arafa

The biggest objection I have to self-reported studies and the conclusions drawn from them in articles like this is that, according to research in books like Thinking, Fast and Slow, a lot of self-reported facts (including beliefs) are often wrong. Revealed preferences will often show that people believe something different from what they report. And people will fervently believe they told you the right thing. Also, a lot of the findings of these studies end up not being repeatable or have very small effects. I've gotten to the point where I unconsciously put little value in opinion polls and other self-reported data, unless I have a good reason to think otherwise.

I'll never forget our tour guide in Zimbabwe saying his last paycheck before dollarization was 4 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars. For a tour guide. So yeah, they might have bigger problems than Cecil the Lion.

Specifically regarding this story, apparently some of the facts are in dispute. That the drone was hovering a few feet outside of the yard (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/08/new-drone-telemet...) and that the drone owners came in one car and cursed at the shooter (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/kentucky-man-shoo...). Might be sloppy reporting. It would make the article less click-baity and doesn't paint the shooter in a great light.

edit: I see someone else posted similar points while I was digging up the links.

I enjoy that they added the dataset for download this year, and some other changes. But the dataset's not available at the moment. And it's in .xls format when it should just be a csv.

Tried DSC (even with the quad blades) for several months, had terrible shaves and switched to a Fusion and never looked back. I wanted to like them since they're cheap and the marketing was cool, but the product just didn't live up to expectations.

As somebody who has typed in Dvorak continuously for the last 13 years, I agree one hundred percent with this post. I find that I type about the same (a little slower maybe) than in my QWERTY days, anywhere from 70-100 WPM on average. It's all about comfort, since my wrist pain basically went away for me (and my brother) since the switch.

It's not for everyone. But you can remap (and set a key to go back and forth) easily on most computers these days. I find myself mostly on my own devices too. Some people (myself included) can also switch back to QWERTY and be functional. It feels so wrong, though, that I avoid it whenever possible. Never felt hobbled after that first few weeks learning, which were terrible. That's where a natural curiosity for learning new things really helps.

I'm a little disappointed in this article, in that upper face movements are generally (as far as I've read and seen) very reliable indicators of emotion. The only two common misconceptions I've read about are this, which is a confusion likely caused by brow furrowing and lower eyebrow tensing used in some anger faces and while concentrating, and when some women crinkle their nose when they enjoy something, which is also used when feeling disgust.

In general, people (especially men, who perform less well in face-reading tests) are more likely to miss a emotion on someone's face or not know what it means than misinterpret it (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2273571/Why-men-ha...).

I am a Strange Loop elaborates on the ideas from GEB, while also being more personal (which GEB definitely isn't). Some people I knew thought it was repetitive, less enjoyable, and less artistic than GEB. In some ways I agree with those criticisms. But if you want to know more about how self-reference actually leads to consciousness and more about Hofstadter the person I recommend it.

I went through this whole class when it was linked here a couple of months back and really enjoyed it. I'm a self-taught programmer that needed updates on some modern concepts and a refresher on some other stuff, plus a bit of help with Python syntax. If you're like me (or a beginner) it's great. Thanks Zed.

SPOT is based on the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), a method developed by Paul Ekman to read faces (familiar to fans of the show Lie to Me): http://www.denverpost.com/editorials/ci_24533526/face-it-tsa...

While the data behind using FACS to spot emotions (EMFACS) is solid (https://books.google.com/books?id=W_npWdrHGFcC&pg=PA47&lpg=P...), the record on using it to spot lies, terrorists, or otherwise discovering the intentions behind those emotions is not good (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/gao-...).

One huge issue is that a scared terrorist looks the same as a scared person singled out for screening, and there are many times more of the latter. This is a specific issue Ekman brings up in his work when using FACS for lie detection. FACS is much better in finding out how someone is feeling rather than what they're thinking. But you need to know intentions to figure out if someone is a terrorist.