New from Google Labs – Google Personalized Search. I tried the classic “asp” search with mixed results (the current prefs directory is skewed towards software), but overall this service shows promise, especially since the UI does not get in the way (and marks personalized results clearly). Wish: Search URLs which included a (read-only) key into my personalization profile so that emailed/IMed URLs would result in consistent results.

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After Epson got their all-women design team to have a go at a printer, it is now Volvo’s turn (via The Old New Thing): an oil change only every 50,000 kilometers and no hood, so you can’t poke around the engine. I can already see some of my automobile enthusiast friends foaming at the mouth .

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From the access-ramps dept: Toggle Keys is a killer Windows Accessibility feature that works very well for touch typists who keep hitting cAPS lOCK bY mISTAKE (as when touch-typing on a different keyboard). To switch it on, use Control Panel | Accessibility Options, Alt+T, Alt+A, Enter.

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The San Francisco Examiner is probably the best designed newspaper I’ve seen online: with only one little advertisement tucked away in the corner, it’s a refreshing change from The Slime of India.

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SteynOnline (via Instapundit):

For all M de Villepin’s dreams of Napoleonic glory, his generation of French politicians will spend the rest of their lives managing decline. By 2050, there will be 100 million more Americans, 100 million fewer Europeans. The US fertility rate is 2.1 children per couple, in Europe it’s 1.4. Demography is not necessarily destiny, and certainly not inevitable disaster. But it will be for Europe, because the 20th century Continental welfare state was built on a careless model that requires a constantly growing population to sustain it.

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