You pick courses that you want to take, take X amount of hours and are awarded a degree. In theory, students specialize in areas the school doesn't offer degrees in, to thereby personalize their education that much further.

In reality it is a junk degree awarded to D students and sports players who don't want to take anything above a 300 level course.

What's the quote; specialization is for insects.

The Axe Paradox at the beginning of that book haunts my nightmares.

It turns out that spying on Europe is perfectly legal in the US after this law passes, and that spying on the US is perfectly legal in Europe. . . .

Lucky for everyone's citizens, no European country and the US are incredibly close allies.

Both times I've done it, though, I used my phone to look up the generic number for the credit card company. Don't blindly trust anyone* and use their number on their card. God only knows where that's actually going.

* Except Google, apparently. . . . Yikes.

I am woefully out of touch with culture, but you get the idea.

If it's oiled wire, stored in oiled paper, it's actually meant for concrete work with re-bar, but is actually used most often to string low-charge electric fences. It is commonly used with horses in conjunction with white, vinyl warning fence. You get anywhere from 50-200 feet per spool.

Baling wire is substantially thicker, un-oiled, and comes in much larger spools; 500-1000 feet per spool.

The spools in oil paper are meant to be strung by hand and not intended to be used for tying anything long-term; hence the lighter gauge. In fact, it's meant to hold re-bar together long enough for the concrete to be poured, thereby securing the re-bar and negating the need for the wire. Baling wire is intended to be strung by machine, and exists mainly to tie things together for seasons (and hold together the entire Midwest's infrastructure). Square bales that use baling wire must be stored out of the elements, so the wire being un-oiled is not an issue.

To the GP: If you use baling twine, then your machinery sucks, sell that P.O.S. Oliver and buy something made in the last fifty years. I bet you run narrow base Allis-Chalmers too, don't you?

So, I assume you propose a barter system then?

Be less ridiculous.

So, your mom's basement, then?

You're talking about slashdot, correct? Have you ever used that site and looked at the comments? I'll be surprised if half of the people even notice the page changed. As long as it's shiny, they'll be happy.

So all of those websites that you currently access for free then. They were around back in the early days of the internet? All of the free content you consume, it was available, too? All of the people who are currently connected, they've always been on-line then?

Like it or not, now that the entire world is connected, someone has to pay. Please note that I'm not saying I agree with the ad model we currently have, I'm just saying that your view is incredibly short-sighted and immature.

The fact that this isn't recreation to you makes me quite sad for your right hand.