I was just thinking about the Yakult saleslady, you know, the one who goes around with a refrigerated cart selling Yakult. Then I heard the words "Lactobacilli Shirota strain" uttered in a "Domo arigato Mr. Roboto"-like tenor.

Anyway, I also found out this week that craigslist has opened up a Manila site. And Ebay has launched Kijiji.com, which copies Craig's model to the tee. Kijiji is Swahili for "village", apparently.

More anyways: the National Football League in the U.S. allows fans to tailor in any name on any team jersey. Well, just about any. Here's a list of the word(s) that they *won't* stitch. "Gay" is curiously off the list.

Then there's how many variables can you keep track off at one time:

Halford et al concluded from these results that people -- academics accustomed to interpreting the type of data used in the experiment problems -- cannot process more than four variables at a time. Recognizing these human limitations can make a difference when designing high-stress work environments--such as air-traffic control centers--where employees must keep in mind several variables all at once.

Let me see, when I play Rise of Nations, I could be keeping track of more than four. Maybe that's "chunking". Read the article.