of the 1990's online service @Home, referring to the robotic species on "Star Trek" that was forcibly assembled from millions of species and computer components. "I know of no other carrier or enterprise that distributes applications on top of their computing resource as effectively as Google."

Google = Borg. I love it! You will be assimilated!

Read complete article here

Time for a good, healthy stab at Microsoft.

Vista in 6 months? In my own opinion, they'll miss that deadline by far. Even one of the Microsoft executives in charge of the Vista release is saying it's going to take a while, in this interview.

(Should you read the whole article, I must caution you to ignore everything that Steve Ballmer says. I wouldn't trust a man who does this, or this, any more than I would trust a 1990 Ford to get me across the country without breaking down.)

An article I like much more (yeah, I know I'm biased) is this one by C-NET. I'll believe an independant research firm more than Microsoft's executives any day.

So, hmm. What to add, I wonder.

Then I randomly clicked one of my selected links, and discovered it. It is absolutely beautiful. But at the same time, it is now very affordable.

Of course, I'm talking about the new Macbook. Apple has somehow managed to make a laptop that is close in speed to their $2000-$2700 Macbook Pro, but with a smaller screen, and for $1100-$1500. Shopping spree, anyone?