You're using the internet to write this right? Pretty sure that was developed by DARPA, using government funds. Did you go to school? Ah, yes.

The first part of your argument is basically how it works in most European countries, ie. you still have to pay a nominal fee for every visit to the doctor to discourage excessive "worry-visits". The nominal fee is however the same whether you want the doctor to check out a cough, you're giving birth, or having…

Except that, y'know, you won't have insurance. So you'll have to pay out of pocket if you get sick. Worth a $300 a year saving?

Are you sure they didn't get this idea from critic/demi-god/writer Charlie Brooker's series Black Mirror, specifically the episode "15 million merits" which Brooker co-wrote with his wife (and TV presenter) Konnie Huq?

Oh, don't get me wrong, they do all that stuff and more. I wasn't apologizing for the repressive regime of Iran, it's pretty bad. But it bugs me the way Iran is portrayed as this medieval country filled with backwards teeth-gnashing peasants, just because they're flavor-of-the-month bad-guys at the moment. Saudi…

Great story, but... I've been to Iran. They have malls. Yes, fine, even the mall computer shop has pirated software for $1 (and porn behind the counter), but it was still a mall. Iran is not some medieval throwback-country (though their fashion is about ten years behind us, and they do love their American…

Excellent advice (though too late on the "don't bury the tops" - I'll know for next time). I'll definitely do the lightproof tube-thing though, perhaps on half the stalks so I can gauge the difference it makes. Also, I love soup :-D

The give-away is in the "Witcher 2"-comment, as those games are already based on some very successful novels.

Beautiful story - I went through something similar with FFVIII, recovering from a very painful accident which nearly cut left my arm off. I could move my thumb enough to manipulate a controller though, and my memory from that time isn't of the incredible pain or of the trauma itself, but of FFVIII and Fiona Apple's…

Well, it's growing now - looks just like in the pictures. We'll see later what it tastes like :-D

Apparently, this was all the rage during the cold war; Sweden is similarly tooled up. A friend of mine was given a medal by the Swedish (not Swiss) navy a while back, and he swears the boat that took them to the underground Navy base (that in itself was bigger than most Swedish towns) actually went through some sort…

I love Spotify, and I can use it if I visit other countries (MOG is US only). The sound quality on Spotify as a premier user is the same as MOG, I don't know why everyone seems to think it's not. Anothr reason are the Apps available in Spotify - they've really helped me found a lot of new music, and added a lot of…

Huh. The more you know, eh? Still trying it ;-)

It's like tomatoes - they'll taste better because you know you grew them yourself.

The actual closing comment, translated verbatim and not through Google:

I just read the review in the original Swedish, and it's nowhere near as critical as this article suggests. The picture quality is ok at the price - yes, they nitpick the black-level, but then go on to say it's about what you'd expect. The conclusion is that the actual piece is a very pleasant surprise, until you try…

Old news is old?

Uh. No. I disagree completely. MOG is a US-only app that copied Spotify when Spotify was still struggling to get a deal signed in the US (MOG launched more than a year after Spotify). Spotify is now available world-wide, MOG is not. Spotify has more songs, and a better interface (to me), and it does stream at 320kpbs…

For some reason, I always listened to Fiona Apple when playing Final Fantasy. 'Carrion' still makes me think of Aeris dying, and 'Fast as You Can' conjures images of that effing card game from VIII. This, however, will go great with 'Dark Souls'.

I guess everyone knows about this, but I recently figured out that if you submerge your bag in water, but keep the edges out of it, you can get a near-perfect vacuum if you twist the bag below the water's edge. I feel like this is common knowledge and I'm just a dunce, but it may also be one of those Columbus-egg…