ragaskar

exactly -- imdb has an internet and populist skew. As long as you take this into account, their ratings are fine and predictable. Gaming rankings is practically an official internet pastime, so it's not unexpected that this event is taking place, although I'm surprised it built up enough steam without (presumedly) official co-ordination to drop the Godfather a few places -- that is notable. I'm sure politicians are taking notes as we speak.

The popular book (and television series) Guns, Germs and Steel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel) addresses the reasons why technological advancements tended to occur in particular cultures and its title provides the short answer to your question.

You may also find it interesting to read up about colonialism -- some of the statements you've made represent attitudes that are considered somewhat dated by modern standards; it's almost as if they were cribbed from "The White Man's Burden" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_man%27s_burden).

It would be nice if the HN feed included the short description -- I find that titles are often too brief to evaluate whether or not it's worth clicking through. Additionally, a comment count would be welcomed.

Including a rating, or including a dynamic feed for a particular rating would be icing on the cake.

fwiw, i'm a happy google reader user -- 158 subscriptions. The only downside is that it's my go-to procrastination website. I read just about all RSS content, and click through about 10-20% of the time depending on the feed. If I find that I clear the unread on a feed more than once or twice, I'll usually unsubscribe (because obviously I don't have the time to keep up with it). Sometimes I use feeds as a glorified bookmark.

I don't think it's so much "I finally understand X", but more of "I finally have found an application for X".

I think it's interesting to see how other people solve problems.

This article is worth your time if you're curious what some of these folks look like.

Otherwise total waste -- clearly not in any sort of appreciable order.

my current company still finds basecamp a valuable tool, but that's because we're not large enough to have someone doing fulltime project management. Of course, we don't need anything beyond a glorified to-do list -- which is good, because that's pretty much basecamp's core competency.