Help me remember what book I read this in: In this sci-fi dystopia, you don't have to buy books or recordings. They're free for the taking. But at regular intervals, you have to report to a "copyright center" to have your brain scanned, at which point you are charged for the media you've consumed. Not reporting...
posted to Ask Metafilter by raconteur at 9:54 AM on December 13, 2007 (12 comments)

How Does a Google Query Work? How many machines does it hit? How many clusters are there? How many Google DNS servers? How many data centers? I know Google is famously secretive about this information, but I'd love to understand just how the results page gets back to me, with as much detail as possible. Many people take guesses about this, but I'm looking for some real concrete data.
posted to Ask Metafilter by raconteur at 3:19 PM on June 20, 2007 (12 comments)

My question is pretty specific. I'm a freelance writer. I have zero clips. I'm trying like hell to get noticed, but it's tough. I like to write about a wide variety of things (which may be part of the problem), but one in particular is music. There's a small band coming through NYC soon, and I want nothing more than to break them in print or web. They're playing a well-known and respected venue next month.
posted to Ask Metafilter by raconteur at 11:04 PM on August 25, 2006 (30 comments)