fondue

"Attempting to measure the performance of a political party statistically and without being influenced by the personalities involved is interesting and new."

I've been presented with these exact same arguments back in High School, which was in the early 80s. You can skew the numbers to favor Republicans by just choosing the data ranges from when the politicians actually joined office.

In over two decades of being involved in politics in some capacity I've found that the only difference between the two major parties is how they want to legislate control of my life.

"Forgot that air supply runs out faster the deeper you are."

I ran into this one on my certification dive; we were diving on the Madera in Lake Superior in December, I was having trouble keeping my bouyancy which I chalked up to inexperience but later discovered was a leaky BCD. When we went to move to the stern which is in 60 feet of water we all checked our air and I had a quarter of a tank left! Everyone else had at least three quarters of a tank. None the less, the rest of the dive was called off and we had to swim back to shore. I asked why we didn't at least try the deeper dive and he reminded me that you consume much more air in deeper water, pretty much double every 30 feet, that we wouldn't have even made it to the stern before I ran out.

I would have chose the Galaxy S as the top; faster and feature compatible with the Nexus and longer batter life than the Evo. I own one (personal bias I guess).

I think the best part of this Daily is in the comments; more time is spent criticizing the code than is in discussing the social implications of putting something that sensitive in a repository.

What a terrific article! I found a video on how to play the flute, split an atom, how to construct a box girder bridge, and how to irrigate the Sahara desert and create vast areas of viable farmland, and finally how to cure all known diseases.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNfGyIW7aHM

I don't know if they A/B tested their games but I do know that while I was playing the parts of the game I thought were terrible slowly disappeared and what I found appealing increased. One game mechanic I thought was terrible was the situation where you had to go back to earlier 'levels' of the game to complete your sets of items. They introduced trading. They also completely divorced the PvP aspect from the collecting game so you could practically ignore anyone setting a hit on you.

Also, I would totally play the big red orgasm button game and much like someone addicted to a TASP, die from it.

The entire article omits the fact that Zynga furiously iterates on their designs and improves them. I remember when I first joined Facebook and finding Mafia Wars to be just a cheap knock-off of other games with practically the same name. Within months Mafia Wars was streamlining their game, adding new experiences, and making the game more responsive and pleasant to look at. Their competition, from whom they copied, hadn't changed at all.

What makes inequality bad? People aren't born identical in every aspect, is it bad that I was born smarter than much of the general population? Should I be dumbed down to make things more equal?

I wonder how many teachers they could have hired to improve their student to teacher ratios with that money? I know of course that it was a bond that bought the new schools but with the money they are spending on the bond payments they could have instead hired more teachers.

As someone who came here from a reference from a friend and had no idea what HN was about, I have no idea who Jessica Livingston is.

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

Oh, okay.

I know in games like Starcraft players are obsessed with their Actions Per Minute (APM); the more you click the higher your APM and the better you do in the game.

Yes, you can see a whole host of problems with this logic.

None the less, my impression is that it looks like this game hooks into that sentiment and tests your ability to react quickly.

There is a 'Via: Hacker News' at the bottom of the article.

"The problem is that the GOP have a very long history of getting into power, then passing laws that help line their own pockets and protect their wealth from being "stolen" by the government ..."

Clearly we should elect more Democrats! Oh, wait, they have a history of getting into power and then passing laws protecting unions and paying off organizations which help them steal votes.

In so far as trickle-down economics is concerned, it certainly worked better than the command-driven economy the Democrats and current administration are pushing us towards.

How many years do they need to keep it open to break even? How many years is the expected lifetime of the facilty?

Or the biggest question ... how many teachers could have been kept on payroll if they hadn't built it?

Read further and answered my own questions ...

"Airbags were never an option for MSL, which is the size of a car and weighs 1,950 pounds, almost five times as much as Spirit and Opportunity (also known as the Mars Exploration Rovers). Airbags cannot be scaled up enough to support MSL and still fit inside the launcher. And previous airbag-equipped landers made unsteered, ballistic entries, resulting in a relatively large landing zone "footprint," or error ellipse, limiting the number of possible landing sites."

Why use a sky crane when they've already proven they can get a great landing from one of those bouncing-ball type things? It seems like they decided to introduce additional points of failure for neat-o-ness.

> I've seen no evidence that food portions are smaller.

You need to pay more attention then, it's been nick-named the 'Grocery Shrink Ray' and practically all companies are doing it now. The strategy is basically either change the shape of the container (smaller) and keep the same price or to raise the price. Here is a good link to follow;

http://consumerist.com/tag/grocery-shrink-ray/

Oh, and my favorite one yet, "Now with 25% more!" while not actually offering any more.

Here's a video of the ball drop test mentioned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTX79QU-1-U

Compared to regular glass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=forSXEJIM3E

I vaguely remember that after the concorde was in service a few years some engineer said that there was no way it could be repeated. He was asked, "Because of the technology?" and replied, "No, there are so many regulations now it would be impossible to complete a design."

Is it just me or does it seem like this is a hammer looking for a nail?

Wow, they're giving everyone a free case. How much is that? I know it's about $20 retail but how much does it cost them as a write-down?

No, they're pushing, "there's no conclusive proof that climate change is driven primarily by human activity." There are plenty of papers written on climate change and lots of evidence for it ... Ice Age evidence, glacier growth and receding, etc,...

... and prepare themselves for things to be made cheap elsewhere?

Bring back random signatures!!!!

I imagine it's to steer away the rubes.

Well, the exclusive contract with AT&T does end in 2011 ...

Must all jobs create long term value and serve a basic human need?

I guess pretty much every job would serve a basic human need (to be employed) to someone who needs to be employed in order to make ends meet.

I guess what I'm trying to get at it is that your post read like someone trying to apply what they thought the world should be like and not how it actually is.

For example, if we have an excess of farmers that would be cleared up in the market as those not making enough income to continue being farmers would pack up and leave the occupation or try to get loans to maintain their employment long enough to weather the current conditions. The only time I see problems in employment is when an entity steps in to maintain a job when the market is already dismissing it.

"Directed by Alan Smithee"

What's a 'superficial job'?

He lost his job because the comments lost him all credibility amongst those he would be covering.

Also, are there any conservatives on Journolist? I thought it was a liberal echo-chamber?