Gendered words have the purpose of reinforcing the sound of the word or phrase, like alliteration, since typically the gender of nouns and articles/adjectives agree. The notion of gender loses meaning when applied to neutral things like cars, but the assignment is typically done based on the spelling of the word, not arbitrarily.

I detest the underhanded way Facebook tried to funnel all email into their messaging system, but there are clear benefits to centralised communication in some situations, the most obvious being group conversations and event planning. These (and the personal web page that is your wall) is why Facebook took over email for a lot of communications.

On the flip side, look at attempts to use Facebook-style communication in the workplace with Yammer etc. It only gets used by marketing and sales to pat each other on the back. Communication about actual work is still done using email.

An excellent question. Like most things, our principles behind this are confused and it mostly boils down to supporting laws that force your particular belief. For example, a gay bookshop is unlikely to hire a Christian who believes homosexuality to be immoral, even if they were the best applicant for the job and could perform the role without bringing in their personal beliefs. This would be considered perfectly reasonable by most pro-gay people, but perhaps not in the opposite situation of a Christian bookshop refusing to hire gay staff (which of course most anti-gay Christians would find perfectly reasonable).

Reversing it all, customers are allowed to boycott businesses because they don't like their stance on an issue (or even the owner's stance, businesses rarely need to have a stance on hot polticial issues). Perhaps this hypocrisy in anti-discrimination laws is a recognition that businesses usually hold the power, or perhaps it's just simple social engineering.

To counter all this, you could say it is about professionalism - business is about cold, hard money, so you cannot refuse to do business with someone for reasons other than business success. The laws do not seem to consistently reflect this principle however.

Ironically this is why low-level employees spend their time chatting etc. - they're unmotivated, unless they are desperate for the job. Imagine a utopia where all citizens had equal ownership of capital!

All the fellatio fanatics have blown this coito-currency out of proportion. A blowjob-based currency will never work, here's why;

1. Transactions are too slow. Who wants to wait 5+ minutes to receive their stash?
2. Bob's capacity for receiving payment diminishes drastically after each purchase.
3. It's incredibly painful to reverse a transaction.
4. Blowjobs are inherently deflationary.

It's true, globalisation undercuts my argument that all players in an industry are in the same boat as wage regulations are only local. The counter-argument to rising prices is that it's not linear. Doubling the minimum wage won't double prices* The redistribution caused by raising the minimum wage sucks money from capital and business owners, typically those who are more wealthy. The underclass is therefore better off even if their steak sandwiches cost $18 like in Australia.

That said, you have to do these things gradually, you can't just jump the U.S. to the Australian minimum wage without industrial chaos.

* Overall, it actually may do worse than that in particular situations, the supply and demand equation can be unstable.

That appears to be well above the Norwegian minimum wage and yet McDonald's remains a viable business in Norway. That should be an informative data point for those who believe raising the minimum wage will destroy industries. It has some effect on prices, for sure, but when all businesses in the industry are in the same situation it still works. Further, you eliminate the underclass who now have more disposable income to spend.

Here's an interesting article on how McDonald's functions under high minimum wage conditions.

Actually he's correct when you consider the story is about Spanish malware;

What they should have done is posted a flood of Windows 8 stories and seen how we responded.

But if I used "mass" I could never lose it, just convert it into energy.

You are probably right. I considered mentioning this in the original post - I don't do any gym work at all. However I do have a solid 'V' shape and am of average height, hence the BMI. Weight 95kg, could afford to lose 5 of those. I cycle 40km per day, eat way too much chocolate.

There was a story this week where Israel has banned ads using models with a BMI under 8.5, which is astounding that they felt the need to do this. I can maybe understand it for World Vision sponsor children, but regular products?

BMI is designed as a measure of population weight, not individual. Mine is over 30, making me technically obese, yet I have so little body fat I cannot float in swimming pools, and only just in the ocean.

You know, social media, Get Up and Change.org have probably done more to tip me toward conservatism than anything else (I still consider myself somewhat leftish). People mindlessly click and share all manner of misleading hype simply because it aligns with their world view or the set of beliefs that they associate with their political 'team'.

That said, your analysis is not perfectly fair either. Silt is being moved from point A to point B, but the issue is that it is no longer stably compacted but will suspend in the water and become susceptible to long-range movement. I have no idea how significant this will be.

What specific equipment are you using? Is it suitable (in size and price) for home/hobbiest use as per the submitter?

True, but that has been standard protocol since after WWII. It is (sadly) a separate issue to congressional approval which is the OP's benchmark for comparing the imperialism of presidents.