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Drink someone's milkshake? Terrorism.

No, that's the oil business.

Wow, you are right: ABC News: No Joke, Leno Can't Write Own Punchlines [Story HTML Title]

How can they keep a career comedian from joking?

Suppose he said something and people laughed. Could he claim that he didn't mean it as a joke?

Also, it should be said that, with few exceptions, Jay Leno has not been funny for at least a decade. I'm not the only one who thinks that: "Leno's long-standing dominance of the ratings must rank as one of the world's inexplicable cultural tragedies."

Maybe people want to see comedy on TV so badly that they are willing to pretend what the comedians say is funny.

Oddly enough, I hold the opposite opinion as you, but for the same reason. I think people characterize genius as an innate ability in order to excuse themselves from working that hard. If they believe that no matter how hard they work, they could never attain the level of proficiency that geniuses attain, then they have an excuse not to try.

Also, the view that genius (and innovation) are the result of hard work is supported by the research:
The Secret to Raising Smart Kids
How Not to Talk to Your Kids
How to Grow a Super Athlete

Spotted this when reading around the pirate bay takedown stuff - this article shows what kind of hoops the record industry is going through trying to maintain control of unreleased music, and it's own problems trying to combat the leaks from it's own employees. Reminds me of the war on drugs... Seems like music copyright is very dead, whether it's legal or not. http://nymag.com/news/features/42391/

Just a short time ago, Slashdot ran an article that talked about Gary Taubes latest book Good Calories Bad Calories: Challenging the Convention Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease. How many Slashdot'ers actually examined what this article was all about? It appears that many posters have not given this topic the consideration it needs.

In short, Taubes argues very thoroughly and persuasively that there is much known about the cause of fat accumulation, and it goes very much against what the medical establishment claims. Anyone who has not closely looked at this matter is very likely in the dark about what is going on in our bodies, regardless of what they've heard or believe. Carbohydrates, specifically refined carbohydrates like white flour and sugar are the main culprits. Obesity is a disease that occurs because of poor nutrition, not because of poor willpower, gluttony, and sloth.

Here are the relevant links:

New York Times Magazine article from 2002: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E2D61F3EF934A35754C0A9649C8B63
MIT interview about the above article: http://web.mit.edu/knight-science/fellows/interviews/taubes.html
Taubes' recent article about the role of exercise: http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/


Happy reading! And good luck staying healthy!

Its all part of a generation you don't seem to be part of :P Read this http://nymag.com/news/features/27341/

No.

Do a bit of reading on the Suzuki method of teaching children how to play musical instruments. I'd suggest this here for a few reasons. First, Suzuki's fundamental underpinning of his entire work is simply that TALENT IS NOT INNATE. He absolutely did not support the idea you've presented that some people simply have more music ability. Next, this may help you understand what this new research is and is not stating.

It takes motivation, persistence AND some method of proper feedback for helpful assessment and correction.

For the Suzuki method, the feedback is (at least) two-fold: lots of guided practice from teachers and parents and an enormous amount of active listening so that your mind gets attuned to how things should sound.

Let's say for example, I'd like to develop perfect pitch. If I simply start singing "do-re-mi"'s all day long, I'll very likely just make things worse. I will probably lay down deep patterns of doing it the wrong way. I'd have to spend even more time to unlearn/relearn. But if I use something like a tuner or a computer program to assist/evaluate, then I imagine after a few thousand times of doing this, I'd get much, much better.

This recent research isn't suggesting any such nonsense as motivation and desire could make someone a great guitarist in a month. Nor that the most motivated and persistent would be the best after a month.

It's simply rather clearly and poignantly demonstrating a significant and measurable difference of what happens in children's approaches to learning and challenges when you focus praise on either 1) intelligence ("you're so smart") or 2) effort ("you really worked hard"). The praise of a state ("smart") influences kids to switch to a mode of protecting that image to a degree which impedes learning whereas the praise of the "hard work" influences them to tackle challenges with relish.

If the Scientific American write-up didn't adequately describe some of these easily repeatable experiments, look here: The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids -- New York Magazine

The results were so immediate and clear that it'd be like a medical study where the study was simply cut short and those given placebos were immediately switched to the real thing.

You mean I'm not smart just because a bunch of people told me so? Who knew?

New York Magazine published a pretty good article about how actively boosting a child's self-esteem often has the opposite effect to what a well-meaning adult intends.

The 5000 foot view is that in 1969 a guy named Nathaniel Braden published The Psychology of Self-Esteem a wildly popular book among academicians, whose whole point was that self-esteem is the single most important personality trait. True or not, his conclusions spawned the next 38 years of effort to boost self-esteem, particularly among "low social status" (read "poor and minority") children.

Many years later, Prof. Roy Baumeister of Case Western Reserve U, then a leading member of the self-esteem movement (as a CWRU alumn, I remember reading his abstracts at the time and thinking it was all ridiculous--yay me!) did a massive review of the research. He found something like 15000 research articles on the matter. His team began their review by establishing academic standards and throwing out articles that didn't meet them.

They ended up with 200 articles out of 15,000 that could be considered academic research quality. Whoops.

Of the 200 valid articles they soon realized that most either failed to establish the efficacy of self-esteem boosters or denied it outright. Double whoops.

Baumeister became a convert and now preaches the evils of vacuous self-esteem bolstering.

Then came Carol Dweck, whose 10 years of experiments in NYC public schools pretty much killed the "science" of self-esteem dead, dead, dead. FWIW, my wife, a public school teacher when she's not birthin' babies, is a huge fan of Ms. Dweck.

That said, old habits die hard and to this day we still have identical trophies for every kid on the soccer team, and we don't tell them whether they won or not.

Slashdotter parents, RTFA, Google all the names in it, read the research. You'll be convinced, too, and moreso than if you stuck to SciAm.

Here's another article in the same vein:

http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

Not that slashdot is on the trailing edge or nothing ...

Trent had a Oink account -- obviously he's made up his mind about the record labels.

Are you aware that the RIAA doesn't have anything to do with retail pricing in Australia?

As an Australian, I'd also point out that the ARIA is made up of many of the same companies as the RIAA.

Form 4: Statement of changes in beneficial ownership of securities

Jaywalker's link raised on google is fortuitous. The purchaser identified in the APA linked from Groklaw is JDG Management Corp d/b/a York Capital Management. From a recent filing for the purchase of a company in Israel:

The sole shareholder of JGD is James G. Dinan.

York Capital Management is a hedge fund. It invests in a lot of things, but this transaction looks like it might be a personal play. $36 mil is peanuts for this cat. He just paid $21 million for Dennis Koslowski's (remember Tyco?) old apartment

Mind, for Mr. Kurtz this is just brilliant publicity. As I googled for him, one link spoke of his superior anti-Bush credentials...

http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/16146/

In the United States roughly three times as many people are killed in gun accidents per year than 9/11.

Um, no, there weren't. I'm not arguing with your overall point but you really need to get your numbers straight before you start spouting stuff.

There were only about ~700 accidental gun deaths in the U.S. in 2004. It was slightly higher in 2001, but still only 802. That's slightly more than a third of the number of people killed on 9/11.

(Sources: for accidental gun deaths go to the very slick CDC Fatal Injury Reports Calculator and put in "Unintentional," "Firearm," and the year of your choice. 9/11 casualties are from NyMag's "September 11th By the Numbers".)

What if you got in a car accident? Had a previously unknown heart defect? Fell down a flight of stairs and broke your back?

Many young people think they don't need health insurance because they're healthy. Well, you're healthy now, but an accident could make you very unhealthy very quickly, and your medical bills could easily be more than you could possibly afford. In that situation, taxpayers end up paying your way.

Try this New York Magazine article which includes the story of a healthy young guy with no health insurance who got appendicitis.

I read this recently, and think it's on topic:

What's Up, Docs? - A panel of anonymous physicians coughs up secrets of the trade.
http://nymag.com/health/bestdoctors/2007/33163/ind ex.html

from which this quote: "With universal [health care], you'd get the same kind of mediocre shittiness that you'd get in all other kinds of standardized approaches. But for millions of people, that would be a big upgrade."

Once upon a time, just about everyone lived in small communities. You would expect to live, work, and die in the same little town where your parents and your close relatives lived. Once you got a reputation in such a community, deserved or undeserved, it would probably follow you for life.

Then we had the Industrial Revolution, big cities, relatively cheap transatlantic travel, etc., and all of a sudden it was possible--difficult, but possible--to make a clean break with your past and forge a new life. Many of the life-affecting judgements that were previously made by busybody neighbors were instead made by impersonal bureaucrats.

Now, all sorts of personal information about us online and searchable, and folks who grew up with the Net are less inhibited than their elders about putting more personal stuff online. It looks like the Internet is putting us all in the same virtual small town. I don't think that's an entirely good thing, but I don't see how it can be prevented.

What kind of "intelligent" designer puts a recreational facility next to a waste disposal site?

The only state park in Manhattan, Riverbank State Park makes great use of an otherwise useless area. It's the first park in the Western hemisphere to be built on top of a residential wastewater treatment facility and its elevated address--69 feet above the Hudson River--offers its two and a half million annual visitors fabulous views from any vantage point.

Tell that to Lawrence Lessig and John Hardwicke. It varies from person to person just how molestation might affect them, depending on a number of factors including the personality of the molestee and the type of molestation and the duration it went on for. Some people handle it well and it doesn't affect them much, such as your aquaintance. Some people are permanently damaged and just can't function (like with Hardwicke). And some (such as myself) have gotten quite skilled in building masks that hide any damage done so that we simply seem as normal as possible. You just can't tell how kids are going to handle it.

It was on the cover, and it was a news story about a dead person found in a strip club:

"Headless Body Found in Topless Bar"

Here are some other interesting headlines: http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/anniversary/35th/n_8 568/

Oh, come on. I'm driving a 4 gear automatic at very inefficient speeds and still getting well over 30 to the gallon.

21 as an average is terrible. New diesels in the UK are pulling 45-60mpg, including the automatics. Those are decent sized cars, the small town cars are doing even better.

Even the Chelsea tractors are getting 15-40.

P.S. I've never heard of Slashdot being a US-centric website. The significant number of non-US users and the extensive European response to even this article should be a small clue.

You'd probably do well to look up UK slang and silently thank the poster that used it for expanding your horizons rather than bitching about its use in the first place.

Progress on the tunnel has not gone unnoticed on the surface. Ask Brooklyn sound studio Master Sound.