Slashdot Mirror

there was an article recently talking about the importance of praising children for effort rather than results:

NYT: link.

ed

There is evidence that China's one child policy is what enabled it to grow far faster than India did(though there are people that argue that India's younger population will eventually be an economic asset rather than a drag on the economy). In 1980 China and India's economies were at about the same size, but China has grown far faster than India, and many argue that the one child policy was what allowed this to happen. By limiting the # of children people could have they could invest more capital per student, and measures like the literacy rate show that this effort paid off.

FTA

Nearby, on Madison Square Park, is the National Museum of Mathematics, or MoMath, an educational center he helped finance. It opened in 2012 and has had a quarter million visitors.

Amazing, 250k visitors to a math museum? Who knew?

Simons Foundation - MoMath

Just for fun: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01...

Well, there is BlackJet, and now there's also Blade which is essentially Uber for helicopters.

Not to mention that Uber drivers probably aren't paying as much as $1 million for a single taxicab license.

I was a long time skeptic, because I initially found that the statistical grounds on which such statements were made to be shaky. But models, technique and science in general has gone a long way (despite the fact that some scientists have damaged it by abandoning their role and becoming political activistists - a serious error IMHO).

A milestone in my opinion has been the fact that Richard A. Muller changed idea:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

He was, AFAIK, the last serious scientists to be a skeptic in this regard. His research was partially funded by partisan groups such as the Koch brothers and he changed idea nonetheless. Kudos to the man for respecting the work he did and taking the results he got at face value regardless of where his money came from and his previous beliefs about it.

I've talked a lot of times with friends of mine, many of which are physicists and some of them with PhDs in fluids and atmospheric physics, about these issues and all of them (everyone of them more qualified than me on such matters, and none of them with vested interests) have gone from cautious skepticism to acceptance of the basic fact that global warming is happening and we are the most probable cause. What that might entails for us and the planet in the future nobody knows, but everybody again agrees that IT COULD BE BAD.

You maybe should think again and consider changing position another time. My take is that being able to change opinions and beliefs is always a badge of merit; too many people just want to believe what suits them regardless of facts, and facts are sometimes really difficult to get/assess/analyze. We should respect reality and honest attempts at understanding it. We have to be skeptic, but without falling in love with the outcomes of our own skepticism, which is one of the most difficult things to do for us humans.

I suggest the Ashkenazim, a subgroup of Jews from Eastern Europe, as a counterexample. There seems to have been selection pressure for genes that promote intelligence during their stay in Europe (particularly, when the population was isolated socially and economically from around 800 AD to 1650 AD).

Actually he _was_ convicted of misusing the DB (max sentence 12 months). He's been in jail for more than 18 months so at this point, he has served more than enough to satisfy the highest possible sentence.

As a side note, the most disturbing part of this case to me, was Valle's illegal use of the DB to find out information about people for purely personal reasons. I'm sort of shocked that such a crime carries a max 12 month sentence. What that says to me is that law enforcement agencies and the governments that set them up, don't really care how their own misuse government power. Nor does the media for the most part as demonstrated by the thousands of words spent on the prurient charms of this case, but in any article, there is at most a single sentence about the DB issue.

Here's an example:

Tabloid same as NY Times, you'll have to search the page for "database" to find that single sentence.:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07...

a) too many people fucking shout in their stupid phones. then there are the retards who put the mobile on loudspeaker and hold it near their waist. and shout (this seems to be an american thing, though).
b) psychologically, one-sided conversions are more annoying : http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/...
c) it's less likely for two unstoppable speakers to sit next to each other. one person will likely get tired. unstoppable idiot will all everybody they know.

In this case, where motorists are looking to pedestrian signals to decide whether or not they can increase speed to beat a light, and rear-ending another in the process, the liability is obviously with the motorist. Pedestrian signals are in place exclusively for the management of sidewalk-to-sidewalk traffic. At no place in law, MUTCD, or HDM does it suggest otherwise. Thus, the motorist is at fault if s/he uses a pedestrian signal to measure how to drive an automobile on the road and, in doing so, causes harm to person or property.

Moreover, California Vehicle Code 21703 explicitly states: "The driver of a motor vehicle shall not follow another vehicle more closely than is reasonable and prudent, having due regard for the speed of such vehicle and the traffic upon, and the condition of, the roadway." That's the citation to resolve the rear-ending issue. Increase the fine, advertise it well, and watch these kinds of collisions go down.

But that's not even the underlying problem. The underlying problem is that there is an over-inflated value of life and convenience placed on the motor vehicle and driver in comparison to all others using the public right of way. This is why the pedestrian signal is being blamed for the issue, not the motorists themselves.

Drivers of motor vehicles notoriously go un-cited for killing bicyclists and pedestrians in the course of violating traffic law and, recently, some people are picking up on the pattern.

http://www.vice.com/read/you-c...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11...
http://www.bicyclepaper.com/ar...
http://cironline.org/reports/b...

Moreover, the last 4 decades of city design have seen the expectation of free right turns and super-wide right turns-- both of which make traveling by automobile faster and more convenient, but also increase the amount of time it takes for a pedestrian to cross a road. With the increased crossing time requirements, it becomes more and more necessary to have countdown timers on pedestrian signals.

If you want an engineering solution to this problem, implement the 3 engineering change below:
(1) Tighten up corners to at intersections. This reduces the distance corner-to-corner, reduces the time needed to cross the street, and slows down automobiles so that they actually see the pedestrians crossing the street (http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/signalized/13027/images/e91.png).
(2) Add pedestrian bulb-outs wherever there is street parking to further reduce the time needed to cross the road. (http://www.ci.richmond.ca.us/images/pages/N2674/Bulb%20Outs.jpg)
(3) Then, and only then, remove the count-down timer for pedestrian signals at that intersection.

Effects:
(1) The right-turning automobile is slowed, but red signal durations become shorter because it takes less time for pedestrians to cross the street.
(2) Pedestrians cross the street quicker.
(3) Pedestrians count-downs are removed due to lack of need thus removing the temptation from motorists to use them inappropriately.

You've again missed the point by changing the goal posts. A Muslim businessman chooses to open a halal butcher, pigs never enter his shop.

No, it is you who has missed the point. If the Supreme Court asserts people and companies can be forced to provide health insurance as well as force people to buy broccoli, the government can indeed force a Muslim businessperson to purchase and provide bacon to their employees (whether they are a butcher or not, and whether their employees want it or not).

You cannot buy what is not sold.

Who said anything about buying? This idea of a "mandatory bacon benefit for employees" is no different logically than a "mandatory health insurance benefit for employees". Both concepts are equivalently absurd and are unconscionable if it violates religious liberty.

Repeat after me: there is no reason that health insurance should be obtained through one's employer. The present, specious debate is a false dichotomy: there is no inherent conflict between employer religious liberty and individual access to contraception. These considerations are only in tension in an absurd scenario where employers provide health insurance. I mean, the whole paradigm is as retarded as people getting all their groceries via their employer.

A jewish (or any buisness for that matter) can close any day of the week they please. You see the difference with these choices? They don't affect anyone else.

Ah, but those choices do affect others. Or have you never attempted to shop at a store that was closed? A store that is closed on certain days is also theoretically depriving employees of the potential to earn money while the store is closed. In a post Wickard v Filburn legal landscape, that is enough of a rationale to allow federal regulation of when businesses can and/or must be open.

This scenario, of course, is absurd (though I assert it is plausible under present legal doctrine), but so is the idea of forcing employers to provide mandatory health insurance benefits, especially against their conscience. Besides, the employees can go get insurance from the exchange, so by your logic they are unaffected.

My employers religion requires prayer 7 times a day, therefor all employees will stop work at designated times and join the prayer group.

Then perhaps you shouldn't work at that religious organization, where such regulations are very legal:
Churches and religious organizations can discriminate on the basis of religion for all jobs. This includes and is not limited to secretaries, accountants, and janitors. The basis for permissible religious discrimination is the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of this in Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Amos,483 U.S. 327 (1987).

After checking all the comments, I didn't see anyone pointing out what seemed very obvious to me when I read the summary: all the countries, USA, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, are offshoots of the old British empire, and all speak English only (well, Canada does have some francophones). It's like a club of like-minded countries, with the same base culture and language.

There's an interesting article on the New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06... which contends that moral judgements depend on what language we're speaking. Within this 5-country native English language club, the emotional strength of their own shared language totally overrides any moral qualms they might have for spying on those foreigners speaking strange languages in primitive countries.

Christian Science

If you subscribe to The New York Times or haven't viewed a lot of NYT articles in the past few months, consider reading an article about Christian Science reconsidering its anti-physician stance. Faith healing is now considered a supplement to be deployed alongside evidence-based healing.

The easiest place to draw the line is "never allow exceptions".

Unfortunately for people who would draw the line there, the easy line was rejected in the late 1780s.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/41...

http://jlr.sagepub.com/content...

http://works.bepress.com/leah_...

http://www.npr.org/2009/08/28/...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03...

http://www.literacytrust.org.u...:

Educational programming has also aimed to elevate knowledge of texts and literacy as in the programmes Barney and Friends (Guofang, 1999) and Reading Rainbow (Wood and Duke, 1997), which offer content on reading books and raising childrenâ(TM)s knowledge of books. This is important since researchers at the University of Sheffield have also suggested that pre-schoolers who develop an ability to talk about texts become familiar with literacy and have greater success with learning to read once they enter school (Hannon, 2000; Hannon, Weinberger and Nutbrown, 1991). "

Humans are doing a good job of smiting themselves. BTW: Gaia is the original name for the biosphere, it was coined by the father of Earth sciences, the original meaning subsequently distorted beyond recognition by "spiritualists" and right-wing nuts alike. So much so that the strawman arguments between these groups is about something that even Lovelock himself does not recognise.

stations. There's no such thing as a 'chain' there, everything is one-off. Although, for some reason you can get M&M's and Pringles. Other than that, you're forced to go native and it was pretty great.

It is a lot less great if you live there. That is why they flee by the thousands, or tens of thousands, when they get a chance.

Fifty years later, Cubans still are fleeing the revolution

The Lost World, Part I

I’m used to seeing military and police checkpoints when I travel abroad. Every country in the Middle East has them, including Israel if you count the one outside the airport. The authorities in that part of the world are looking for guns and bombs mostly. The Cuban authorities aren’t worried about weapons. No one but the regime has anything deadlier than a baseball bat.

Castro’s checkpoints are there to ensure nobody has too much or the wrong kind of food.

Police officers pull over cars and search the trunk for meat, lobsters, and shrimp. They also search passenger bags on city busses in Havana. Dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez wrote about it sarcastically in her book, Havana Real. “Buses are stopped in the middle of the street and bags inspected to see if we are carrying some cheese, a lobster, or some dangerous shrimp hidden among our personal belongings.”

If they find a side of beef in the trunk, so I’m told, you’ll go to prison for five years if you tell the police where you got it and ten years if you don’t.

No one is allowed to have lobsters in Cuba. You can’t buy them in stores, and they sure as hell aren’t available on anyone’s ration card. They’re strictly reserved for tourist restaurants owned by the state.

The Lost World, Part II

The whole purpose, for the US government’s perspective, is to intimately experience the day-to-day lives of residents while learning about Cuban cultural, social and religious organizations firsthand. For this reason, all participants are required to adhere to the approved full-time schedule of activities – beg off to relax by the hotel pool and OFAC could pull the company’s license.

So there are restrictions: you have to travel with a tour guide, and your trip agenda has to be filled with culturally-relevant activities rather than just random tourist stuff. It wasn't clear from TFA if Schmidt's visit was under this particular license, but his trip agenda ("to get a tour of Cuba’s University of Information Sciences in Havana and discuss life within the country") certainly sounded like it would have qualified.

it's not 'free' (as in fear) there? DAVID BROOKS The Spiritual Recession http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06... they must be short of original stuff?

Really? You think we need to raise pay for cops? While it's true that the base salary is kind of crappy cops get all kinds of other income from other places. For example This New York Times article says this about the NYPD:

"annual pay for city police officers ranges from $43,062 for a cadet entering the academy to $90,829 for an officer with five and a half years on the job, including overtime and other earnings"

What other job do you know of that doesn't require a college education where you'll be making 90k after 5 years? That's disregarding the very generous pension and insurance benefits that police receive. Plus other benefits, like the guy who walked down that line ssssof non-violent protesters during an occupy rally at UC Berkeley getting $38,000 for "depression and anxiety" instead of being fired like he should have been. Police get paid plenty, the solution isn't more money for them the solution is independant oversight.

A few details did slip out over the years via the "Connecticut Four" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and others who went to open courts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05...
http://www.americanlibrariesma...
National Security Letters (January 10, 2011)
https://www.aclu.org/national-...
"...web sites a person visits, a list of e-mail addresses with which a person has corresponded, or even unmask the identity of a person who has posted anonymous speech on a political website."
" provision also allows the FBI to forbid or "gag" anyone who receives an NSL from telling anyone about the record demand. "
FBI Withdraws Unconstitutional National Security Letter After ACLU and EFF Challenge (May 7, 2008)
https://www.eff.org/press/arch...
"a digital library recognized by the state of California -- and its attorneys in November of 2007. The letter asked for personal information about one of the Archive's users, including the individual's name, address, and any electronic communication transactional records pertaining to the user."
FBI Backs Off From Secret Order for Data After Lawsuit (May 8, 2008)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

It's called "Gerrymandering" and the Republican party used control over district representation to produce a 'win' of more districts while losing the election.
By at least 1.4 million votes
Actual News Outlet report on the Gerrymandered Minority Government Of The House

Partially (as I understand it)... the front runner seems to be some Neocotinoid Pesticides. See full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03... Other references to diesel fumes causing issues: http://www.sciencedaily.com/re...

The 100,000 is a nonsense number pulled out of his posterior. I have a number just as good: 0. Larry Page forgets the wild miss of Google Flu these past years: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/...

From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption. -
-Al Gore, NYT, 2/28/2010 "We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change"

'Human redemption', Al. Really? Is your theological head lodged that far into a lightless location?

What saddens me is that the people of NYC tolerated Nanny Bloomberg so long and proved they didn't care the slightest about the concepts of liberty and personal freedom.

Don't blame me. I voted for the other guy. Three times. Not coincidentally, I also voted for term limits (max 2 terms) twice, which Bloomberg and the power-hungry City Council overrode with complete disrespect to their constituents. Don't paint NYers with such a broad brush. In his 2009 mayoral campaign Bloomberg outspent his opponents many times over and still only won by 4.4% with just 50.7% of the vote.

I invite you to check your facts before spouting off. You've just shown yourself to either be uninformed and unaware of it, or just spouting lies and hoping no one will notice.

If our government wanted innovation in the STEM industry, they would repeal Section 1706 of the 1986 Tax Reform Act (some info here). This specifically targets IT workers, and makes it basically impossible for them to individually incorporate. This is intended to drive IT professionals to seek to work as employees rather than for themselves (very contrary to the American Dream, of course), but has the net effect of driving talented people out of the industry.

The government doesn't want a thriving STEM economy, they want lots of dirt-cheap STEM labor. Their actions prove this, despite what their words say.

Typical slashdot to be doing a goog slashvertisement when nytimes announced the biggest piece of YRO news since Snowden: Supreme Court bans warrant less cellphone searches 9-0! http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06...

yes - http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.co...
(via wikipedia)

... How the Power of Diversity Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies" http://www.amazon.com/Differen...
"In this landmark book, Scott Page redefines the way we understand ourselves in relation to one another. The Difference is about how we think in groups--and how our collective wisdom exceeds the sum of its parts. Why can teams of people find better solutions than brilliant individuals working alone? And why are the best group decisions and predictions those that draw upon the very qualities that make each of us unique? The answers lie in diversity--not what we look like outside, but what we look like within, our distinct tools and abilities.
    The Difference reveals that progress and innovation may depend less on lone thinkers with enormous IQs than on diverse people working together and capitalizing on their individuality. Page shows how groups that display a range of perspectives outperform groups of like-minded experts. Diversity yields superior outcomes, and Page proves it using his own cutting-edge research. Moving beyond the politics that cloud standard debates about diversity, he explains why difference beats out homogeneity, whether you're talking about citizens in a democracy or scientists in the laboratory. He examines practical ways to apply diversity's logic to a host of problems, and along the way offers fascinating and surprising examples, from the redesign of the Chicago "El" to the truth about where we store our ketchup.
    Page changes the way we understand diversity--how to harness its untapped potential, how to understand and avoid its traps, and how we can leverage our differences for the benefit of all."

An aspect of that is also that humans are adapted to argue together in small groups and find creative solutions together:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes....
http://lifehacker.com/can-rati...

Of course, then to keep a group of such people motivated, they need autonomy, challenge/mastery, and purpose, like Dan Pink outlines here:
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

And until we get a basic income for all, at least enough money to live a decent life in our society so money is essentially off the table as it has reached the point of diminishing returns for people who like their work:
http://science.slashdot.org/st...

Bullshit.

China is in complete violation of international law and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which China itself signed and had agreed to and ">ratified in 1996.

China has been building structures, hunting and mass poaching endangered species and destroying coral reefs within the maritime exclusive economic zones of The Philippines and Vietnam (200 nautical miles or 370km from the coastline of those countries) while at the same time, forming naval blockades and harassing fishermen from Vietnam and the Philippines in their own waters. Recently a Chinese fishing vessel was caught with the poaching and mass slaughter of over 500 endangered and protected sea turtles within Philippine waters. Pics of the slaughter.

This article is a must-read on the behavior of the 800lb gorilla China and its bullying tactics: China's Pre-Imperial Overstretch and follow-up article: China and the Mosquitoes.

Another must read is the NY Times article A Game of Shark And Minnow about the ragtag crew of Philippine marines stationed on a grounded derelict ship in the area as an outpost. That NY Times article has a very good diagram on the 200NM exclusive economic zones and China's ridiculous "nine-dash line" tongue-shaped delineation which claims the entirety of the area hundreds of miles away from their nearest legal territory, Hainan Island. The basis of China's 9-dash line claims? Fabricated bullshit. Pre-19th century maps show this. Even China's own historical maps contradict their absurd claims. Bullying, intimidation, violation, invasion and annexation of territories of smaller, weaker states. It's that simple. See also: Tibet.

Please provide a single scientific proof of anything Al Gore ever accomplished?

OTOH:

Blood And Gore: Making A Killing On Anti-Carbon Investment Hype

Al Gore invests millions to make billions in cap-and-trade software

Al Gore Invests $6M To Make BILLIONS In Cap And Trade

Gore lies to Congress about personal finances

Gore’s Dual Role: Advocate and Investor

The Money and Connections Behind Al Gore’s Carbon Crusade

Al Gore pushes Global Warming for personal profit

Cyber-Thieves Make Millions from Emissions Cap-and-Trade Scam

Obama's draft budget projects cap-and-trade revenue

Cap-and-trade: The biggest scam of all

Experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)

Leading Global Warming Crusader: Cap and Trade May INCREASE CO2 Emissions

Cap-and-Trade's Unlikely Critics: Its Creators

Fraud in Europe's Cap and Trade System a 'Red Flag,' Critics Say

Spending Cap and Trade Auction Revenues Will Undermine California’s Climate Goals

Yet LFTR get's pooh poohed because it's experimental. Amazing.

If you pay more attention to history instead of criticizing others for your own lack of it, you would discover ...

* The standard usages are: TNSTAAFL, TANSTAAFL, and TINSTAAFL

* TANSTAAFL was first used in 23 November 1854, in "Wide West"
* TINSTAAFL was used in 1952 by Professor Alvin Hansen in the journal "Ethics."
* TANSTAAFL was again used in 1966 by Robert Heinlein's novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."
* TNSTAAFL is attributed to the economist Milton Friedman in 1975

References:

  * http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/...
  * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
  * http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02...
* http://mahalanobis.twoday.net/...

Last I looked, Lessig had gotten his "root strikers" off to a rocky-start by sucking-up to the Tea Party.

I liked his explanation that they aren't really racist because a poll showed they say they're not. (But you know, dude, they're birthers. Think about that for a second.)

The Lessig solution to me holding my nose and voting Democrat was that I was supposed to join-hands in coalition with the Tea Party.

And now, I guess the idea is that I'm supposed to kick in money for Lessig to influence five House races, but he won't say which ones: Lessig Starts a Super-Pac. Why would I trust his judgement, exactly?

Why doesn't someone put fifty million into figuring our why fewer young men are graduating from universities than ever before

WHAT are you talking about? Actual numbers of college graduates AND the percentage of college graduates among adults are at all-time highs in the United States, even among males. (See this chart, attached to this article, for example.)

What has changed is that the growth of female college graduates has increased much more rapidly than males, so women are now graduating in greater numbers and compose higher percentages of university students.

But your idea that "fewer young men are graduating from universities than ever before" is completely and utterly bogus. The number of male graduates is continuously growing -- it's just not growing as fast as the number of female graduates is. Maybe that's a trend to talk about (or not), but your implication that men are somehow choosing not to go to college or not to finish it in greater numbers than ever before isn't borne out by the facts.

Why doesn't someone put fifty million into figuring our why fewer young men are graduating from universities than ever before

WHAT are you talking about? Actual numbers of college graduates AND the percentage of college graduates among adults are at all-time highs in the United States, even among males. (See this chart, attached to this article, for example.)

What has changed is that the growth of female college graduates has increased much more rapidly than males, so women are now graduating in greater numbers and compose higher percentages of university students.

But your idea that "fewer young men are graduating from universities than ever before" is completely and utterly bogus. The number of male graduates is continuously growing -- it's just not growing as fast as the number of female graduates is. Maybe that's a trend to talk about (or not), but your implication that men are somehow choosing not to go to college or not to finish it in greater numbers than ever before isn't borne out by the facts.

The machine is not faster than conventional machines at this point.

But Troyer et. al. actually confirmed that the D-Wave machine is performing quantum annealing as advertised.

In order to perform on the same level they used a highly optimized solver, not off-the-shelf optimizer software that the D-Wave machine outperforms handily.

What you claim doesn't appear to be true. It seems Fox had this tidbit covered around the same time as the rest.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/gov...

Notice that story is even 12 days older than this one:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06...

/. is really going downhill....

The media in general is going down hill. As much as Foxnews shills for the republicans, this is probably the biggest story of the year, yet it's missing from nearly every other news organization in the country.
http://www.nytimes.com/
http://www.latimes.com/
http://www.pbs.org/topics/news...
http://www.cbsnews.com/
http://www.nbcnews.com/
http://abcnews.go.com/

I checked every one of those and there's no mention of it.
Obama could get IMPEACHED over this. This is turning into a Watergate level scandal.
It could all be coincidental, but seriously? The IRS doesn't archive email? REALLY?

"People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware." - Alan Kay

Facebook tried that strategy and it failed miserably.

One could argue that Windows Phone and Android are living proof that this isn't a profitable strategy.

I'm not even joking about Android not being profitable for Google, or anyone else really.

Have you considered a Fairphone to meet your specifications, which among many other redeeming qualities prides itself on its repairability, which includes being able to root your own phone whenever you want? So you can install CyanogenMod, or perhaps Jolla's Sailfish OS (that can also run Droid apps). It has a *lot* going for it, especially its designer's goal of staying out of the scrap heap as long as possible. About the only downside is the one attribute they didn't prioritize by design is being the fastest phone with the latest technology; but you must also consider the upsides when doing your own research to see if this is a good phone for you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06...

https://www.fairphone.com/

It uses a GSM SIM card, so it'll work on T-mobile worldwide as you require. I've held one and it's plenty classy in the hand.

You could put it that way, that the IRS was looking for motes in the Republican cases, while ignoring the OFA plank.

Plank technically, not a boulder, but the same idea.

These organizations don't have to report donations, but the OFA was collecting $500k for access to the President in 2013, and had a goal of $50 Million:

President Obama’s political team is fanning out across the country in pursuit of an ambitious goal: raising $50 million to convert his re-election campaign into a powerhouse national advocacy network, a sum that would rank the new group as one of Washington’s biggest lobbying operations.

Giving or raising $500,000 or more puts donors on a national advisory board for Mr. Obama’s group and the privilege of attending quarterly meetings with the president, along with other meetings at the White House.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02...

Consider that you only have $10 to feed your family, and just came off-shift at your minimum-wage job.

Why do I have to shop every day? Can't I plan ahead a bit and shop once per week or something?

You can either buy:
- a McMeal on the way home from work (they have some sort of deal going now where you can get 4 burgers, some fries, and 4 soft drinks for $9.99)

McDonald's burgers are 1.6 ounces. Four burgers are 6.4 ounces of beef. I can buy a POUND (almost three times that amount) of ORGANIC GRASS-FED ground beef for $6 at the local "hippy" supermarket, $2 for 4 fresh-baked buns which are probably at least twice the size, and a pack of frozen french fries, for $10. You want cheeseburgers? Get the non-organic beef or buy a pack of pre-packaged buns to stay under $10.

What? You're missing the soft drinks? Don't bother. Or, if you really want to drink corn syrup or sweeteners, buy a 2-liter bottle when it's on sale for 50 cents.

- a couple of Pepperoni Little Caesars' pizzas, again on the way home from work

Do you have any clue how many pizzas I can make at home using better quality ingredients than Little Caesars for $10? The dough takes me about 5 minutes to mix up the day before, sits in the fridge. Take it out, turn on the oven, stretch, and bake. No fuss. With okay but better-than-average mozzarella (standard American style, not the fancy ovolini in water), premium flour, and better-than-average canned sauce, I probably could make nearly twice as much for $10. Use crappy ingredients like Little Caesars does, and I could probably make you 5 or 6 pizzas.

Better yet, spend $6 or so for the basic pizza ingredients for dinner, and spend the rest for some fresh veggies or toppings. Too expensive or no place to store the fresh veggies? Fine -- buy a can of black beans for less than a buck and substitute salsa for the sauce and make "Mexican pizza" -- more nutrition, more fiber, cheap and easy.

- burn $5 or so in gas to get proper food at the nearest decent grocery store 10 miles away, and spend an extra $8 doing that

What the heck are you buying for "extra $8" over the $10 budget = $18? That's a "nice Sunday dinner" budget for a family of four -- not with any fancy ingredients, but still. With that budget for a family meal, we can have a pound of nice steak and two sides, including some fresh vegetables or fruit. Beats the heck out of 6.4 ounces of McDonald's hamburgers and a few small packs of french fries. Or even roast an organic chicken with potatoes/rice and a vegetable, and pick the carcass clean and boil the bones for chicken soup in a few days. There might even be enough money left over to make biscuits and fresh fruit for "shortcake" dessert.

- spend $15 at inflated prices for nutritious food (though it's slightly old) at the nearest bodega/grocer/phone-card/payday-loan store,

I'm just going to stop here... are you incapable of planning ahead and shopping for a week wherever the grocery store is, or buying some bulk items to have food available when we can't get to the store... or...?

Thing is, most poor neighborhoods usually don't have decent grocery stores.

Yeah, a common myth. Actual studies on this issue have shown a higher density of grocery stores and supermarkets in poorer neighborhoods.

Or, you can save on cooking and grab some fast food, like most folks do,

You can't "save on cooking" -- cooking with basic ingredients is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than eating out, even compared to most fast food "deals."

Now, I know you're going to say: "well, some people are tired and don't have time and energy to cook every night!" Well, that may be true, but one can cook a

I don't disagree completely. Probably a combination of me not knowing the right terminology and having a spouse who has dealt with specific cultures in an underperforming school district.

At the same time, there ARE cultures that start at a low SES and move up. Cultural traits play into that: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01...

Where do you buy those things if there are no grocery stores within miles of your house and you don't have transportation?

Google food deserts.

Yeah, instead Google the myth of "food deserts." (See here, for example.)

Some useful quotes:

Poor neighborhoods, Dr. Lee found, had nearly twice as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as wealthier ones, and they had more than three times as many corner stores per square mile. But they also had nearly twice as many supermarkets and large-scale grocers per square mile.

Dr. Sturm found no relationship between what type of food students said they ate, what they weighed, and the type of food within a mile and a half of their homes.

And even if it were true that many grocery stores in poor neighborhoods don't have a load of high-quality fresh produce choices (the main thing always brought up about "food deserts," if they exist), even the crappy urban grocery stores I've been in will often have "family packs" of cheap frozen veggies and such, or at least large cans of vegetables and fruit. It's not the best stuff on the planet, but the idea that the only thing available is McDonald's, boxes of donuts, and bags of chips is generally more of a myth than reality.

Nobody has brought up an obvious (to me I guess) consideration.

How would 'other 2/3' perceive the internet / computers in general in their cultural context.

Imagine a refugee camp where war torn peoples flock across a border and are placed into a predesignated area. Now (if it was Turkey*) they'd have all the basic amenities, food, shelter, water, plumbing...tv. What they are lacking (as far as I can tell) is any pervasive computer/internet. Consequently, boredom is one of the biggest problems in these refugee camps.

What if they all had the internet though?

What would they do with something of that magnitude that they've never had before? Would it become self-organizing? Would they require classes? If so, how in-depth? What if the literacy rates were low? Could small pictographic games still provide entertainment? Could MMOs (or whatever) provide a sense of purpose, if only virtual, to somebody's life?


Now take that microcosm and multiply it by 'the other 2/3'.

We need to approach this as a legitimate problem that is capable of being solved through research and refinement.

* http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02...

The New York Times article Slashdot mentioned, Tim Cook, Making Apple His Own, is an example of the collapse of the New York Times.

The authors are WRITERS (Heavenly horn sounds). The first 4 paragraphs are examples of their intent to tell stories like novelists, avoiding writing boring stuff like news. And, of course, WRITERS don't care about messy things like technology, even if they write about technology companies.

It's okay to put in some facts to give novels a feeling of realism: "And the [Apple] stock price fell nearly in half from its 2012 peak to the middle of 2013" Then: "To shore up shareholder faith, Mr. Cook split the stock, increased the dividend and engineered a $90 billion buyback -- steps that helped shares rebound almost entirely." The price of stock goes up when someone buys a lot of it.

But novelists have problems. Sometimes facts are more weird than any novelist would invent: "rap star Dr. Dre ... will join Apple." The Wall Street Journal's novelists say Apple is "Tapping Tastemakers to Regain Music Mojo". Apple will sell "high-end headphones", under the Beats name. What could go wrong?

Mr. Cook is not much like Steve Jobs. He supports brand confusion: "Mr. Cook is trying to broaden Apple's brand, too, taking to Twitter and other public venues to express support for environmentalism and gay rights (and for Auburn University football)."

There are big hopes for the Apple iWatch "... according to people involved in the project, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to press." Steve Jobs fired people who announced products early because announcing early creates brand confusion.

The whole point of being a novelist is to avoid unpleasant realities. It's like being a drugee, but without the drugs. Don't get involved with messy issues. Quoting: "Jonathan Ive, the head of design at Apple ... says Mr. Cook has not neglected the company's central mission: innovation. 'Honestly, I don't think anything's changed,' he said."

Mr. Cook wrote an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal in support of proposed federal legislation protecting gay, lesbian and transgender workers.

Nothing has changed?

Another quote: "Last July, a federal judge ruled that Apple had illegally conspired with publishers to try to raise prices in the e-books market; Apple is appealing."

And this: "Apple has also started building apps for Android systems".

Novelists like to live in their fantasy worlds. They don't want to think about messy news like the beginning of a gay, rap-singing, law-breaking, watch-making Apple that makes software for Google.

The real story? Apple and the New York Times are both spiralling downwards, in my opinion.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014... Here you go

Your constant outlook on life in general as a conspiracy keeps me entertained.

Life is not a conspiracy, it is an accident of physics. That life is in general ruled by secret conspiracies is not an accident, it is deliberate. Try What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? if you want to come up to speed on this issue.

Naturally, I realize that whichever cowardly, useful idiot left the comment to which I replied is a troll. This is for the edification of those who can be educated.

Not exactly. Note that the Republicans overwhelmingly voted for the Patriot Act extension in 2011 (196 yeas vs. 31 nays), while the Democrats were largely opposed (54 yeas vs. 122 nays). http://politics.nytimes.com/co...