Why does American Internet Suck so Much?
Just look at the kind of speeds they're getting in Japan!
That example's a little extreme of course, but you can get 100Mb/s for €19.90/month in France or 32Mb/s for €39.90 in Germany. In the US on the other hand, you're lucky to get 6Mb/s for the same price. That's DSL; Comcast's website sucks too much for me to check, but it's not any faster.
Let's Play a Game
Here's a fun game: I'll post some helpful writing tips, and you tell me what grade level the correspond to:
I Don't Feel Like Writing Anything Today
I'm tired, so here's a bunch of articles I read:
Caffeine experts call for warning labels for energy drinks
Some scientist says energy drinks should have working labels because the amount of caffeine in them varies by a factor of ten. The article also talks about some clever things manufacturers do, like classifying their beverages as dietary supplements, to get around FDA regulations.
Germany Sure Does Like Rules
I decided to do something productive during my African History class today so I read a bunch of Wikipedia articles. My favorite one was this one about German names. They have rules. Some of them make sense, like not being able to name a child after your favorite swear word, but some of them are pretty pedantic. For example, no new names. That seems kind of lame. I like the list of refused names though; these are my favorites:
- Christus
- Jesus (has been allowed with Spanish surnames)
- Lord
- Huckleberry
- Stone
- Möwe (seagull)
- Tiger
- Moon Unit
- AJ
- B'Elanna
- Gift (poison)
- Frühling (spring - the season)
- Baby
- Fröken (miss - Swedish)
- Golddust
- Nightingale
- Shiatsu
- Tsunami
- Villa
I also saw this article on the Huffington Post and thought I'd share. I'm definitely interested in seeing this experiment repeated.
Everybody Loves Obama (Seriously)
For serious. BBC News just released a poll of 22 countries asking which American presidential candidate they would prefer. Guess who 49% of people polled (89% of Kenyans) picked. McCain only ended up with 12%, and then everybody else said either (21%), something else (17%), or didn't know (1%).
This is just proof that McCain's election would be an international disaster, not least of all because he seems to hate just about everybody outside this country. At least Obama pretends to like them. I dunno, it seems like McCain (especially with Palin) is just going to generally make a mess of things domestically. For example:
- Anti-net neutrality
- Against minimum wage increase
- Wouldn't mind a war with Iran
- Thinks bailing out Bear Stearns is necessary to protect the economy, but bailing out homeowners is a bad idea
- Thinks don't ask don't tell is working great and shouldn't be tampered with
- Thinks the Ten Commandments would bring virtue to our schools
- Thinks Hollywood should voluntarily self-censor sex and violence
