aestra

>it's certainly easier than doing it with regexes.

... for you.

Why did someone shoot you after the game? Was it an accident?

>Kodak, HP, GM, Ford, JC Penney, Sears, McDonalds, Radio Shack, Circuit City, Best Buy, Borders, Barnes&Noble, IBM, Microsoft, Xerox, and Target have all been disrupted.

The irony there is a lot of them started out as disruptors themselves!

I believe the GP was referring to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17

>because the stigma associated with the industry has discouraged bigger companies from getting involved.

I don't believe it is stigma.

Marijuana business is incredibly risky and can be technically illegal. Big companies tend to be risk adverse and have shareholders to answer to.

I think if the legality was definite a lot of big companies wouldn't be reluctant to join in.

On another note I think a few of these companies can improve their image to the mainstream if they get rid of the slang that only current pot smokers identify with.

Pod machines make terrible coffee though.[1] I'm no coffee snob at all and even I can agree that the coffee that they produce sucks.

I've never had pour over coffee (or even heard of it until just now) but I gotta say I'm very curious now. Is it common at coffee shops or do you have to buy the stuff and do it at home if you want to try it?

[1] http://abcnews.go.com/Business/11-best-pod-coffeemakers-buck...

Amazing insight!

Ritual food and drink are certainly common around the world. The thing that pops into my mind is the Japanese tea ceremony.[1]

There's nothing at all saying people can't have a personal ritual - indeed it is very common.

Also I think it might be having a sense of more control over the process is made gives a sense of pleasure as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_tea_ceremony

Target seems to be doing ok.

> Let different US states have different laws (that the Federal law cannot trump) and let's see through experimentation which set of laws is best for different sets of people.

This happened before but it ended up widely unpopular. It is called the National Minimum Drinking Age Act. Best outcome is extremely subjective as well.

What happened:

After prohibition most states elected a minimum legal drinking age of 21.

The 26th amendment comes around in 1971 which made the voting age 18. In response 29 states lowered the drinking age.

The lower drinking age states saw in increase in motor vehicle fatalities. Particularly in the 18-21 group.

The Feds decided if states want 100% of their highway construction funds they had to make the drinking age 21 to reduce highway fatalities.

You can argue that "less dead youths" is a best outcome even though pretty much everyone still wants the drinking age to be 18.

> If one person in every family made their in-laws grumpy about the CIA torture scandal, then the entire nation would (at least once, over the course of months/a year) have an actual discussion about the situation. That discussion then goes on to inform their views on various topics, including who they should vote for in the next election.

Only in fantasy land.

The problem?

Nobody ever actually has a rational discussion or becomes informed about anything. Just shouting matches and insults get thrown around, nothing ever gets accomplished. Everyone now hates each other. You aren't going to change someone's deeply held beliefs even if those beliefs are based on complete and total lies.

The backfire effect.

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/

The Misconception: When your beliefs are challenged with facts, you alter your opinions and incorporate the new information into your thinking.

The Truth: When your deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, your beliefs get stronger.

http://www.skepdic.com/backfireeffect.html

People tend to think the things they really care about should be universal. You see it all the time here with the "everyone should learn how to program" camp.

Imagine if there had been a negative outcome. Like they went into a vegetative state.

News at 6: "Poor Black People In Third World Country Maimed by Being Used As Guinea Pigs for American Pharmaceutical Company."

I've been to a small (physical) business where the receipts are only emailed. They ask you at the end "would you like the receipt emailed to you?" There's no printer.

Of course that also means you have to annoyingly enter your email address. They just hand you the "register" to type your email address. The "register" is an iPad.

What exactly is "amount comfortable to them?" I'm sure if you sign up for the reserves you're going to be ok to be called upon if needed? Since I think that's the whole point?

I know a reservist that got deployed for several months, so it isn't like it isn't heard of.

Blatantly false. There have been posts on here to the contrary.

That's why I use Dolphin and spoof my user agent string (often). I usually want the full site. Your mobile site sucks.

You're getting needlessly defensive.

There isn't that implicit assumption. It was simply speaking of the double standard of "humane" people have of land animals vs fish. And how that standard might not actually be justified - in other words a cultural myth.

It even said "For aquaculture, at least, we have some control, and I suspect the movement will begin there. I could envision having Atlantic salmon, say, from a farm, that has some sort of humane treatment approval — free-range, or whatever — for people who are willing to pay a little more for some animal that's been treated reasonably well."

>You never change them both at the same time. The bio-filter harbors bacteria which neutralizes the fish urine. Yes, it will not seem 'clean' but it doesn't matter. Anyway, you should change out the water a bit at a time

That's how someone else explained it to me as well. When I say "Change in chlorine" I meant "she started again with tap water so there was addition of chlorine." and "I don't think she considered the chlorine." We had super chlorinated tap water in that city.

>You and your roommate should probably look up fish care

She was my roommate more than a decade ago and I don't know her anymore but yea, of course she should have known better because she was keeping fish. They were also just fish from a carnival/fair so she didn't exactly PLAN on keeping fish. She also went to the store and added a bottom feeder to the goldfish. Which was part of the point. Many (most?) people don't know what the hell they are doing when they start/maintain a fish tank. This is common.

I had absolutely, and I mean absolutely, nothing to do with the fish tank. I wouldn't touch it, it was hers. She was keeping the fish not me. She had the fish before we met. I also had no idea whatsoever she was changing the fish tank water or that you weren't supposed to do that. I wasn't her babysitter. I wasn't (an am not) responsible for her mistakes.

I am not going to look up fish care on google because there is no way I'd ever keep a fish tank. I was simply speaking of my experience with a former roommate's mistakes, I don't need a lecture on fish care.

I think she just neglected the tank for so long she felt starting over with fresh water would be easier not knowing the consequences. The fish lived for years before this incident.

Yeah, exactly. We think of them as merely "decoration" not living creatures. That's why when I saw them die due to a mistake it really affected me. Sure I knew those fish in the living room that were swimming around were live animals but until they were prematurely killed it didn't completely kick in. Then it made me question societal perception. People get fish and kill fish probably just as much as they get fish and keep them alive...

I think it was also the fact that I noticed they were dead before she did. If she just said "oh crap the fish are dead" to me I wouldn't have the same reaction.

> Most people think of fish as somehow lesser than pigs, cows, chickens and other land animals.

Fish are harder to keep than people realize. They are sensitive to a lot more things than other animals. Yet most people who get them seem to not know how to take care of them. They kill them either through either negligence or ignorance. It's almost acceptable in society to accidentally kill captive fish. My roommate in college kept a fish tank that she put a couple fish she got at the fair and I think she bought a bottom feeder to go with them. Well, she wasn't the best at keeping up the cleaning and the tank got quite dirty sometimes. The tank was real nasty and one day she took the fish out and cleaned the tank completely and did a full water change. She put the fish back in and all but one died right away. Apparently you aren't supposed to do that? Shock? Change in chlorine? I don't know.

For some reason looking into the tank and seeing those dead fish really affected me. They just died due to a mistake. If you accidentally killed any other pet (cat, dog) it would be horrific but for some reason because it was fish it seemed like it was just nothing. "Whoopie"

Also - this was a really good article.

Found a review of such a nature

http://www.amazon.com/review/R35GSCGMDIAI9G/ref=cm_cr_pr_per...

>Have not read

>At this time I am caught up with so many pressing activites that is not one of my priorities. Will get to it probably this summer

One star review.

I agree completely about the searches. I'm starting to avoid Amazon cause I can't find what I want on there.

>"I haven't read this book but $THING IS WRONG, thus one " mean I can ignore some of the low ratings.

There are equal number of higher ratings and mid ratings of this nature.

I would really like to know what specific law(s) do you think this private party is violating? I am very curious. I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Valid? Yes. Reasonable? No.

As I mentioned before - there are unreasonable customers with a chip on their shoulder.

"An error" can also mean an error in judgement or an error in business.

Doesn't make it less obnoxious. (to me)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Have_a_nice_day#.22Have_a_Nice_...

>I think Amazon has the right idea with the "Was this review helpful to you?" buttons

Doubtful. "Was this review helpful to you?" is actually the "I disagree with this review" button in practice.

Amazon reviews are so crappy. There is tons of reviews that say JUST "I haven't used this product/read this book yet." plus any number of stars.

>when people tell me what a great experience they had with the staff and that the owner came to their table and chatted with them

This tends to be a part of a broad cultural expectation. Americans tend to equate "good service" with [fake] niceness and obligated smiles and cheeriness. Some other cultures are different where good service means simply doing your job. I can't count how many times people have gone to other countries and complained about the "poor service" and "everyone is rude here" not even considering cultural differences.

The US has gone insane in that respect with obligated "niceties."

Now when I go to Walgreens they say to me after any transaction "be well." Seriously? Like I believe the cashier ringing up my candy and soda purchase personally cares about my well being and health? Or that it is adding anything of value to the transaction?

And that's the reason (in my opinion) online reviews are borderline worthless. Everyone has different expectations and preferences. Also - a lot of people are completely unreasonable. Unreasonable people are more likely to leave a negative review than a reasonable random joe to leave a positive review.

I stayed at a hotel where the reviews were almost all negative with comments like "the furniture was outdated and the TV was a CRT."

What to I care about in a hotel? A clean bed to sleep on and a shower. That's it. I stay at hotels just to sleep in and wash up.

So the history of every user agent string ever repeats itself. And they get longer and longer. And we've created a horrible horrible mess.

Ever notice everyone identifies as Mozilla first?

http://webaim.org/blog/user-agent-string-history/

Oh I was probably somewhat misinformed because the article I read a while ago was much more hyped up than I realized at the time. My apologies. I got the wrong impression.

I just assumed it had already become "industry standard." Perhaps it was "becoming industry standard" instead. I think the article was specifically about car (not health) insurance too but I can't remember details. I went to go find it again before posting but of course I couldn't.

I also somewhat suspect (but I have no proof of course) that there is at least a little bit of data sharing to third parties that insurance companies can/do use to get more of the "big picture." Probably more car insurance than health insurance. I know such a thing as a "driving record" exists probably supplied by a company such as LexisNexis. My car insurance provided me a copy of my driving record.

So for example Person A has a pattern of behavior through different insurance companies that can be flagged while just looking at one insurance company's data might not show the data.

This is all wild speculation on my part more of a thought experiment on my part. Laws such as the FCRA are starting to address SOME of these issues but I'm not sure they are on top of all practices.

This type of tracking has become more common in the age of "big data."

https://personalreports.lexisnexis.com/access_your_personal_...

That's interesting though that they didn't like hiring outside vendors. I would think they would want outside vendors because their products were already vetted for regulation compliance.