tszyn

I think the parent is saying that the maximum allowed number of passengers was 50 fewer than the # of seats. Meaning that 50 seats were never up for booking.

The parent's point was that courts can only get data that are in Google's possession. Every time you give sensitive data to a third party, you make it easy for the government to get their hands on it.

It's really impossible to rate your life numerically in relation to a "best possible life", so in order to give some kind of answer to this vague question, respondents fall back on some quantifiable measure like money.

A separate issue is that the question "How satisfied are you WITH your life?" is not the same as "How satisfied are you IN your life?". It's possible to have high moment-to-moment happiness, but have a negative view of one's life; or vice versa. Daniel Kahnemann explains this in this TED talk (13:30):

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_exper...

He even mentions the Gallup World Poll.

What if women are equal to men in coding aptitude, but simply don't want to code? Is that still a waste that we should do something about?

A friend of mine recently got a rash (I don't think it was a classic bullseye pattern) and some fatigue. She didn't notice a tick. Went to a doctor, suggested that it might be Lyme disease -- doctor told her if she'd had a tick, she would have noticed it, so it must be allergy. A month later she was in the hospital with a confirmed Lyme diagnosis.

If I get an unexplained rash with flu-like symptoms, even if I don't see a tick, I'm taking antibiotics just in case. Better safe than sorry.

I think any geek interested in improving their English should check out my website: http://www.antimoon.com especially the "How to learn English" section, which is a guide based on my own experiences and some language acquisition theory. http://www.antimoon.com/how/howtolearn.htm

I've been writing about effective language learning techniques since 2000, with an emphasis on pronunciation (which is an oft-neglected topic in English classrooms). The site is written in simple English, so if you're a native speaker of English, don't be put off by the spartan writing style.

It's terrifying how far European "leaders" are willing to go to suck up to the US Government.

Possible reason why Poland was among those countries: The wave of anti-ACTA protests was the strongest in Poland of all European countries. We are historically a rebellious, freedom-loving nation (just think of the the anti-communist movement, many uprisings against foreign occupants). So Snowden might be hoping for some public support from Poland's youth.

But yeah, if you remember how stupidly long the Polish government held out in their support of ACTA (despite its having few advantages for Poland), you have to realize that the US Government can be very persuasive.

While it would make me proud if my country granted asylum to Snowden, I'm quite sure that no European politician will dare provoke the wrath of the American Empire -- there would be no clear benefits but obvious disadvantages.

I found this pretty awesome explanation for why a microwave oven doesn't block cell phone reception: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/5410

Clearly, this whole "cell phone in a fridge" thing is a clever attempt to make Snowden lose his nerd cred.

Tried two different types of anti-static bags -- even if I use two layers, the phone doesn't lose a single bar of signal strength.

Probably not, but they also won't be able to hear me if I put the phone in another room. Or if I leave it in a car.

I just put my phone in the refrigerator and called it -- works perfectly. Then I tried the same thing with a microwave oven (following pilsetnieks's suggestions) -- didn't even lose one bar on the signal indicator. It did kill the Wi-Fi reception, so clearly the oven is blocking the 2.4 GHz frequency as it should.

Edit: Also tried a cookie can. (And anti-static bags -- see below.) Faraday cage my ass.

Clarification: I use a Nokia. Maybe the technique works only on iPhones? I've heard they have some reception issues.

This is awesome! It would be great to be able to play this with your friends, with every player getting the same set of locations to guess.

Try googling / binging "L1 interference".

I've been thinking about this for years. Recently, I tried to persuade Double Fine to introduce some English-learner-friendly features in their upcoming adventure game, but I got the feeling that it's a very low priority issue for them.

Here's a blog post I wrote about this topic: http://www.antimoon.com/blog/2012/06/making-adventure-games-...

Exactly. I used to run a small StackExchange site. One day I had a look at my user dump and was surprised to see how many duplicate (and triplicate) accounts there were.

Exactly. P(results|luck) and P(luck|results) are two very different things. We don't know the probability that the results are due to "just luck" (whatever that means).

Thanks. That makes sense. The more you stand to lose by drifting off, the less likely you are to do it. Even if the cost of getting back on track is just pressing F11 or seeking back in the video, it can be a significant disincentive.

I think the whole computing experience -- sitting upright in front of a screen with a mouse in your palm -- puts your mind in "hunting mode". Web surfing is all about clicking, clicking, clicking. It's like a videogame -- a series of clicks produces a reward (or not): a funny video, a witty exchange, an interesting piece of news, an update from a friend.

I think this induces a certain state of videogame-style excitement, which is incompatible with "calm consumption", as when you're reading a book. On the Web, one minute you're playing "the Web game", the next you're supposed to read a serious text on math, history or geography. But you can't focus because your brain wants to get another dopamine fix. You need to calm down first, which takes time.

That's an interesting point. Why do you think it is easier to get distracted while reading a Web page than while watching a video? Do you think the argument still holds when you're viewing a page in full-screen mode?

I've been wondering about this myself. Why are videos supposed to be better than the same content presented as a textual tutorial (with some multimedia content like animations)?

I can think of several advantages of textual content over video: - you can compare different parts of the text (for example, to discover an analogy) more easily - you can read at your own pace (you can't slow down the video) - skipping between different places is easier (just move your eye instead of using a slider) - it's easier to find the exact place you want to read - textual content can be easily revised by the author, which enables gradual improvement and error correction

Can someone please explain to me what the big deal about video is?

I think this is a short-lived strategy that translates poorly to other types of content.

It works for Coelho because reading long-form content sucks on the devices available to most users today, so people are forced to buy a paper book if they want a good experience. In other words, the free digital copy serves as a kind of crippled demo of the real thing -- like trial versions of software.

However, in 5-10 years, tablets and ebook readers will become more popular and many more people will be able to read those free digital copies on devices which provide a reading experience that rivals that of printed books. (This is already possible on iPads and Kindles, but these devices are not widespread yet.) We'll see how many people want to buy Mr Coelho's printed books when they are able to get almost the same experience for free on TPB.

With a free digital alternative, the only people who buy something from Coelho will be those who do it out of sheer gratitude. If you are a Paulo Coelho, you can survive on that. Extremely popular writers will do fine regardless of piracy -- kind of like Facebook is doing fine despite the lack of a serious business model due to the sheer number of users. For less popular authors, the "free digital giveaway" strategy won't work. Coelho doesn't see that, maybe because he is assuming that every writer can become a Coelho if only they give their stuff away for free.

As a case in point, we already know Coelho's strategy (give away digital version, charge for physical version) does not work for short-form content. Just look at the newspapers. They're doing the exact same thing: giving away their stuff for free online and asking people to subscribe to the physical version for a fee. Not many takers, unfortunately, as the free online version is "good enough".

Needless to say, I don't see this approach working for movies, music and software, either. In these cases, physical versions just don't offer enough value over digital versions for most people.

That only works if you believe you should have paid for it. An increasing number of people believe they are entitled to free copies because that's what they've been getting all their lives.

This whole piece of news is total B.S. There is no last-minute ruling. There was a ruling of the ECJ on NOVEMBER 24, not January 24. See: http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/Jo2_16799/?annee=2011

The reason for the confusion is that PAP (Polish Press Agency) reported this "news" today, giving the wrong date, and all the major news outlets re-reported it without checking (how hard is it to go to the ECJ website?). TVN24 has now published a correction, but the information has already spread and now many people think ACTA has been made illegal.

The truth is that the ECJ has never made any ruling about ACTA. It has only ruled that ISP filtering is illegal in the EU, but that is not directly in contradiction with ACTA.

Sorry, this is pure misinformation. The ECJ ruling was made on NOVEMBER 24, not January 24. See:

http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/Jo2_16799/?annee=2011

PAP (Polish Press Agency) for some strange reason reported this today, giving the wrong date, and all the major news outlets reported it without checking. (TVN24 now published a correction)

The ruling does not affect ACTA directly because there is nothing about ISP filtering in ACTA.

The blog post you linked says ACTA contains a three-strikes provision. That used to be true, but it isn't anymore. Just read the final text.

Furthermore, I see nothing in ACTA that contradicts the ECJ ruling (ACTA does not say anything specific about ISP filtering) and I haven't seen any serious source claim that this ruling makes ACTA illegal.

It fossilizes a framework of copyright laws that was created before the Internet. Each country that signs ACTA commits itself to preserving the existing system of intellectual property protection, which many consider to be antiquated and out of touch with the digital world. It ensures that no alternative ideas for managing intellectual property will arise in those countries, which is of course the goal of the United States government and the rightsholders that lobbied for this treaty.

In addition to limiting the flexibility of individual countries without giving them anything in return (other than a pat on the back from Uncle Sam), ACTA contains a number of vague provisions that could lead to more stringent IP regulations. For example:

"ordering the alleged infringer (...) to provide information on any persons (...) involved in any aspect of the infringement" (notice the broad scope)

"endeavoring to promote cooperative efforts within the business community to effectively address trademark and copyright or related rights infringement" ("encouraging" ISPs to "voluntarily" cut off users?).

ACTA also contains provisions that go beyond what is currently law in many of the countries that are about to sign it. For example, it introduces broader anti-circumvention laws that are currently in effect in Poland. It also provides that prosecutors must be able to act out of their own initiative (ex officio) on copyright cases -- even if the rightsholder does not complain.

It's hard to say what the net effect is. It's true that such attacks give the government an effective, if fallacious, argument: "we cannot give in to blackmail". On the other hand, large-scale media coverage started only after the Anonymous hacked the government websites. Before the attacks, the Polish media were not interested in ACTA. This in turn helped mobilize politicians from opposition parties and, I think, also the protesters.

Let me just point out that, according to the research done by Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics, money does not win elections, so if you agree with Levitt's conclusions, financing Smith's opponents is not the best way to proceed.

Me neither. From what I've read so far it seems it would only affect ISPs, search engines, ad networks and payment processors.