Slashdot Mirror

This article is very well worth reading:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/308269/#

Thanks for the additional feedback, even as you are still discounting that this also reflects what Fuhrman and his colleagues have seen in clinical practice across a broad range of disease, and that there is essentially very-little-to-no funding to trial non-patentable medical interventions. Many medical interventions do not have "gold standard" double blind scientific support, and often as not it seems such expensive studies can't be replicated anyway -- even in the rare cases when someone can get funding just to duplicate an existing study,.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/04/06/139231/majority-of-landmark-cancer-studies-cannot-be-replicated
http://www.businessinsider.com/reproducibility-initiative-study-replication-2012-8

Or:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/
        "Much of what medical researchers conclude in their studies is misleading, exaggerated, or flat-out wrong. So why are doctors -- to a striking extent -- still drawing upon misinformation in their everyday practice? Dr. John Ioannidis has spent his career challenging his peers by exposing their bad science."

To raise the stakes a bit to a disease that affects many more people than Fibromyalgia, I'd be curious what you thought about the following cited study and Fuhrman's comments on the implications for the scientific basis of the multi-billion dollar industry of cardiac surgery vs. nutritional interventions?
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/PCI_angioplasty_article.aspx
"In the most recent study investigators reviewed 61 trials, involving 25,388 patients, in a meta-analysis comparing angioplasty and stent placement with no treatment or medications alone. A meta-analysis pools numerous studies on the same subject. The findings indicated that there was no evidence that angioplasty and stent placement for coronary artery disease resulted in fewer heart attacks or deaths when compared to patients with the same level of disease who were not treated in this manner.
Trikalinos TA, Alsheikh-Ali AA, Tatsioni A, et al. Percutaneous coronary interventions for non-acute coronary artery disease: a quantitative 20-year synopsis and a network meta-analysis. Lancet 2009; 373(9667):911-918."

A link on that study:
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)60319-6/abstract
"Sequential innovations in the catheter-based treatment of non-acute coronary artery disease showed no evidence of an effect on death or myocardial infarction when compared with medical therapy."

I wish I had known all this over a decade ago before my father went through an invasive angioplasty and stent emplacement procedure and died some few months afterwards of a heart attack it was supposed to prevent. After reading that study, would you let an MD perform an angioplasty procedure and put a stent in you or a loved one under typical circumstances for heart disease? Or might you instead opt for aggressive nutritional intervention like Fuhrman does with his patients? Or maybe do something else?

Time to go long on cats? *buy* *buy* *buy*

That's the Toxoplasmosis talking.

Developed world labor has its own massive hidden costs, and it starts several times more expensive. How come I never hear "How can we make our labor more competitive with the Chinese?"

Well, there's little an employee can do to work cheaper than a robot, which is the only way to beat the Chinese in manufacturing costs.

Instead, it's "How can we fuck over our employers for more money and benefits while simultaneously forcing them to keep employing us?"

When it should be" "How can I do something to earn my living without being employed on a wage".

While the other guy was probably overstating the case, I think you must be downplaying the church's involvement in utah politics for one simple reason - the 22+ million dollars they poured into california's prop-8 battle. If they were willing and able to spend that kind of money out of state, it is hard to believe they don't wield considerable influence in their home state where there is a lot less money available to oppose them.

The debt has increased approximately $5.4 trillion since President Obama took office on January 20, 2009.

And none of it was because of the wars, tax cuts, etc., starting before that date.

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/06/07/238653/animation-tax-cuts-deficit-debt/ (watch animation)

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/cbppdebtchart.jpg (static display of same plot)

http://crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2011/06/cbpp_deficit_factors_2011.jpg

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/govt-spending-per-capita.jpg

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/jamesfallows/assets_c/2011/07/24editorial_graph2-popup-thumb-560x622-58477.gif

http://crooksandliars.com/files/vfs/2012/02/wsj_deficit_obama_2013.png

So, before you talk about how shockingly the debt has risen in the past four years, tell us about the prior four years, and the policies from 2001-2008 that are still costing us out the wazoo.

There's also this article, which points to fluctuations in yield year-by-year. If people are used to paying X amount, they might not like it if price gets jacked up to double that.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/why-does-canada-have-a-strategic-maple-syrup-reserve/261869/

Yeah it actually does, but it's the only one that does, see a posting of mine a page or two up.

There is a problem with the flu shot, it does't actually prevent any deaths. But it's not per se generally harmful.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/11/does-the-vaccine-matter/307723/

Everyone in my family seems to get a mild flu for two weeks after getting a flu shot, so, based on
this: http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/ideas/medicine/vitamins/flu/ and a few other similar papers, if we get the flu (very rare) we take vitamins a-z in decent sized doses and eat a high protein diet with lots of garlic, chilis and ginger. I have yet to have one that lasted 2 days and no secondary infection compared to a week and a 50/50 channce of a chest infection. This seems to have held true for everyone in the family for the past decade or so. That's what I've seen anyway.

The other vaccines all seem to work as advertised without side effects.

From http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2000/12/a-new-way-to-be-mad/4671/

Ian Hacking uses the term "semantic contagion" to describe the way in which publicly identifying and describing a condition creates the means by which that condition spreads. He says it is always possible for people to reinterpret their past in light of a new conceptual category. And it is also possible for them to contemplate actions that they may not have contemplated before. When I was living in New Zealand, ten years ago, I had a conversation with Paul Mullen, who was then the chair of psychological medicine at the University of Otago, and who had told me that he was a member of a government committee whose job it was to decide whether pornographic materials should be allowed into the country. I bristled at the idea of censorship, and asked him how he could justify being a part of something like that. He just laughed and said that if I could see what his committee was banning, I would change my mind. His position was that some sexual acts would never even occur to a person in an entire lifetime of thinking about sex if not for seeing them pictured in these books. He went on to describe to me various alarming acts that, it was true, had never occurred to me. Mullen was of the opinion that people were better off never having conceptualized such acts, and in retrospect, I think he may have been right.

Did you not read this case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

Or how about this one? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_v._United_States

Or this one? http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/us/justices-approve-strip-searches-for-any-offense.html?pagewanted=all

Or what about the FDA raiding "raw milk" sellers? http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/08/the-latest-raw-milk-raid-an-attack-on-food-freedom/243635/ Do you really think that those approving the bill creating the FDA would ever think of taxpayer money being wasted on these non-crimes?

And there are many, many, many, more. All regulation turns into bad regulation, its the nature of government to want more and more power, the only way to stop it is to have clearly defined boundaries like what the framers of the US constitution wished, but has been clearly ignored like in the Wickard v. Filburn case referenced earlier.

There is no way to know whether a law would be "good" or "bad" until after it is signed into law and (mis)-interpreted by the regulators and the court system. A law that sounds good on paper does not always translate to a good law in practice. Since there is no way to know whether a law would be "good" or "bad" the best course of action is to oppose them unless they have clearly defined boundaries, in the case of Net Neutrality I can see it opening up a whole other can of worms where the government decides what can and can't be on the internet, much like how Europe is going where a pro-regulation environment has allowed for entire sites to be blocked. Even the most "evil" ISP in America doesn't block The Pirate Bay but in Europe just about every ISP does.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/the-science-of-success/307761/
"Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind's phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail -- but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society's most creative, successful, and happy people."

So, rather than address issues of society making good parenting difficult, it sounds like this "ethicist" would just terminate in advance all the children at risk of "potential alcoholism" who just need good parenting and good societies to blossom in -- places with walking trails (see "Blue Zones"), with people getting vitamin-D from sunlight, lots of cheap vegetables and healthy fats like omegas-3s, with toxins like many artifical colors and flavors excluded from the food supply, and so on... As Dr. Fuhrman says in "Eat to Live", genes may give us weak links, but how much those links are pulled on is a function of diet and lifestyle (and upbringing).

Note also that nature is often more concerned about parasite resistance and disease resistance than many other factors this ethicist might focus on instead -- so that ethicist's plan put in practice might produce a society of great-looking high-IQ people who collapse at the first sniffle. Just look at what industrial breeding of tomatoes has brought us as far as what you see in your typical supermarket (compared to heirloom varieties).

It's sad what passes for overly-cerebral "ethics" these days (as much as I too might have said much the same when I was younger, brought up in a hyper-competitive US culture); here is part of why that is (but a bunch more is just a cultural pendulum swinging perhaps):
http://disciplinedminds.com/
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/11b.htm
"The eugenics movement begun by Galton in England was energetically spread to the United States by his followers. Besides destroying lesser breeds (as they were routinely called) by abortion, sterilization, adoption, celibacy, two-job family separations, low-wage rates to dull the zest for life, and, above all, schooling to dull the mind and debase the character, other methods were clinically discussed in journals, including a childlessness which could be induced through easy access to pornography.2 At the same time those deemed inferior were to be turned into eunuchs, Galtonians advocated the notion of breeding a super race. Humanist Scott Nearing wrote his masterpiece, The Super Race: An American Problem, in 1912, just as the drive to destroy an academic curriculum in public schools was reaching its first crescendo. By "problem," Nearing wasn't referring to a moral dilemma. Rather, he was simply arguing that only America had the resources to meet the engineering challenge posed in creating supermen out of genetic raw stock."

Gatto suggests even the reason school rooms were called "class rooms" is linked with the eugenics notion that "classes" of people kept together would end up breeding with the same class, to produce superior offspring for the high ranked classes, and easily exploitable and disposable ones for the lower ranked ones.

As you say, today's defect can be tomorrow's salvation. There seems to be plenty of room for more people with more unique ideas and perspectives as part of a global (or someday galaxy-wide) cooperative discussion:

Nope, never worked there — thanks for asking, though!

My opinions are my own; I'm sorry that you believe if someone puts forth a position you disagree with on slashdot, they must be a paid shill or PR flack!

(I do find it amusing that everything related to Assange or WikiLeaks has to do with "StratFor"; I'm sure you're one of those who bought the whole StratFor-as-a-massive-secret-shadow-intelligence-agency conspiracy, though!)

Stratfor Is a Joke and So Is Wikileaks for Taking It Seriously

Diamonds are a terrible investment for everyone but the original seller.

Burial of Radioactive Waste under the Seabed; January 1998; Scientific American Magazine; by Hollister, Nadis; 6 Page(s)

On the floor of the deep oceans, poised in the middle of the larger tectonic plates, lie vast mudflats that might appear, at first glance, to constitute some of the least valuable real estate on the planet. The rocky crust underlying these "abyssal plains" is blanketed by a sedimentary layer, hundreds of meters thick, composed of clays that resemble dark chocolate and have the consistency of peanut butter. Bereft of plant life and sparsely populated with fauna, these regions are relatively unproductive from a biological standpoint and largely devoid of mineral wealth.

Yet they may prove to be of tremendous worth, offering a solution to two problems that have bedeviled humankind since the dawn of the nuclear age: these neglected suboceanic formations might provide a permanent resting place for high-level radioactive wastes and a burial ground for the radioactive materials removed from nuclear bombs. Although the disposal of radioactive wastes and the sequestering of material from nuclear weapons pose different challenges and exigencies, the two tasks could have a common solution: burial below the seabed.

Also:
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/96oct/seabed/seabed.htm

Actually, PETA is perfectly fine with killing animals, just so long as they are not used for any useful purpose afterwards.

Yeah, I definitely think it's time for Slashdot to get back to its roots - "News for nerds, stuff that matters, unless it's embarrassing to the Republicans".
That said, the revelation in this Slashdot article is hardly news or previously unheard of, as usual. Nor should the number of Twitter followers or Likes matter, but quite obviously there are many who believe they do.
Just to quote the above news article as a teaser, "We subjected Barack Obama's account, @BarackObama, to the same analysis."

Why is that ? I mean, there's exceptions everywhere, and in some cases it makes sense, but why "computer professional", is there some particular reason computer-work has to have tons of overtime?

I'm a "computer professional" and have been for a decade, but I've never worked unpaid overtime, and I've never been on-call without pay.

I guess the big difference is that unemployment is 1.7% generally, and about half that among people with a degree. That, and we've got worker-protection laws which are balanced, and they sting enough that even in times of higher unemployment, things rarely get -that- bad. (healthcare is universal ofcourse, so -that- worry doesn't exist, that's true in essentially all countries on par with USA in wealth. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/heres-a-map-of-the-countries-that-provide-universal-health-care-americas-still-not-on-it/259153/ )

Why would Woz legitimize the work of that liar?

It sounds like Woz was duped by Daisey just like the rest of us. Apparently, he removed the made up stuff from the show after This American Life discovered it. However, since Daisey doesn't seem to have admitted he lied, it would be good if Woz called him out on that.

Why would Woz legitimize the work of that liar?

> Games do not by definition, have a winning state and conversely a losing state. Many do, to be sure. You might want to read up on the philosophy of games a bit

I quite well aware of the history and philosophy of games for the past 200,000 years. No offense, but let me know when *you* have shipped a few games because you clearly don't seem to understand the difference between what makes something an amusement, puzzle, a toy, or a game. If you are relying on Wikipedia for authoritative definitions no wonder you are confused.

Now I agree there is a lot of overlap between "Entertainment", "Digital Arts" and "Games" but again unless you can *clearly* separate between all 4 (amusement, puzzle, toy, and game) you don't really understand the domain nor the definitions. You are basically arguing that something interactive or amusement is a game. So watching TV is now called game? /sarcasm Please.

Calling a toy a game doesn't make it so. That is like the media calling a programmer a hacker. They are of course related but two *separate* things.

Let's took a look at Will Wright, someone whose games have sold 100 million copies and generated more than $1 billion in sales.

"Spore gives users unprecedented freedom to bring their imaginations to some semblance of digital life. In that sense Spore is probably the coolest, most interesting toy I have ever experienced. But itâ(TM)s not a great game, and that is something quite different."

Why would its *creator* and *designer* call it a toy and not a [good] game, when the public does? Because he understands the *differences* between what makes something a toy and a game.

Other game designers say the same thing. Jonathan Blow creator of Braid had this said about him:

plans to do nothing less than establish the video game as an art form - a medium capable of producing something far richer and more meaningful than the brain-dead digital toys currently on offer.

Games have
* Rule(s)
* Goal(s)

If have no way of winning you have a toy.

References:
* http://www.income-outcome.com/blog/bid/29552/GAMES-vs-TOYS
* http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/10/will-wright-toys-stupid-fun-club.html
* http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/the-most-dangerous-gamer/8928/?single_page=true
* http://www.raphkoster.com/2012/03/13/x-isnt-a-game/
* http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/167418/what_makes_a_game.php
* http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/172587/a_way_to_better_games_.php

To clarify and expand, it appears that what the NSA is doing is simply saving a copy of tons of data (they must have exabytes or more) and claiming that until they actually query the database they don't need a search warrant or probable cause. The problem is, of course, that saving a copy of our private communications should, in and of itself, require a warrant.

A much better article than linked to in the summary.

On this complicated, opaque subject, Sanchez is among the most informed observers in America. His best guess at what's really going on: The NSA is collecting and saving vast amounts of private date, like phone calls, emails, and text messages; and rather than asking whether the Fourth Amendment permits them to put all of this information on a hard drive, they're postponing questions about whether a search is constitutional or not until they want to query the database.

This stuff's been floating around for years:

Yer Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations:

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

There is an argument that this quote is taken out of context, in that it appears in a long passage where Smith denigrates various methods of tax collection, but most people agree that even if he is opposed to a tax on income, he is supportive of a tax regime which is progressive in effect, regardless of how it's collected.

Hayek in Road to Serfdom:

Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision. Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance, where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks, the case for the state helping to organise a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong. There are many points of detail where those wishing to preserve the competitive system and those wishing to supersede it by something different will disagree on the details of such schemes; and it is possible under the name of social insurance to introduce measures which tend to make competition more or less ineffective. But there is no incompatibility in principle between the state providing greater security in this way and the preservation of individual freedom.

The counterargument to this is that the text systematically rejects any mechanism by which a state could operate such a system, only that it should "help to organize" such a system. So I guess it depends on your sense of the term "help."

Well, ignoring the obvious job security worries for mainstream economists stepping out of line, maybe the issue is more "religious" at this point?
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/the-market-as-god/6397/
"A few years ago a friend advised me that if I wanted to know what was going on in the real world, I should read the business pages. Although my lifelong interest has been in the study of religion, I am always willing to expand my horizons; so I took the advice, vaguely fearful that I would have to cope with a new and baffling vocabulary. Instead I was surprised to discover that most of the concepts I ran across were quite familiar.
Expecting a terra incognita, I found myself instead in the land of deja vu. The lexicon of The Wall Street Journal and the business sections of Time and Newsweek turned out to bear a striking resemblance to Genesis, the Epistle to the Romans, and Saint Augustine's City of God. Behind descriptions of market reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand narrative about the inner meaning of human history, why things had gone wrong, and how to put them right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption. But here they were again, and in only thin disguise: chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and, ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets, with a small dose of ascetic belt tightening along the way, especially for the East Asian economies."

And:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/economy/04econ.html?pagewanted=all
"But in the wake of the recent crisis, a few economists -- like Professors Reinhart and Rogoff, and other like-minded colleagues like Barry Eichengreen and Alan Taylor -- have been encouraging others in their field to look beyond hermetically sealed theoretical models and into the historical record. "There is so much inbredness in this profession," says Ms. Reinhart. "They all read the same sources. They all use the same data sets. They all talk to the same people. There is endless extrapolation on extrapolation on extrapolation, and for years that is what has been rewarded.""

These are people who essentially deny that economic alternatives exists (or are viable, which is the same thing); contrast that with:
"The Dictionary of Alternatives: Utopianism and Organization" By Martin Parker, Valerie Fournier, Patrick Reedy
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Dictionary_of_Alternatives.html?id=IKZVKMPEQCEC

How many millions of people have been harmed by the essentially "religious" market fundamentalism of so many mainstream economists, who turn a blind eye to externalities, systemic risks, and wealth concentration? (To be clear, it is also a weird sort of market fundamentalism in the USA mixed with protectionism for favored already "worthy" wealthy groups.)

See also:
http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue21/Stanford21.htm
"I am an economist. It is seventeen days since I last uttered the phrase "supply and demand." But the demon still lurks untamed, within me. Economics is an addiction. Every other addiction has a Twelve Step program, laced with tough love and blunt self-honesty. Why not a Twelve Step program for economists? God knows, we have done enough damage with our arrogant, drunken prescriptions. Here's how each and every economist can face up to their inner demons, and make their own small contribution to setting things right.
Step 1: Admit you have a problem. Like they say at the AA meetings, this is half the solution

I don't want your statist services...

Well then, you'd better sell your car and get a donkey, quit your job, give away all your money, move into the woods and eat tree bark and twigs. And when your lean to burns down, don't be calling the fire department. Might be a good idea to learn some first aid, also.. just in case you need to perform a quick appendectomy

The PLO did this first with the Black September Organization (Munich).
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2001/12/hoffman.htm

Finally they hit upon an idea. Why not simply marry them off? In other words, why not find a way to give these men—the most dedicated, competent, and implacable fighters in the entire PLO—a reason to live rather than to die? Having failed to come up with any viable alternatives, the two men put their plan in motion.

They traveled to Palestinian refugee camps, to PLO offices and associated organizations, and to the capitals of all Middle Eastern countries with large Palestinian communities. Systematically identifying the most attractive young Palestinian women they could find, they put before these women what they hoped would be an irresistible proposition: Your fatherland needs you. Will you accept a critical mission of the utmost importance to the Palestinian people? Will you come to Beirut, for a reason to be disclosed upon your arrival, but one decreed by no higher authority than Chairman Arafat himself? How could a true patriot refuse?

So approximately a hundred of these beautiful young women were brought to Beirut. There, in a sort of PLO version of a college mixer, boy met girl, boy fell in love with girl, boy would, it was hoped, marry girl. There was an additional incentive, designed to facilitate not just amorous connections but long-lasting relationships. The hundred or so Black Septemberists were told that if they married these women, they would be paid $3,000; given an apartment in Beirut with a gas stove, a refrigerator, and a television; and employed by the PLO in some nonviolent capacity. Any of these couples that had a baby within a year would be rewarded with an additional $5,000.

Both Abu Iyad and the future general worried that their scheme would never work. But, as the general recounted, without exception the Black Septemberists fell in love, got married, settled down, and in most cases started a family. To make sure that none ever strayed, the two men devised a test. Periodically, the former terrorists would be handed legitimate passports and asked to go to the organization's offices in Geneva or Paris or some other city on genuine nonviolent PLO business. But, the general explained, not one of them would agree to travel abroad, for fear of being arrested and losing all that they had—that is, being deprived of their wives and children. "And so," my host told me, "that is how we shut down Black September and eliminated terrorism. It is the only successful case that I know of."

The best way to eliminate terrorists was actually invented by Yasser Arafat and some of his advisors, who themselves had invented Black September, the terrorist group that murdered Israeli athletes at the 72 Olympics in Munich:

http://m.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2001/12/hoffman.htm

When they weren't needed any more...they married them off. Told them to go into deep cover in Jordan, found pretty Palestinian girls to marry the "heroes", have kids, be "sleeper agents"...and never gave them a mission. Interviewed years later, few were willing to accept one any more.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/

Good article

Americans Are as Likely to Be Killed by Their Own Furniture as by Terrorism

Link courtesy of Bruce Schneier's blog.

Copper is expensive enough to make recycling worth while but separating it from the plastic surrounding it, is near impossible. What is done instead in many places is that the plastic is burned off. A very polluting process and not the idea behind recycling at all.

I recently watched a video of an innovative new way they recycle Christmas tree lights in China. It's definitely an improvement over simply burning the insulation off.

That's why lots of sites had articles like this.

If you ignored the obvious idiot sites, I thought the general reaction to the Higgs Boson was pretty good. Idiot sites like ABC, CBC, MSNBC and CNN.

They're actually ramping up now: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/a-visit-to-the-only-american-mine-for-rare-earth-metals/253372/

Well, I Googled "top 5 health expenses in the US", and one of the first articles it came up said it's actually the middle age and elderly people who end up spending more health care

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/5-of-americans-made-up-50-of-us-health-care-spending/251402/

The people who lived healthy end up living long enough to use health care

The fatso chain smokers (who drive recklessly, and drunk) died young and fast so they incur relatively less expenses.

The decision doesn't grant the government power to compel you to buy things, only the power to penalize (tax) you if you don't.

Very different things.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-health-care-decision-explained-in-1-paragraph-on-scotusblog/259097/

Usually a sign of someone working in a field is the lack of binary spectrum disorder, so I'm surprised by your comment. Amateurs find it convenient to think that algorithmic cognition comes in only two flavours, like coffee in a grimy truckstop: weak and strong. Now if we could only upgrade that to a nice filet at your favorite neighborhood steak house we'd be getting somewhere: blue, rare, medium rare, medium, well done.

The era we're moving into is medium rare. I completely agree with Norvig/Pearl. And Daphne Koller. And, for once, Daniel Dennett.

Personally, I don't really want my AI well done. I'd like to still have something I'm good at before the machines take over. Medium rare would be excellent, because you can hand over the tedious stuff and not get a complete disaster.

Probability theory, possibility measures, ranking theory, plausibility measures, Dempster-Shafer and all these slight variations of the same theme are altogether computationally intractable.

Dude, that's moving well into medium.

From TFA:
        You wouldnÃ(TM)t say, for example, that thereÃ(TM)s a shortage of diamonds. Diamonds are very expensive. They cost a lot, but you can buy all the diamonds you want as long as youÃ(TM)re willing to pay.

Actually, there is no shortage of diamonds because diamonds aren't that rare. De Beers tries very hard to keep diamond prices high. Among their strategies:

1. Reduce the global supply. De Beers (and others) keep diamonds off the world market. They have enormous stockpiles of diamonds.

2. Make sure there is no global market outside De Beers, especially for diamond consumers. If consumers were able to buy & sell diamonds, the true market value would be readily apparent.

The Atlantic had a great article about the diamond cartel way back in 1982. It still applies today:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/02/have-you-ever-tried-to-sell-a-diamond/4575/

Here in the US, we are told there is constant threat of terrorism, which is used to keep people in line. So other countries simply use Hell instead, which seems to be more effective.. provided you can get people to truly believe in hell.

Actually, The Atlantic advises that you're more likely to be killed by your furniture than by a terrorist attack in the US.

Maybe hell is heaped high with chairs, wobbly tv sets and tables?

Especially since all those couches, stools, and tables are the real threat to Americans:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/americans-are-as-likely-to-be-killed-by-their-own-furniture-as-by-terrorism/258156/

dont' waste my fucking time.
http://www.naturalnews.com/028245_GM_food_side_effects.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/the-very-real-danger-of-genetically-modified-foods/251051/

The same type of arguments circulated before WWI. Surely, in a modern, globalized world where German and English bankers could both own shares in Argentinian railroads, and where British citizens bought German paints and medicines, and Germans bought licences for British patented manufacturing, war could never break out.

Comments, A_Lee

I'm not advocating for either candidate, I just remembered this article from the Atlantic and am passing it along because I think the whole idea is pretty funny: "The Uncanny Valley: What Robot Theory Tells Us About Mitt Romney."

Damnit. I friggin' knew it

Romney is a robot. It explains it all. I'm going to have to pass, however.

Maybe they can try for an improved version in 2016.

I'm not advocating for either candidate, I just remembered this article from the Atlantic and am passing it along because I think the whole idea is pretty funny: "The Uncanny Valley: What Robot Theory Tells Us About Mitt Romney."

I also think that killing these people is mandatory because I know they're at war with us and were before we ever droned anyone and would be if we never droned anyone and will continue to be if we stop droning anyone.

This is incompatible with the rest of your post IMO. If you know how costly our efforts are to our budget and our freedom, then the proper response is to put time and distance between us and those that want to kill us. As they are in the middle east - largely - this should be trivially easily. "War" is a strong word when their is no formal declaration and there will never be an end to enemies especially when we make more with every one we kill.

I think you were harsh on this article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/do-obamas-drone-strikes-imperil-america/257879/

One of your quotes was a quote within the article and another one was well sourced,

High profile reportage in the New York Times and the Washington Post and on PBS together amplified a question that has been asked more and more by national security experts: Is Obama sacrificing America's long-term security for short-term political gain?

To me it is no question, and it is true for Romney as well.

>[citation needed]

I was talking about the iOS app store not Mac. Here are citations.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/ios-revenues-vs-android/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/appsblog/2012/jun/10/apple-developer-wwdc-schmidt-android?newsfeed=true

>You really quoted a gawker article? You hopeless tool.

How about find the same news posted on every damn news site? Why not address the facts, that Apple is making it harder for non App store programs on the Mac? What has Gawker to do with this except as a way to avoid answering my point? You dumb ass.

>Good thing there's an alternative that many find to be not just equal, but superior, which is available at a lesser cost.

You mean like Linux was always available for Windows?

>People are finding it less and less palatable. Apple is I think inadvertently doing us a favor because people get grumpy when Apple prevents them from doing things.

Maybe you should look at Apple's sales figures. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/wow-apple-turns-over-its-inventory-once-every-5-days/257915/

A few geeks and devs are going to find it unpalatable just like used to find Microsoft unpalatable. It won't hurt the sky rocketing sales and revenues one bit.

HBO has actually responded to the Take My Money HBO campaign in a way, albeit via Twitter.

Love the love for HBO. Keep it up. For now, @RyanLawler @TechCrunch has it right: http://itsh.bo/JLtSFE #takemymoneyHBO

The TechCrunch article in question basically goes over the math based on the fact that the average person is willing to pay $12/month, and comes to the conclusion that it's not enough to replace the revenue they would lose, on top of the higher costs of having to directly serve up content.

The Atlantic also has a good article up covering the revenue and business realities, and is a good companion piece to the TechCrunch article.

TL;DR: HBO responded saying that cord cutters wouldn't pay enough

Obesity makes us collectively use an extra billion gallons of gas every year.

You could rent yourself out as a white guy in a suit.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/rent-a-white-guy/8119/

The sad thing is that the investigation report after the Columbia disaster indicated that the complex "informally" hierarchcial infrastructure at NASA ultimately was to blame.

It's actually now being reported as 3 billion. It may grow to over 4 billion by end of the year. But hey what's a few billion to a too big to fail bank like JP Morgan?

His point is that there is no evidences that any of t is getting into the water table.

Well, there have been cases where the stuff that is taken out does find its way into the drinking water but the common argument is that it was mishandled. The way I see this, in a very unscientific way, is that we're doing something similar to when we dumped mountains of garbage into the Pacific Ocean because, hey let's face it, there's nothing out there and nobody's ever going to be able to find it, right? And now we just sit there and stare at it wondering if anyone's going to do anything about it saying stupid shit like "Well, it doesn't matter if we stop, Japan will keep dumping out there."

And, you know, this fracking stuff just sounds like more of the same mentality and I feel like it could bite our ass in the future when all of Pennsylvania has pockets of water underneath it that, by themselves pose no risk but added up eventually cause us some discomfort. And yet, all the comments on Slashdot assure me I'm just a fear monger so what are you to do? People seem to get upset when I try to place the burden of proof that this will not harm us in anyway on the companies that are going to make billions of dollars off it and the people that still own mineral rights are telling me to shut the hell up at all costs. These natural gas companies sound like really unsavory types.

DO you even know what chemicals are in there?

Now that's a funny question if you're in PA (and I don't mean "ha-ha" funny).

That's funny, I was pretty damn sure Hong Kong became a super city with extremely low taxes, creating countless millionaires and businesses.

Hell, here is a recent article about a large pay rise.
Hong Kong - most business friendly city in the world

What was that again?