In our continuing series, "You Know You Feel Old When...":

Monday, Nov. 9, is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which signaled the beginning of the end of Communism in Europe. The Times wants to publish your photographs documenting that day. Send us your photos and describe your memories of your experience.

-janelane

Where Were You When the Wall Fell? - The New York Times

Everybody has been praising Windows 7. It's supposed to make us all forget about how bad Windows Vista is and make us fall in love with Microsoft all over again. But before you throw your Vista laptop out the window, remember that the much-maligned operating system also got great reviews before its release. It wasn't until later that problems began to creep in and hating Vista became the new black. Those who wrote the positive reviews of Vista have nothing else to do but put their tails between their legs and admit they were wrong. "If I could go back and do it over, I would be more negative," said the Businessweek reviewer who called Vista "a big step forward."

Eager To Get Windows 7? Remember, Vista Got Good Reviews, Too

A search in Bing:

The same search in Google:

'Nuff said.

Update: So, it turns out that the problem is in the IE search tool bar, not with Bing. When you put in "a phrase" in the top right bar, it converts it to "a+phrase" and won't return anything for the latter term. However, if you put in the original "a phrase" on the Bing homepage, it will return search results.

Regardless, it's a pain in the ass to use Bing since I exclusively use either the location or search bar to do searches, not the search engine homepage.

-janelane, smartly

I was at the Air and Waste Management Association luncheon today and Dr. Carol Couch, the director of the GA Environmental Protection Division (GAEPD), gave the keynote. Below are excerpts from her speech and my comments:

She says crux of the recent Lake Lanier (GA) water ruling is that Army Corp of Engineers (COE) hasn't been operating properly for last 50 years. Ruling was in response to lawsuits against the Corp. There are 40 Corp projects in 28 other states also not in compliance according to ruling.

comment: These projects will likely be [adversely] affected by the precedent set by the ruling.

She states that all lawsuits are against the Corp, not Atlanta or GA, due to their misappropriation of the lake.

comment: This is of course in direct contradiction to EVERYTHING we've seen in the press about the water wars.

Most criticism leveled at GA in the wars is focused on Atlanta's water waste; however, less than 1% of water from the Chattahoochee is diverted for water use in Atlanta. Also, water use in Atlanta is comparatively low. Per capita water use is 151 gal/person/day; in Macon, it's 250. Only 5 metropolitan areas per capita water use is less than Atlanta's.

comment: She says these figures are obtained from simply dividing water use by population. It sounds like bullshit to me; installed capacity divided by City population gives you 390 gallons per person per day. EPD doesn't grant water permits willy nilly (as she would know), so how can she logically disassociate installed capacity from consumed amount?

Governor Purdue has a four prong strategy to deal with the ruling:
> Appeal
> Negotiate with AL and FL governors
> Form private industry-led task force to study how to deal with loss of Lake Lanier drinking water capacity; however, she says they don't realistically think they can replace the lake. Reservoirs are too environmentally destructive with too much legislation. She notes that 1/3 cost of a recent reservoir was environmental mitigation.

comment: I didn't hear the one she named, but I think she means this one in Marietta.

> Greater progress on water conservation and efficiency

She says GA is currently implementing 2007 statewide water mgt plan. Under this plan, all areas have mandate to develop a regional watershed mgt plan.

comment: The idea is to develop cooperative water management plans that take it account the needs of neighboring towns and neighboring ecologies.

She says that conservation is a priority but we still need more reservoirs. Conservation is not the silver bullet; it will be weighed against economic evaluations of other ideas.

Paraphrase: "Education and collective conscience are more impactful than regulation."
Quote: "What's in our hearts cannot be regulated."

comment: WTF?! She basically concluded a pretty fact-driven, unbiased speech with anti-regulation propaganda.

But whereas when I used to hear things like "global warming is leading to crazy weather," I would cringe and dismiss it as balderdash, now I am now convinced there is validity to that, and what I'm describing here is a mechanism by which it is occurring.

A succinct meteorological explanation for the warming behind global warming.

-janelane

A Connection Between Global Warming and Weather: Forecast Earth

The sad truth is that when we reduce something so complex as writing to a standardized scoring tool, we send the clear message that we value connect-the-dots thinking, conformity and mediocrity.

More fodder for the "standardized test scores are worth squat" category.

-janelane

Letters - Assessing Those Who Grade the Tests - NYTimes.com

Study Finds Women Wear Shoes That Cause Pain

I saw this heading on the NYT and thought for sure it was for an Onion article.

-janelane

Vital Signs - Study Finds Women Wear Shoes That Cause Pain - NYTimes.com

In a little more than a year, Google Chrome, the search company's speedy and innovative Web browser, has managed to win over about 3 percent of Internet surfers. Is that good or bad? It's certainly not a blockbuster, but consider the hurdles Google faces. Unlike Internet Explorer or Safari, Chrome doesn't come pre-installed on any computers. True, Mozilla Firefox faces the same problem—but Firefox, which now has about 23 percent of the market, has been around since 2004. You might also argue that Firefox captured an easy market—people who were sick of IE and wanted something better. Chrome can't do the same; everyone who wanted to leave IE has done so already, and the only folks left to convert are those who don't know any better.

I'm not saying that these IE holdouts are merely ignorant about the alternatives. The problem goes deeper than that: They don't even know they're using IE. They don't know they're using anything in particular — many people think that when they click on the blue IE icon, they're clicking on "the Internet." As Brian Rakowski, director of product management for Chrome, puts it, "People just don't know what a browser is."

There are no hard numbers on this, but Rakowski's not kidding. Ask your tech-unsavvy friends or your parents which browser they use, and chances are you'll get a quizzical look and an answer like, "I use Yahoo—or is that not a browser?" That's what one woman told a Google rep who was stopping people in Times Square this spring to ask a simple question: "What is a browser?"

Many people gave answers like, "It's what I search through—like, to find things." Or, "A browser is when you know what you're looking for, and a search engine is when you're searching for something." Only 8 percent of people in the admittedly unscientific survey could answer the question correctly.

You don't have to try to follow the healthcare, climate change or Gitmo legislation to know that the world is full of and run by idiots.

What are a bunch of intelligent Meme-ers to do?

-janelane, misanthropically

Google's ingenious plan to spruce up outdated versions of Internet Explorer. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

''Whether the issue is improving the involvement of young women and girls in education, to climate change and all political, economic, and social issues in between, I think empowering women is central to what the world has to do in the 21st century,'' he said.

You're damn right.

-janelane

Global Initiative Takes on Gender Inequality - NYTimes.com

Issued by The National Weather Service
Atlanta, GA
11:22 am EDT, Tue., Sep. 22, 2009

... FLOOD WARNING EXTENDED UNTIL WEDNESDAY EVENING... THE FLOOD WARNING CONTINUES FOR THE CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVER NEAR VININGS AT PACES FERRY... * UNTIL WEDNESDAY EVENING. * AT 10AM TUESDAY THE STAGE WAS 24.8 FEET AND FALLING. * MAJOR FLOODING WILL CONTINUE. * FLOOD STAGE IS 14.0 FEET. * THE RIVER WILL CONTINUE TO FALL TO BELOW FLOOD STAGE BY TOMORROW AFTERNOON. * AT 23.0 FEET... EXTENSIVE FLOODING OCCURS. THE 100 YEAR FLOOD IS BETWEEN 23 AND 24 FEET. MANY HOMES AND BUSINESS ARE FLOODED OUT.

Atlanta's under water this week and many homes have been wiped out. Since hardly anyone in Atlanta has flood insurance, much less if they're outside the 100-year flood elevation, a lot of people could use your help. Donate to the Redcross Atlanta Relief Fund.

-janelane

Local Weather Alert for Atlanta, GA - weather.com