Good point on European history. Americans are less trusting in general. They distrust their democratic government and even each other (see guns). Possibly this is justified (NSA/murder rates) and possibly it is self-fulfilling. Personally I think a society where the citizens can trust each other is healthier.

That aside, there are cultural differences, where Americans value independence and idealism more than Europeans, and a lack of trust is simply an outworking of that (it doesn't mean maximising trust is the goal). The USA also has a much larger and geographically/ethnically diverse population which makes valuing independence over conformity more of a necessity.

To a degree, but the dilution also works against this, depending on how trained your palette is. When baked in a cake I find very little difference between Lindt, Valrhona, some Italian couverture I bought whose name escapes me, and even Cadbury. It's like chefs saying there is no such thing as cooking wine - true mostly if your life's work is focusing on subtle flavour differences.

For ganache and handmake chocolates, however, it makes a lot more sense. I intend to try Callebaut next, $50/kg for Valrhona is breaking me :)

If this were true then mothers would have no problems with men staring at them while nursing. Breasts are sexual in Western cultures in the vast majority of situations in which they are exposed, and the mind doesn't immediately ignore that context.

Breastfeeding in public is one of those strange issues that causes a lot of argument but doesn't seem to actually bother many people. It's natural to feel slightly uncomfortable around it, so you politely don't stare, and mothers try to be as discreet as possible.

I don't support them but that's not a fair summary of the laws. They have made it illegal for protesters to threaten violence or create blockades. One example would be abortion protesters creating a barrier around a clinic, but this law is mostly aimed at unions who can physically stop 'scabs' entering a workplace with implied, and sometimes actual, violence.

Firstly, it's an impressively mature outlook to think of yourself as fortunate for being intelligent rather than being angry at the majority for being 'idiots'.

Secondly, success within a species as social as humans depends on a lot more than individual intelligence (tests are typically very individual). A lot of success comes from relational ability and if you are below average in this then it can hamper the use of your intellectual abilities. Compounding this, low relational ability doesn't seem correlated with a low need for relationships. Another factor is that the majority will create structures than benefit average people and, if you are exceptionally intelligent or dumb, will not be able to make full use of them.

I agree, but it's more subtle than that. Children are in hyper-learning mode, and they are constantly on the lookout for what to do and what not to do. You might say they have an innate desire to figure out their 'role', to use a sociological term. Combine this with the fact that all animals quickly distinguish between male and female and you can see how children amplify any inherent gender differences.

Children also tend to have incomplete information, so they may see one physicist depicted who happens to be male. Part of this unbalanced information comes from the home, where parents usually fall into distinct roles.

However LTS releases periodically update the kernel, I assume for the same driver (as well as security) reasons, or is this different? The main drawback I see with LTS is that many application packages remain old, so you miss out on new features to LibreOffice etc.

I disagree. When it works democracy does so because it gives people with different voices a say in the system, alleviating the need to solve differences with violence. You may contend that the Iraqi people are not currently suited to democracy, but for the US to autocratically rule Iraq it would be forced to do so with an even more brutal hand than Saddam Hussein, since you've not only ruled out democracy but must rule as complete outsiders devoid of ethnic glue. Doing so would be for the US to lose a piece of its soul.

I'm tipping Michael Bay to direct.

Exactly. Applying the "No True Scotsman" fallacy is fallacious itself, as being Scottish has a strict definition of being a registered citizen in the internationally-recognised country of Scotland. Most people applying this to ISIL want self-identification as the test of Islamicism, but that makes any discussion on the role of Islam in their behaviour meaningless.

Well wind farms are an eyesore, and tend to be more distributed than coal mines. Same with solar, I recall a posting of a group of German houses all with panels. From the comment I gathered it was meant to show how pretty it was, but to me it looked horrible. Sure, panels are shiny when new, but after ten years, when the novelty of the technology has worn off, they will be seen as industrial looking - they won't age rustically like shingles or tiles.

Of course in Australia it would be much better to do mass solar rather than vote-buying subsidies for rooftop systems. There's certainly a lack of political will (otherwise called democracy) and we're not going to see any environmental leadership from the current government.

I wouldn't single out SA, since WA, QLD and Tasmania are all the butt of jokes about being backward (NT and Canberra are ignored). So interestingly, the more populous NSW and Victoria are making the jokes, much like city dwellers always mock townfolk.

I disagree. Networks seek exclusivity agreements to reduce risk, it's standard business practice for large companies. Without there's a chance their investment will be suddenly worthless as another network shows the same content, so they pay a premium for certainty.

Of course everything in capitalism is greed in some sense, even the salary you as a worker can ask for from your employee. There's a fine line between standard market practices and profiteering.

The counter-argument would be that property is defined by the government, i.e. society as a whole, not the individual. You may consider the piece of land you sleep on to be yours in some intrinsic way, but there is plenty of debate on whether property is an inalienable right, if such rights exist.

Actually it is quite natural because, for religious people, moral meaning relies on the eternity of their metaphysical beings. Philosophically meaning is about affect. If object A has precisely no affect on object B, then for object B, A is meaningless. If all we are is a chance, temporal assembly of atoms and, no matter what our actions, the end result of the universe is extinction, then morals are indeed meaningless.

Certainly ethical behaviour has non-religious sources, mostly from a (short term) species survival point of view, but this is different from the absolute sense with which most people consider morality.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been in mid-swing, got a call, and had to waste a valuable split second while the head fell before answering.

But interesting post.