Eloped, no spending on wedding, no wedding guests, no church and several other 'problems' but 25+ years and going strong.

He does have some things right and it is always interesting to read things like this but important to understand the difference between correlations and causation as well as how variable reality is.

What is most important is we share values and goals. We have a shared dream and both work hard to walk that path, together.

What do you have against dolphins?!? They want jobs too so they can earn money to buy shiny trinkets, fish and sponges. By the way, dolphins have a word for PETA but I can't print it here because it's not polite.

I'm so sorry to hear you're humor impaired. Don't worry, Bill Gates is working on a cure.

In the end we'll all get Back-to-Basics with BASIC so it may be the last programming language standing, much to the chagrin of so many snobs. :)

What is interesting is that you think "us" has to mean an individual - a very limited view of language.

Even without the historic spaghetti of regulations and the lobbyists for the big players there is a fundamental difference that makes Sweden much easier to layout: geography. Many of the USA homes are simply further away from nodes and the USA is a far bigger country.

There are many places in the USA, even in backwoods Vermont, where they have 100Mbps. But those places are more localized because there are large areas between them without good connectivity. The result is that because many people live further from those high speed notes we just don't have the more urbanish resources. That's life.

There are also plenty of spots in Sweden that don't have cheap, fast competitive internet service. This doesn't tend to get mentioned. It is not universal.

It is to be noted how comparisons like this are made to selectively targeted countries who have good connections. In other words, this is spin, not science.

I always misread their slogan, just for an instant.

Theil may be right that society as a whole is hostile to science but he is fundamentally missing the point: society is more interested, accepting and pro-science than it has ever been in the past. Sure, there are lots of nays but they are fewer than there were before. That's what is important. Look at the positive and move forward.

I have dogs that speak pig words and human words. We have a large pack of livestock working dogs that do guarding and herding on our pastured pig farm. The dogs have learned some of the sounds the pigs make to drive the pigs when herding. This makes them more effective at doing their job. They also know and use some human words both with us and with each other. We also use whistles, clicks and hand signs to communicate. There is a lot more interspecies communications going on than scientists realize in their limited ivory tower view of the world. It is mildly amusing when they "discover" reality. Those of us out working in the real world have known many of these things for millennia.

There are a _lot_ of animals that are tool users. Many of the tool uses are instinctual, some are learned, some are a combination. This is not a good criteria to use to determine who to eat and who not to eat.

A much better criteria is economics. This doesn't have to do with capitalism but rather what are the costs of production. How long does it take to get the food? How fast does it grow? What resources does it take? From this perspective there are some plants that are poor candidates because they grow so slowly and there are some animals (like pigs and octopuses) who are excellent candidates for eating. Humans aren't a very good candidate because the reproduce and grow so slowly. It is actually more economically efficient to raise mice than humans. Pigs are far, far better as are chickens, cattle and sheep, all of which can be raised on pastures that won't easily grow other human foods.

Interesting demonstration of lack of scientific understanding. Evolution is NOT a law never mind a natural law. It is merely a good idea. Don't worry, evolution will not effect you. You are merely the effect.

Microsoft is trying to catch up with Apple's MacOSX. As usual, MS is late to the party and missed the point.

Checking it out as we 'speak'...

Yuppers! Our local "coop" electric utility is just like this. They tried hard to kill of net metering in the legislature. When they lost they announced it as a victory - fantastic spin. They keep raising our electric rates although we already pay some of the highest rates in the country. They have a monopoly and they abuse it. The times are a changing though... Soon we'll all be able to generate our own power and we need far less power because machinery is becoming more efficient. On our farm I've been designing things to use less and less power. My goal is to get it down to the point where I won't need the electric utility. Then we will have to deal with the phone company, another monopoly that abuses its power.

Interesting... I'm in the market for a new web host... Got my attention.

I have one that is very old. Exact age not known but I've had it since the early 1980's and it was old then. I have several others that are probably older based on the types. I know several people that have ones that are from their great grand parents. They last.

Speaking of manual transmission, I hear your pain, but I just bought one with manual transmission, and high-low as well. Nice machine.

Also, just because a machine is digital doesn't mean it has to have the nonsense monthly subscriptions and limitations. A counter example is Apple is becoming more open with their ecosystem with their latest OS and iOS and Google is even more open. Feel free to hack the core. There have always been people who do it and people who feel too intimidated. Pick which you want to be.