This seems very much in line with what I'd learned about primate evolutionary biology. There's just a few things which puzzle me

1) Who said that we practised strict patrilocality in our early evolutionary past? I'd always been taught the most common mammalian pattern was female philopatry and male dispersal. It's the pattern in most social mammals from horses to gorillas.

2) The idea that strong, complex social organization is "for" making war also seems a bit bizarre. There are all sorts of areas in which those traits might be rewarded. Competition for territory is only one of them. Our closest relatives, the chimps and bonobos, have very complex cooperative behaviour. Bonobos make love, not war (literally). Chimps make war, but that's only a part, possibly the smallest part, of their rich group lives.

"Cloud computing" can be as amorphous as its namesake in the same way that when you ask a network engineer "What is the Internet?" you'll get pursed lips and a "Just how strictly do you want to define it?" sort of answer. Generally speaking it's any of a number of environments that uses a related set of protocols - usually relying on virtualization - to quickly provision and release generic servers for specific tasks.

Pretty nebulous isn't it?

Arguments about whether something is "true" cloud computing are pretty bootless at this point. If you have the computing infrastructure and need the flexibility it makes sense to use your server farm that way. If you have more cycles than you are using, then renting them out to other enterprises can make business sense. It all depends on matching your needs and resources. There is no single correct enterprise-level answer which is why the pundits are so skeptical of the whole thing. They are writing for the manager who wants a short white paper outlining the current buzzword-compliant standards. Those of us in the trenches must take a more nuanced view.

One of the most exciting developments isn't from the corporate side. When the latest release of Ubuntu Linux came out this week it included UCSB's Eucalyptus cloud computing environment. Eucalyptus is designed to use a variety of frameworks with Amazon's implemented by default. In a very real way that's a cloud-era approach. Be prepared to bring up and take down resources and to change the environment quickly as the situation demands.

The ubiquitous tittie bar and the "jack shack" are all about male (and the occasional open-minded girlfriend's) pleasure with no reciprocation and a lot less good taste. I'm betting the male staff don't wear clear plastic high-heels or gyrate around fire poles (frolic in swimming pools?).

Everyone is getting what she or he wants. Nobody is being hurt. What's the problem?

We need the banks. We don't need them to be run by the crew of incompetent sociopathic kleptomaniacs currently in charge. Since the American people are paying for the cleanup the American people can damned well own the banks.

Instead of just shoveling money at the failed bankers and brokers we should be getting a fair equity stake in the banking system. Maybe someday we can sell it to some investor with a lot of cash, but for right now since we pay we should own. Sweden did that during its own banking crisis. It was the best thing that ever happened to its financial sector

Grapplers dominated in the beginning because none of the strikers knew how to deal with them. Then they learned. In fact, one of the first people to beat a Gracie in NHB competition was a Capoerista. As an excellent Old School Kendoka says "You lose your speed. You lose your strength, and everybody learns your tricks. Then you find out if you're any damned good or not." People learned their tricks. Now it's back to the old standard. If you're good enough to make the other guy play your game and competent enough at his to get by you're hard to beat.

But MMA isn't just the suburbs and the upper middle class White guys. It's popular in Europe, Russia, Africa, the Middle East and South America. Even before the UFC Shooto and Shootboxing were big in Japan. China had its Shuai Jiao. Its international appeal is much greater than boxing.

Boxing has gotten sleazier over the years while MMA has been careful to keep its image clean. MMA has room for punchers and kickers. Boxing does only one thing. This limits its appeal. And we won't even talk about the cesspool of boxing organizations.

And yes, boxing is more dangerous. In a boxing match you spend the entire time hitting the other guy in the head. The wraps, tape and heavy gloves mean fewer hand injuries and facial contusions but MUCH more brain injury. You just keep going until the clock runs out or until your brain has been so damaged that you lose the ability to stand up or move purposefully. In MMA a fight stopper is more likely to be a painful but non-damaging hold or a choke that is on but hasn't taken anyone out. With the basically unprotected bones of the hand hitting the skull there's less incentive to punch someone until the brain whangs off the inside of the skull.

Boxing is dying. And considering the state it's in it's no great loss. MMA is the future of combat sports for a long time to come.