Quality of Life

The Associated Press is reporting on a new study conducted by Mercer that lists San Francisco as both one of the top five safest cities in the U.S. and one of the top two in terms of quality of life.
It also found that the safest city in the entire world is: Luxembourg.
But when it comes to overall quality of life, Geneva and Zurich, Switzerland share the lead, followed by Vancouver, British Columbia, and Vienna, Austria, and the German cities of Frankfurt, Munich and Duesseldorf tied for fifth.
I'm fascinated by this, as I'm always fantasizing about where I would move to if I were to move outside the U.S.
Switzerland, Vancouver, Austria, and Germany all sound like OK places to live, climate-wise. Now what I'd like to find out is how those top cities/nations all compare when it comes to transgender and gay rights and gay marriage.
Here in the U.S., San Francisco is tied with Honolulu for highest quality of life. New York was third in the U.S. (No coincidence that these are also the three most expensive cities in the U.S.?) So it sounds like I'm already living in the right place as fas as the U.S. is concerned.
One more interesting note... Houston scored the lowest quality of life in the U.S. So I went from one extreme to the other when I moved from there to here. Not a big surprise.
The complete survey can be found here.

String Theory

There is a fascinating article on the current scientific schism over string theory in today's SF Chronicle. Some scientists have based their careers on it, others think it's a bunch of unproven nonsense, and both sides are very passionate. In addition, this is apparently one of the most skeptical newspaper articles on string theory ever to appear in the mainstream press. SF Chronicle, breaking new ground again!

Here's a good blog entry on the subject as well.

The article is yet another to refer to the discovery in the mid '90's that the universe is expanding faster and faster as one of the most groundbreaking discoveries ever in the history of cosmology.
Makes me realize I never finished reading Alpha and Omega. In fact, I left off just at the point that it was starting to explain string theory. Looks like it's time to pick that book up again.