Here's a site that will let you compare gas mileage and emissions information about cars. Here's my car. Check out yours and see if you should get a new one.

This is a great video. I've seen it before, but it is definitely worth watching again. See Donald Rumsfeld backpedal like crazy from either a) his onset of senility or b) his getting caught in a lie.

And, let me add my support for censuring Bush!

Well, it has been my dream for a long time to serve on jury duty. Today, it (almost) came true, as I received a jury summons in the mail, but, of course, it is smack dab in the middle of my vacation in Emerald Isle, North Carolina! Talk about disappointment!!! I'm so bummed. I have wanted to do this for so long now! UGH!

[Update: I called the number today, asking about a postponement, and the lady said I simply need to fill in the return card with the reason and send it in. I can call back in a week, or so, and they'll probably have a new time for me.]

Apparently, Time has obtained an internal pentagon email that links Dick Cheney directly to the no-bid contract that Haliburton received for rebuilding Iraq's oil infrastructure. Sadly, people most likely won't hear about this, and it will die with all the other smoking guns that practically scream out and demand some independent investigation into this administration. Clinton got one for getting a hummer from an intern, but the current administration, flagrantly flaunting its corruption, slips by over and over again. [via the ever-great, wish-he-blogged-more Marc Goodner]

[Update: I guess there is a hand-version of DDR, and here is a great video of some japanese guy playing it way the hell too fast! [via Anything But Ordinary]

So, for Mary's 34th birthday (she may not be able to turn water into wine, but she totally outlived Jesus), I got her Dance Dance Revolution Max 2 on the playstation 2. Of course, as a side-effect, I had to get myself a playstation 2 :), but it turns out that all I want to play is DDR (as I've come to know it). Mary and I play it regularly (perhaps daily), and it turns out that I'm way better at it than she is. So, as I'm wont to do, I was trying to understand why. Her opinion is that I look at things in terms of patterns, rather than details, so I don't figure out what arrows to hit, but rather what sequence of arrows are coming up, transforming them into a pattern that my feet follow. As a result, while she is playing catch-up with the arrows, I've looked at the next few arrows and have already internalized them into my feet. Now, I'm not perfect, and I'm only now moving from the light level (arrows only show up on the beats, 1-2-3-4) to the standard level (arrows show up on the off-beat, as well, sort of a 1&2&3&4), and I'm having difficulty. When I first started doing the higher level, I was still seeing the pattern in terms of hitting the 1-2-3-4 (even muttering it under my breath). On the standard level, where I can also hit on a &, that pattern doesn't work, so I switched to a different view of the patterns, and I seem to be picking it up better. As I play it more, though, I notice that I have started seeing, not just the pattern, but also how I have to do the pattern to make sure that the necessary foot is free in time.

This led to a great conversation this morning with Mary over breakfast about this, which then led to talking about nature vs. nurture, as we have a friend who just had twins (fraternal, not identical), and their personalities are really different: one is much more sedate than the other one, who seems to have a bit of a mean streak to her, sometimes taking the pacifier from the more sedate one for no apparently good reason. Mary has a more rebellious side to her than I do, which got me thinking to a possible genetic basis for rebelliousness. Think about this for a second, suppose there is a built-in propensity to leadership. That leadership may express itself as a more revolutionary aspect, tending to test the rules and find the loopholes. In the old days, this would have had more of an opportunity to create a change, while, today, society tends to squash this attitude in people, branding them as “rebellious” or “trouble-makers.” Do this enough to a child, and he/she is going to think it is true and the rebelliousness turns into more habit than for a reason. At this point, any time you try to tell someone to do something, they have a seemingly knee-jerk (*see note below) reaction, not to the rule, but to the enforcement of the rule. For me, I'm not really a rebel, tending to just lose interest in the rebellion and get on. However, I create things that facilitate the changes. For example, at work, we are moving toward a more test-driven environment, and I've developed a tool that will support it, and am slowly, at the more grass-roots level, introducing the tool to other people. My manager, seeing the potential, has started working in a more evangelist role for it, since he probably is more of a leader.

Just a thought.

*NOTE: Mary doesn't like my use of the term “knee-jerk,” as it shows a lack-of-understanding on my part of the motivation for the person and implies that they are ineffective and not important. I suppose this is very true, since I'm not like that. I don't say it to somehow detract from the person's attitudes, but rather to express how it appears to the outside, as well as the possibility that society has transformed someone who should be destined for greatness into someone who fights for the sake of fighting. But, again, I don't see the whole motivations behind people's reactions, so it appears “knee-jerk” to me. When you think about it, I guess people could sometimes say that my experience and instincts in programming cause me to make decisions which seem “knee-jerk.” For example, I was pair-programming with someone the other day, and I made a design decision that seemed like the only one to do, and the person asked why I did it that way and how I knew that was what to do. I just sort of shrugged and tried to explain, but the reality was that I just knew that was the reaction to take to the little red dot in NUnit. [**See note below]

**NOTE: Mary still doesn't like my explanation, but I guess that is why it is my blog. :)

Well, when I heard, read and saw pictures from Iraq of the people (kids included) laughing and rejoicing over the burned, mutilated corpses, I was pretty steamed. I posted a rather inflammatory post regarding it, but I've calmed down a bit and have since deleted the post.

Wow! It is fairly much a fact now that Ralph Nader's 2000 presidential bid tipped the scales for Bush, and this flash video is a great idea for getting the word out. With so much at stake this time, a Nader candidacy could be the downfall of Kerry and the further demise of the United States.

Bush was on Meet The Press last Sunday and got grilled. Marc Goodner (as always) had a great rundown/writeup on what appears to have been a very underwhelming performance by our esteemed president. Check it out! Bush's whole armed forces AWOL story needs to be picked up by the media and ran with. I mean, this is a huge thing.

Here are the finalists for the bush in 30 seconds ads. Watch them now! These are what his political ads really should be.

I just got an email saying that we should boycott buying gasoline from companies which import crude oil from the middle east. It lists some companies that do, then lists companies that don't. At the bottom of the email, as in more spam-like form letters (the ultimate email virus), it says that all this information is available on the Department of Energy's website. So, being the bored SOB that I am, I decided to look it up.

Before you read this, here are a couple disclaimers:
1, The DOE addresses this concern in their "Primer on Gasoline Sources & Prices," so please consult that before jumping to conclusions and boycotting certain companies;
2, I am in no way affiliated with the government or any oil company; and,
3, I still can't believe I actually wrote this up.

Now, as stated above, the DOE addresses this concern, and they have a very informative faq, which has the following very good answer:

Can I tell which country or State the gasoline at my local station comes from?

For several reasons, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) cannot definitively say where gasoline at a given station originated:

1. EIA does not collect data on the source of the gasoline sold at retail outlets.
2. The name on the service station sign does not tell the whole story. The fact that you purchase gasoline from a given company does not necessarily mean that the gasoline was actually produced by that particular company's refineries. While gasoline is sold at about 176,000 retail outlets across the nation, about one-third of these stations are “unbranded” dealers that may sell gasoline of any brand. The remainder of the outlets are “branded” stations, but may not necessarily be selling gasoline produced at that company's refineries. This is because gasoline from different refineries is often combined for shipment by pipeline, and companies owning service stations in the same area may be purchasing gasoline at the same bulk terminal. In that case, the only difference between the gasoline at station X versus the gasoline at station Y may be the small amount of additives that those companies add to the gasoline before it gets to the pump.
3. Even if we knew at which company's refinery the gasoline was produced, the source of the crude oil used at that refinery may vary on a day-to-day basis. Most refiners use a mix of crude oils from various domestic and foreign sources. The mix of crude oils can change based on the relative cost and availability of crude oil from different sources.

[source: Department of Energy Energy Information Administration's Primer on Gasoline Sources and Markets]

The DOE's website was actually quite easy to navigate. Upon looking at their navigation menu on the right, it appeared that "Sources & Production" would probably be a good place to start. Wow, what a bunch of links come up when you navigate to that page. Scrolling down the page a bit, I saw what I hoped would lead me to the information I needed. Namely, under the Petroleum header, a link to "http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/info_glance/petroleum.html."

Hmm.... I'm now a bit confused. How do I want to access petroleum information? I tried Product, but no luck there. Then, I noticed the list of "Featured Topics." Looking down the list, I found "Company-Level Petroleum Imports." Bingo! Click on it leads me to a page that has exactly what I'm looking for.

On this page, they have a downloadable Excel spreadsheet that contains oil companies and their import records. You can download it either from the DOE page or use my handy direct link to it.
*NOTE* Looking at the URL, it appears that this link will always download the latest data

Pulling up the file in Excel, I'm immediately overwhelmed by the amount of data. Lots of columns with cryptic names and lots of values in the columns that I don't understand (here is the DOE's explanation page of the codes). Luckily, Excel provides some nice data analysis tools. Click on the Data->Filter->Autofilter, and Excel puts drop-down boxes on the headers for all the columns. This way, you can filter the data shown by whatever you select. Just as a sample, I can choose the PROD_NAME column and view only the rows associated with CRUDE OIL, FOREIGN. That sounds like a good start. Going over to the right a bit, I can see a column called CNTRY_NAME, which sounds like a great candidate for telling me which country the import is coming from. So, I can click on the drop-down and see a list of possible values I can filter on. As a lark, let's choose IRAQ. That drops the number of rows displayed down quite a bit.

Companies that import crude oil from Iraq
CHEVRON CORP	PHILLIPS 66 CO	VALERO MKTG & SUPPLY CO
PREMCOR REFG GROUP INC THE	LYONDELL CITGO REFG LP	MARATHON ASHLAND PETRO LLC
ORION REFG CORP	CITGO PETRO CORP	ATOFINA PETROCHEMICALS INC

That's fine, but we always hear that all the middle-east companies are supporting terrorism in one way or another, so it would be good to know the companies that import from any middle-east country. So, since the auto-filter only allows you to filter by, at most, two values, and I'm too lazy to really do a more detailed form of filtering, we'll be lazy and simply sort the list by country name, then we can see really quickly which companies import from where. So, choose Data->Sort, then select the CNTRY_NAME as the column to sort by. Set your auto-filter again and choose CRUDE OIL, FOREIGN. This will give us a list of the companies that import crude oil, sorted by the country they import from.

This table is substantially larger.

Companies that import crude oil from the Middle-East
Company	Countries they import from
AMOCO OIL CO	Kuwait Saudi Arabia
ARCO PROD CO	Oman Saudi Arabia
ATOFINA PETROCHEMICALS INC	Iraq Saudi Arabia Syria
CHEVRON CORP	Iraq Kuwait Saudi Arabia
CITGO PETRO CORP	Iraq Kuwait
EXXON CO USA	Kuwait Saudi Arabia
HUNT CRUDE OIL SUPPLY CO	Saudi Arabia
LION OIL CO	Saudi Arabia
LYONDELL CITGO REFG LP	Iraq Saudi Arabia
MARATHON ASHLAND PETRO LLC	Iraq Kuwait Saudi Arabia
MOBIL OIL CORP	Saudi Arabia
MOTIVA ENTERPRISES LLC	Saudi Arabia
MOTIVA ENTERPRISES LLC	Saudi Arabia
MURPHY OIL USA INC	Saudi Arabia
ORION REFG CORP	Iraq
PHILLIPS 66 CO	Iraq Saudi Arabia
PHILLIPS PETRO CO	Saudi Arabia
PREMCOR REFG GROUP INC THE	Iraq
VALERO MKTG & SUPPLY CO	Iraq Kuwait Saudi Arabia

Disclaimer: All that is written here is based on my personal research, so, as always, take my words with a grain of salt and plenty of alcohol, as it could very well turn out that I know absolutely nothing.

RoryB briefly mentions his annoyance with people who drive slow in the left lane, which is the passing lane. I totally agree with him, but I have another beef with people: not signalling. Drive like an ass, if you want, but at least signal to me that you are going to cut me off. I'll be the first to admit that I drive fast, but I always signal when I'm switching lanes; it is just smart driving, letting everyone else know that your intentions.

According to a USA Today snapshot poll, my peeve is more common than Rory's, although not by much:

[source: USA Today Snapshot]

While reading RoryB's depressing account of his worst christmas experience ever, including drinking beer while going blind, I linked over to a page describing a finnish guy's attempt to make the longest word in the world. Coincidentally, Finnish is the closest relative in the language tree to Hungarian, both belonging to the finno-ugric branch of the Uralic family of languages. so I thought of having fun with creating longish words in Hungarian. When I was back there teaching and giving presentations on the language to new students, I used to pull out my own personal long word, which, while fairly nonsensical, was grammatically correct and, unlike the afore-mentioned finnish word, actually could be translated into some semblance of rather odd meaning. (and, yes, I did toy around with the idea of going back to school in Hungary to study linguistics, something my Hungarian teachers seemed to be proponents of)

Hungarian (and apparently Finnish) is considered an agglutinative language, which means that, rather than adding helper words to enhance the meaning of another word, you can add prefixes and suffixes. So, being the annoying foreigner who just happened to be fluent in the language and loved to annoy people with that fact (especially when playing Hungarian scrabble), I started thinking of a nice word. Now, I'll give a description of its creation, leaving out the accents on the letters, mostly because they are annoying to write in HTML. :)

So - salt (n)

Sos - salty (adj)

Sosabb - saltier (adj)

Sosabbit - make saltier (v)

Sosabbithat - be able to make saltier (v)

Sosabbithatatlan - not be able to make saltier (v)

Sosabbithatatlansag - the state of not being able to make saltier (n), or not being able to make something saltier-ness

Needless to say, I got into many arguments with hungarians regarding the creation of this word and whether it could be considered a hungarian word. The main response I got was, “but nobody would ever use that,” which, to me, does not qualify something as “not a word.” In english, people rarely use the term “efficacy,” but it most definitely is a word. And, I was able to convince my hungarian teacher, Andras (and later, Maria), that it was a perfectly okay word, so there!

Speaking of these sorts of languages and word building, one game I miss from Hungarian, which isn't nearly as fun in English was a great game where the first person would put a letter down, then the next person would put another letter down either at the beginning or the end. Then, the next player would put a third letter either at the beginning of end, and, thusly, a word would start to form. The person who couldn't add a letter to either the beginning or the end and still maintain a path to a valid word lost. In english, it doesn't work too well, as there aren't too many prefixes and even fewer suffixes for words, so you can't keep adding letters to make more forms of the word. Sad.

Ole Eichhorn posted some hypothetical questions regarding what the world would be like if people were larger, richer, more plentiful, smarter by orders of magnitude (unfortunately, I can't seem to find the original post, and he doesn't provide a link in his follow-up). He then posted a follow-up with a concrete poll asking whether we think people will be more or less intelligent in the future.

I voted for less intelligent. I think that the trend of society will be to allow the general populace to get by with using less and less of their inherent intelligence. I feel that, above and beyond people's (possibly) inherent intelligence level, one makes themselves smarter by practicing. I know that the brain isn't really a muscle, but I think the effect is the same: the more you use it, the stronger it becomes. Logic, for example, is a skill that can be learned through use and exercise. Memory can be enhanced through practice. And so forth. The current trend towards increasingly passive forms of entertainment is going to decrease the need and opportunity for people to exercise their active intelligence.

However, I think there is going to be a sub-strata of society that will continue to seek out more active forms of entertainment and learning. These will be the people that eventually will control the majority of the world, creating (because they love to) more technologies that will allow for even greater forms of passive living.

Mary has an interesting spin, saying that the increasing flow and amount of information that is being piped into us will make us smarter. A lot of it boils down to your definition of intelligence. I think that the increasing amount of information won't make us smarter, because we won't really have to remember it, we'll just be more capable (hopefully) of finding out what we are looking for.

Today sees the bogeyman of my youth sentenced. This is the phantom that my parents used to keep me from hitch-hiking, regardless of the fact that I wasn't a prostitute. 48 consecutive life sentences seems like an appropriate punishment. Of course, my view on the whole death penalty thing is that, rather than punishing, let's just get rid of him, not have to deal with him anymore. Punishment is one thing, but I'm not a big eye-for-an-eye kind of guy. I would rather just not have to think about him anymore. Some people were angry, feeling betrayed, that they did not seek the death penalty. For me, though, death is not a punishment, it is brushing him aside and out of the world. A life sentence with no parole is a punishment. Actually, a suitable punishment might be the rest of his life in a hole, naked, with no light and no interaction at all with anyone or anything, just sitting in a hole slowly going mad until he find some way to kill himself. Now, that's a punishment.

I'm encouraged that some of the people who confronted him found it in their hearts to forgive him. He was an evil man, killing because “because he hated prostitutes and didn't want to pay them for sex.“ However, what is done is done, he is caught and no longer allowed to do what he does. Some people still found it in their compassion to forgive him. Good for them!

Now, back to being safe to hitch-hike!

[Update: When FedEx says they'll ship overnight and get it there by 10.30, they aren't joking. It is 10.15, and still no package. I'm going to get my shoes on and wait by the door. I have to leave right when they arrive, as I need to go to the notary and have her witness my signature, then get to work.]

[Update2: FedEx tells me they are running 2 hours late, so it is 12.30, and I'm still sitting here working on my presentation. I guess FedEx's idea of 2 hours late is more than 2 hours late, unless they come in the next 30 seconds. Hell, the mailman just came by, so I probably would have done better with them. Considering the fact that I have to get my signature notarized, go to ship the signed papers back, then head to the bank to wire the closing costs, I don't think I'll be making it into work. Chalk 8 more hours of vacation time spent on FedEx.]

I'm sitting at home waiting for a fedex package to arrive with papers for the condo I'm buying in Seattle. While I'm waiting, I'm working on a presentation I'm giving at work.

Part of my responsibilities (and joy) at work is helping other developers with both my team's applications and other, more general, programming questions. While I love this aspect of my job, it definitely can interrupt my thought processes when I'm head-down working on a document. For example, yesterday, I spoke with a member of another team about our use of dot net nuke. They are looking for a content management system for distributing information about their team and its products. While I am always excited about spreading the word on great systems and helping people implement them, small, frequent distractions can throw my thoughts off, cutting down on my efficiency when I need to write something.

The nice thing about working at home occasionally is that I don't have that distraction, and I can focus entirely on writing. It is very useful to just be sitting on my laptop, creating slides and listening to Neil Young's Silver & Gold.

Wow! Foreign Accent Syndrome? Never heard of it, but I guess this lady is experiencing it. [via Ian White]

I remember coming back from Hungary after four years and having my friend, Selena's, mother telling me what a cute accent I had. I don't know if it helped me with the ladies, as Ian White seems to alude to, but I guess a british accent might be more useful than a hungarian one. :) I don't know if I really did have an accent, but I suppose a year, or two, of speaking hungarian almost all the time will do that to you.

Well, Rory asked, and it sure makes sense. :)

Honestly, let's hope that the king of pop isn't guilty. Seriously, though, as sad as it is to say, I don't think anyone will be THAT surprised if it turns out that the allegations are true. I like what Rory has to say about separating the artist from the music he's produced. MJ definitely has produced some of the greatest music of the 80's, which is when I grew up.

[Update: Aaron Weiker has a disclaimer that the thoughts expressed in this post are those of Rory Blyth and not of the operator of his site. I was thinking about it, and, you know what, I almost do agree with everything Rory says, even up to neopoleon.com being my favorite site. :)]

Diego Doval has a good thought on why television is losing ground against other activities. I'm just marking this for later comment. [via Scoble]

So, my friend, Lori Moster's (lovingly refered to as LORIMOSTER!!!) brother-in-law, Christoph, publishes a small 'zine called “28 pages lovingly bound with twine.” Basically, it is 28 pages of ramblings, oddly enough, bound with twine. He frequently mentions that he ties each knot with love, so imagine that I really can go so far as to say that those 28 pages are actually, in fact, lovingly bound with twine, just as the name suggests. I received a subscription to it for my birthday this year, and I can honestly say that I do enjoy reading it, all 28 pages of it. I won't go so far as to say that I look forward to it, since I usually forget about it during the interim periods between publications. It is fairly regular, every month, or two, and I am almost always surprised and excited when I get a largish envelope in the mail, rip it open and find some pages (28 of them to be exact) bound together with twine in what I would imagine is a very loving way.

Now, his ramblings range all over the spectrum, from talking about his son to writing about his eekend retreat where he spent the entire time not talking. I like a lot of his thoughts, as they mirror some of my own, except he actually acts more on them than I do. :) In any case, this issue started out with a rant about how he hates his computer for crashing on him. I'll agree with him that it is a pain in the ass. He goes on further to take a step back and challenge us to consider our need and dependence on technology. He proudly proclaims that he has no cell phone, no cable tv (no tv at all, for that matter) and no internet access, and he also feels that his life is “better off for it.” I hope he doesn't mind, but I'm going to quote his paragraph.

I'm not a full-fledge machine-bashing Luddite yet. But I'm getting there. New technology seems to create more problems than it solves. Everyone should question the usefulness of each machine in their life, especially the high-tech ones. Whatever decision you come to is your own, but I think that people would generally be a little happier if they weren't tied to the shackle of excess high-tech possessions. For instance, your cell phone, cable TV and internet all come with a monthly bill. We've decided not to have a cell phone, cable TV (or any TV) or internet, and we feel that our lives are better off for it. And while I've decided to continue to own a computer, I've also decided to severely limits its role in my life.

Frankly, I definitely can understand his frustration, as, having the computer be the source of my bread and butter, I've dealt with plenty of computer issues that frustrated me to no end. However, there are three things in Christoph's thinking process that bother me. Allow me to explain.

1) “Technology causing more problems than it solves.” This is a common idea that I imagine has been repeated ever since we first came up with any technology. can you imagine some complaining to the creator of the first wheel that we are now having people run over, crashing, falling off, etc. This gosh darn wheel thing is more trouble than it is worth! Admittedly, technology introduces many problems. Frankly, if my computer at home were to crash, I would be incredibly upset and frustrated. I would definitely lament the loss of all the stuff saved on it. I usually do a decent job of backing things up, though, onto CD. Most all of my digital pictures are on CD (several copies, actually) now, just ni case. Technology does cause problems, but it most assuredly solves a heck of a lot of other problems, as well. I think the statement really should read, “Technology causes new problems that I haven't figured out how to deal with.”

This goes along with some of the recent internet worms and viruses going around and causing all sorts of troubles for people. Everyone blames Microsoft, and then it comes out that they haven't updated their security settings ont heir computer in 5 years and, despite everyone and their brother telling them not to, they happily double-clicked on that attachment from someone they didn't know. Now, don't get me wrong, Microsoft definitely should pay more attention to security (which I think they are starting to do), but people need to take responsibility for their own actions!

2) While I fully agree that people would probably be a little bit happier if they weren't “tied to the shackle of high-tech possessions,” I very strongly do NOT agree with the idea that it is the high-tech possessions that make people unhappy. Rather, it is their self-imposed dependence on it. Recently, I made the decision to drop my ground line and move to a cell-phone-only existence. At first, I was a little nervous, knowing that there are many times when I just don't want to be disturbed. With a cell phone, the potential is there to always be connected and available. That was an easy fear to alleviate, though, as I found this great button on my phone labeled “End.” If I press this button and hold it down, the phone beeps and shuts off. Amazing! I don't even hear it ring, the caller just gets sent to my voicemail. WOW! What a concept. Another great aspect of it is the little display that tells me who is calling. If I'm expecting a call, and turning off the phone isn't an option, I can quickly check to see who might be calling in the event of the ring-a-ding going off. If it is the person I'm waiting for, then I answer, if not, then I have the choice of ignoring the phone call. Imagine that! Self-control! So, rather than laying blame on the technology for a portion of people's unhappiness, let us try to find the reason for people's lack of self-control when it comes to the usage of the technology. This is very similar to people sueing McDonalds because they ate there, didn't exercise and ended up fat. Or people sueing the tobacco companies because they smoked a carcinogen and, gosh, got cancer.

3) Now, my last and perhaps largest beef with the quote above: No internet makes your life better. I absolutely loathe when people say this. I can see the no cell phone, I can see the no television, but I heartily disagree with the no internet. Not having the internet these days is like being disconnected from the rest of the world. Sure, people lived just fine without it in the past, but it is an integral part of society and life now. The internet is possibly the greatest source of information that has ever existed. By disconnecting from it, not allowing yourself to use this resource, you are not “better for it,” you are lesser for it. I like to think that I'm a fairly well-rounded person, although I do tend to lean a bit heavily towards the geeky side, but I don't think I would be nearly that well-rounded if I didn't have access to the internet and the wealth of alternate ideas that are on it. For example, I was talking to a friend of mine a few months ago about The Matrix, and he mentioned that it was heavily influenced by Gnosticism. By what, I asked? Gnosticism is a religion with some pretty heavy ideas about god and its relation to the universe. When my friend mentioned this to me, I was intrigued, so, what did I do that night, I looked up Gnosticism on the internet and started reading up on it. Without the internet, I would have gone to the library. Would the library have as much information in as accessible a format? No, it wouldn't. Sure, I'd feel uber-cool at the library (I do love the library, don't get me wrong), but I wouldn't have such a wealth of information at my fingertips. So, if you want to cut yourself off from this fountain of knowledge, do so, but making a statement like “it makes your life better,” especially from someone who seems to pride himself on his intelligence and wisom, is incredibly short-sighted, childish and pretentious.

Not to mention the benefit that a child has from the internet. With proper supervision, the internet, I feel, can boost a child's intelligence and knowledge of the world around him by boundless degrees. He is shackling his child (although only two years old) to a life of handicap.