I've lived in Venezuela. It is not a poor country. The people are poor, but they have huge oil reserves, diamonds, gold and many other natural resources. They used to be the largest oil exporter to the US until Hugo Chavez started diverting that oil to Cuba for free. Venezuela also charges import duties on all products (with some exception in the state of Nueva Esparta, which is mostly duty free). They also charge an income tax that most people do their best to avoid ever paying.

The real problem with Venezuela is corruption. When I lived there, I did not keep an ID on me at all times, even though it was required by law. I kept my passport in a safety deposit box because it was cheaper to pay the fines for not having proper ID than it was to pay the bribes to get my passport back from the National Guard when they would do one of their regular shakedowns. If you were a mere janitor for the state-run oil company (PDVSA), you were probably set for life. If you didn't have some important friends or family, you probably couldn't get a job for PDVSA.

Anytime I feel like there may be something wrong with me, I consult the symptom tracker on WebMD. Do I then go into my doctor and tell them that I have x, y, or z? No. I go in there and present my symptoms to my doctor and get their expert opinion and see whether it coincides with what I read online. I don't try and steer them in any particular direction. But when the doctor decides that I should be tested for z, I can have an intelligent conversation with him about what that actually means, and whether or not that is a useful course of action for me. Should these sites disappear because of hypochondriacs? No. They will just go to the library and check out books to self-diagnose their crazy diseases. You can't fix that sort of mental disorder by hiding information from people. Does it cause frustration for doctors? Absolutely. But the doctors should educate their patients on the appropriate use for these tools. None of the doctors I know have ever had a discussion with their patients about online medical resources. They just go home and huff and puff to their friends and family how they have to fight with WebMD empowered patients.

You are incorrect. It automatically installed on three different macs that I own, and I never enable automatic update.

They prefer to be called big beautiful blobs, and some people really like them that way.

You're missing the damage that compressed air / water does to the substrate of the track. It undermines the foundations of the line. They already do this, but it costs them more money to repair the line than it would if the leaves were just burnt on the spot.

Watch the TV show Hoarders. Cities condemn houses for trash violations from time to time. They even have demoed the house after the homeowner refused to clean it up because it was cheaper for the city to tear it down and cell the land than to try and clean it up.

Yep, that's the FBI's problem. Tough cookies. If FBI agents want an easy job, they should become software developers or managers or something. Law enforcement has these restrictions put upon them to make it difficult. Not because we support crime, but because it's the agents are in a position of power and need to be kept under control.

The wait in most coffee shops isn't the time to place your order, but to fill your order. Unless you're having just a straight pre-brewed cup of coffee, they aren't going to speed things up by using an iPad to take your order in line. If they do order favorites, for instance, you might be able to one tap your coffee order when you know you're about 5 minutes out from the store and walk right in and pick it up. If I'm already in the store, I'd rather just go to the front of the line and flirt with the cute baristas that seem to work in every coffee place in the world.

His point is that the police may be racially profiling to begin with. If they are more suspicious of black people, more likely to arrest a black person to begin with, then the data base is going to be artificially skewed towards information about black people. There may be plenty of white people that are doing the exact same thing without ever being caught because they aren't getting stop and frisked and found to be in possession of drugs, for instance.

The Brits are confused about units. They can't decide whether to use SI, Imperial, or Ancient Hebrew measurements. Just be thankful they didn't measure the distance in palms or spans.

Sounds like those sub captains need more training... The sub should never touch the floor.

Good thing for Microsoft there is no one with a Zune to sue them.

That is incorrect. There are only certain stretches of various autobahns that have unrestricted speed laws. When you're driving through busy areas they have speed limits as low as 90 km/h. They also have electronic signs that can vary the speed limit based on traffic. My cousins who are from Germany say that, in some areas, they have sensors in the road that will detect when you are speeding and take a photo of you and they mail you a citation. I know that I was hit with a speed camera on the autobahn near Hannover, but the rental company never billed me for the speeding ticket.

I've driven on the autobahn in Germany. I came back to the US and I couldn't stand to drive for months. The average US driver does not have a good enough understanding of courtesy and physics to drive safely on the autobahn.

Maybe you just have small hands but I found Blackberry phones to be completely useless. I can't type or even dial a phone number on them without a serious case of fat finger syndrome. It takes forever for me to type out the simplest things on a blackberry.