Confirmation of "Why I Hate Verizon". Having tried to establish an interconection agreement with them at Arbinet, and they just stalled me out...

I took my car in for it's 150k mile service today. My mechanic, who I think is great and I trust, has come back to me with a $2000+ list of work to be done. All four brake pads, two rotors, timing belt, etc. Ouch. Maybe I *shouldn't* have repaired my car after all.

The Gammelost reaction to Norway's Rich/Poor question should have stuck with: Free markets are played according to rules based on local morals; if we agree that high social welfare spendings are worthwhile, we raise the taxes required to support them; perhaps Norwegian values are more "moral" than ours. The problem is that he's overreaching. For example, the gap between fithy rich and middle class is not Europe's strong suit; Bill Gates is an extreme red herring that proves the rule in that European money is mainly inherited, rarely made. Movement between classes is tougher, and social diversity awful; it's far tougher to be a "guest worker" and try to integrate. The examples used by the "obnoxious" article are trivial, but are they used to prove the point? BTW, what does the author's sexual preference have to do with anything? It's a stretch to say he lives there because of the union-partnership law; perhaps his friend wanted to live near his family? If a conservative mentioned it we'd be all over him as a bigot. I agree with the observations about the unnecessary focus on disposable income, but that's exactly what the born-to-wealth aristocracy has. I'd hate to try to start a car factory in Norway.

Cambridge, MASS in May? It's RoboBusiness!

Uncle Michael mentioned in a blog.

Post Bush Cuts: Top 0.1% of earners still pay 9.5% of the total tax revenue? Top 5% still pay 27%? Top 20% still pay 67.5% According to a recent IRS study. What's the buzz about this "progressive system truth"?

The myth of the Scandinavian economy

Transmeta Lessons

Wireless Music

I'm fascinated by all the other photos tagged with venice -- what is this, Disneyland? We all took the same shots.

Some Flickr slideshows from our recent vacation: our family, Venice, and Florence.

Flickr: Photos from jmayer, including shots from our recent trip to Italy.

The Long Emergency (Rolling Stone)

Hack accepted scientific papers that were automatically written.

The bastard child of craigslist and google maps.

My new employer.

San Jose is Pretty.

Don't panic; The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy new movie opens April 29th.

Patents and their value

Engineers and Political Power: Is it "that engineers are self-selected for social distance"? Or is Thorstein Veblen right; when championing what was later called technocracy, he "wrote that the public considered engineers a "somewhat fantastic brotherhood of overspecialized cranks, not to be trusted out of sight except under the restraining hand of safe and sane businessmen."

File under things I wish I understood.

But you may want to use the ultimate Google Beta.

Googla Video Beta. "Fat Actress" works. "The Office" gives mixed results. But you may want to use the ultimate Google Beta.

It's Now safe to have children.

Big Bang: So did we produce quark-gluon plasma for 0.0000000000000000000000001 sec?