Obviously, if one nation has a substantially higher proportion of winners in a competition like this, it suggests there's something in the national culture that encourages it. Other nations would like to know what that is. It's not pride, it's post-game analysis.

Just because the men in the companies' marketing department don't see anything wrong with it, doesn't mean that other men don't see anything wrong with it. Please don't make the same mistake they do by painting an entire gender with a single broad brush.

Don't be silly. Little girls like to imitate their moms, and little boys like to imitate their dads. In this case, if the little girl is watching her mom raise ANOTHER little baby (gasp, parents having multiple children! In this day and age!), then she'll probably want to imitate her.

It's also learned from culture and TV, of course. But don't underestimate the simple and powerful influence of a caretaking parent.

Which reminds me: do you think he married her right after the IPO because he wanted to give all his attention to her on the honeymoon, or because he wanted to lock in his wealth before the prenup took effect?

In other shocking revelations, squares are not round.

Don't they use your distance from multiple cell towers to triangulate your position?

Um... did you know that the Army Corps of Engineers has almost nothing to do with defense contracts?

We can requote it. We have the keyboards.

Studies done on human babies under one year of age show that they have a concept of number up to three. (Source: ... I forget, but it's one of Keith Devlin's books.) These studies are based on the idea that babies stare longer at things that aren't expected -- so if you show them one object, then a second object, then hide them both and then reveal two objects, they are less surprised than if one object plus one object becomes three objects.

However, starting with four, the "innate math" of the brain fails. Everything after the number three is invented by human civilization. This is more remarkable when you consider that language IS innate to the human brain -- normal humans anywhere will develop a complete language, vocabulary and grammar with past and present tenses even if they aren't taught it by adults. (Source: my own head. I'd actually like to know if this is authoritative.)

The practical upshot of this is: yes, math is hard. The human brain isn't designed/evolved to do it at any level beyond "one, two, three, lots."

Considering the cult of ignorance North Korea has maintained among its own people for decades, this is probably exactly what the locals believe.

For the same reason that FaceTime has to look like an old-school movie camera, or the YouTube app is an old brown tube television, or the Contacts app is an old leather address book, or the "Phone" icon is an old telephone handset, or the clock app is an old analog circular clock....

It's all about instant recognition. A yellow spiral notepad says "notepad" instead of "word processor", which is probably what Apple doesn't want it to be used as.

But you do need to be on a data plan for a cell phone provider, and as far as I know, OS X desktop only supports wi-fi or ethernet networking.