Did anybody know Libya owned .ly before this?

I don't have references offhand but I distinctly remember a few articles warning about exactly this a couple years back when bit.ly and other .ly domains started becoming popular. Looks like they were right.

Schwab Investor Checking accounts refund third-party ATM fees at the end of every month. Domestic and international, and they don't charge conversion fees when using non-US ATMs. Also, you get free checks and postage-paid envelopes for making deposits by mail. These accounts are also interest-bearing, although that doesn't count for much these days (it was 4.5% when I joined back in 2007 but dropped after the financial crash and is currently only 0.5%).

Wordpress actually outputs very little HTML and what it does is valid. The front-end markup is 99%+ determined by the theme (aka, templates, skins, whatever) - the theme uses the Wordpress API to pull data but but the display is entirely up to the developer. You're blaming the application for the bad markup written by a theme developer.

And, for what it's worth, the default theme that ships with Wordpress is valid XHTML.

AT&T replaced their $30/month unlimited plan with $15/month and $25/month plans for 200 MB and 2 GB, respectively. Any one of their customers using less data than that is clearly saving money, possibly up to 50% of the data portion of their bill (phone service price is not affected, of course).

I was sure my wife and I both used more than 200 MB/month on our iPhones until I actually looked at our usage. We were way under. We saved $30/month by reducing both our plans to the $15 level.

Lots of people are saving money as a result of AT&T changing their pricing model. Verizon's tiers may be quite a bit different but I doubt it.

We talked about that with Matt Mullenweg at Wordcamp PDX last year and it's not going to happen. It seems the main obstacles are a) database abstraction layers like PEAR DB or ADOdb are too big, and b) it would require an enormous amount of work. The idea seems to be that since basically everyone can use MySQL, that's all they need.

As others have said, Mexican Coke is still made with sugar, and you can probably find it in specialty stores in most larger cities, or anywhere with a CostCo or Hispanic population.

In addition, there are a number of craft soda makers out there now in addition to Jones. You can get just about anything you want without HFCS if you look for it.

Well, yes, that's exactly the point. Health insurance costs are highway robbery.

While my wife and I aren't paying $6k/year, we are paying a little over half that, and that's with a high-deductible HSA plan, which means that anything short of major expenses we pay out of pocket. A traditional health plan with low deductibles -- comparable to what we'd get through an employer if we weren't both self-employed -- would actually cost pretty close to the aforementioned $6k figure.

Dual citizenship has been allowed for Americans for a long time now, and it's fairly easy to do. Most countries will allow you to apply for citizenship after living there for a certain number of years -- the UK is 5 years, some EU countries want 7 or 10, Belgium is only 3. Gaining residency is a smaller problem if you're self-employed, as you'd be bringing money into the economy and paying local taxes while not taking a local job. Some countries are easier than others but people do it all the time.

You'll still have to pay US taxes though but only if you make over a certain amount of money (I don't remember what that level is currently) but I'm sure that's not too difficult to work around.

Close. What you mean to say is, "That's because everyone is in marketing".

As usual, Kathy Sierra said it best:

If you're interested in creating passionate users, or keeping your job, or breathing life into a startup, or getting others to contribute to your open source project, or getting your significant other to agree to the vacation you want to go on... congratulations. You're in marketing.

I'm in marketing because I need to sell my consulting services to pay my bills. I'm also in marketing because I need to keep people interested in my cocktails blog in order to make the time I spend on it worthwhile. I'm in marketing because the conference I'm organizing needs people to actually show up.

That said, I don't own any marketing books, much less books on "social media marketing", but I do recognize that marketing is not just for a few execs or business school grads.

Just buy it with a credit card. And pay the debt off at $20/month or whatever is convenient.

... and find that your phone actually cost you well over $600 by the time you've finished paying off the interest your credit card company charges. Sorry, but that's a terrible idea. If $530 is too much up front, do it the old fashioned way: Save for it, then buy.

Jesus, no wonder people are in so much debt.