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Or the (Swedish) collgege I work at, Blekinge Institute of Technology", which has one education programme "Digital Games" giving a B. Sc., or "Game Programming" (also B. Sc.). Since 2004!

It's just nostaligia and what people are used to. People that grew up with tube guitar amps learned that that was what a guitar sounded like. This sound included coloring and inaccuracy. Then as technology advanced, they heard the sound change and didn't like it, so they think that the old technology sounds better. In fact modern (quality) digital sound tech sounds more accurate. People think it's no sterile and has no warmth, but it's simply reproducing the sound accurately.

I find myself liking old-school 8-bit audio, growing up in the 80s. You see all kinds of bitcrusher effects and lofi effects for that low-bit, low-sampling rate, noisy effect. Yet, it's obviously colored compared to the original signal. So I think this is similar to tubes for older people (or people who just like tube sound). Now people remember the way old samplers and video games and the like sounded and miss the sound. This is why I spent over $500 on a SidStation synth, which has an actual Commodore 64 sound (SID) chip in it. Very low-fi, but very cool stuff. There is software that replicates it pretty well, like SIDAmp --a Winamp plugin, but I like having the real thing (along with the knobs). Of course, I use it to make my own music, not just play back C64 tunes.

Personally, as a musician, I'd rather record the sound exactly as it is, and add coloration or effects later. For the record, I used to play guitar and now write electronic music. I have some analog gear, some digital gear, some hybrid gear, and lots of software (which is obviously digitial). As far as synths go, I generally prefer digital, but analog has its place too. Digital sythesis (and effects) is(are) capable of much more flexibility and weirdness. Aphex Twin and Autechre, for instance, couldn't do what they do with all analog gear. But I would like to build a nice big analog modular synth one day. :)

Anyway, my point is, if you like analog or tube or vinyl or whatever better, use is, but don't be so elitist thinking that it's obviously so much better.

Here's where you can find info on thttpd running CGIs.

It appears, from their benchmarks, that performance running test C CGI's is very good for thttpd.

Seems like it might be best for simpler scripts, tough, as it appears that CGI execution is serialized, so "...one long running
script will block all other requests." Here's another explanation.

65 m^2 == 700 ft^2. In Denver, apartments that size rent around $600, the same as listed for the Blekinge Institute of Technology, which is in Karlskrona, an upscale costal port.

So. Let's start over:

Cost of housing: The average annual rent (including heating costs) for a flat with three rooms and a kitchen finished in 1998 was Euro 660 per month (SEK 72900 annual) and for a four rooms and kitchen flat Euro 850 per month (SEK 92600 annual).
-- http://www.eu-rm.com/Countries/Sweden.asp

Okay, there you have it. If that isn't a definitive figure from a definitive source, I don't know what is. So, using Denver for typical U.S. rents, 3BR range from $900-1300. Calling that $1100 means the ratio is more like 3:4 than 1:3, so I am clearly wrong about the cost of living in Sweden

I apologize.

However, my false assumptions were based on a very significant child housing credit, which I need to learn more about.

Now that you've acknowledged the salary differential between Swedes and Americans, you are trying to tell us that the cost of living is so much lower in Sweden as to make up for salaries being less than half what they are here.

No, I've been saying Swedes have houshold purchasing power on par with that of the U.S. since my first comment in reply to you in this thread, because I know it from travels, friends, and cited sources.

But what evidence do you bring of this? A single anecdotal comparison of apartment prices in one of the highest-priced and most over-inflated real estate markets in the US (the San Francisco Bay Area) with an allegedly `typical' swedish apartment cost.

Your selectivity is tiring. I also included rents from Pittsburgh, PA classifieds to represent the low end of the U.S. university housing market. As for my "allegedly typical" citation from a Swedish government web site, here's another from academia. Where in the U.S. can you find a 2295 square foot (65 sq. meter) apartment for $600/month (4,500 SEK)? In Denver, CO, such apartments are being advertised at around $1,700. Why, that's nearly three times as much!

You are right about the higher cost of gasoline, of course, but at least as far as my family's budget is concerned, gasoline expenses are about 2.5% of housing expenses.

Regressivity is a matter of degrees, there is no "most progressive," only more or less progressive than something else. As far at the industrialized (OCED) nations go, the U.S. is usually battling Mexico for the title of "most regressive." I know many people in the U.S. think their taxes are very progressive. Like many Americans, they are unaware of the facts in the world around them.

Sweden's ``greatly improved'' employment situation is a level of unemployment about 35% above the US level.

What? Sweden has 4% unemployment vs. 6% here (according to the CIA, which I presume measures in compatible units.)

the bottom thirty-five percent or so of Americans pay no income tax at all

There's an example of an insular world view: 35% is very low. It's over 50% in Scandinavia.

It is all well to speak about how bad all the ISPs are (and I belive you), and it is all well to fear an internet where a few players can control what we are allowed to see (this is definitly the biggest threat in america today). But why not channel all that somewhere better?

We all know modems suck, and ADSL(etc) has been slow in getting here, sometimes not working well, etc. So what would be better? Fiber backbone and ethernet (10Mbit/s is enough for most, but 100Mbit/s is just as cheap). Yeah right, troll, I can hear a storm of moderators scream. But then you are kidding yourself. Take a look at the RSN student network for example (the link is in Swedish, sorry folks).

What was done (back in 95/96 sometime) was that we got the feed from the school and got our own equipment through sponsorships of different kinds. We had our own very nice network. And when the students move away, they just don't think a modem is useful anymore. So what they do is that they nag on their land lords, and want them to hook their houses up to the local fiber (Sweden got tons of fiber, write your congrassman on dead threes and complain if you feel inferior:)) and they put a switch and TP cabels in. Add a modest fee per month and you got a great connection, which is totally free of AOL and you can browse in which ever browser you want. Great huh?

So, all of you slashdotters out there, who hate their modem and fear AOL, go nag on your land lords, tell them how much better people would like them and how people would want to move into their appartments if there is fiber there. Make your city put fiber all over town, go out do something.