Michal Cierniak › Likes

Congrats! - Joel Kotarski

that's awesome, man. you changed my and many others' life, right here! I personally owe you a lot. - Ahmet Alp Balkan

That would be 1 ? - Just Joe

But the skepticism about Khan Academy isn’t just a matter of wealth or credentials of Khan or his backers. It’s a matter of pedagogy. No doubt, Khan has done something incredible by creating thousands of videos, distributing them online for free, and now designing an analytics dashboard for people to monitor and guide students’ movements through the Khan Academy material. And no doubt, lots of people say they’ve learned a lot by watching the videos. The ability pause, rewind, and replay is often cited as the difference between “getting” the subject matter through classroom instruction and “getting it” via Khan Academy’s lecture-demonstrations. But that’s the crux of the problem right there: lecture-demonstrations. Although there’s a tech component here that makes this appear innovative, that’s really a matter of form, not content, that’s new - Howard Rheingold

"Hoofing it to shops and services is easy in San Francisco and Oakland, according to a survey being released today that ranks the two among the top 10 most walkable big cities in the country. Among the nation's 50 largest cities, San Francisco was the second most walkable, after New York, and Oakland ranked 10th, said Seattle's Walk Score, which assigns numerical ratings on a scale of 1 to 100 that quantify how close any address is to amenities like grocery stores, restaurants, schools and parks. Being within one-quarter mile of destinations garners the highest ratings. An independent report from CEOs for Cities showed that each Walk Score point was worth $3,000 in home value. "Since the MLS prohibits using the word 'walking' with marketing, Walk Score offers a nondiscriminatory interpretation, provided by a third party, of where the property is located in relation to stores, restaurants, public transportation," said Francine Di Palma, an agent with Pacific Union in San Francisco.... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

LOL @ Bruce - Anika

Paul, please let me know if you've received my message. - prinzdezibel

so what is unconditional approval? - ..и ещё раз помыла голову

По ссылке фотки голых когомологий без СМС, очевидно - Not anymore

now a retired systems analyst :) - A. T.

And, as with some other random sequence generators, I suppose you'll have to discard the first several characters as they are likely to be biased. - Simon

Emacs has graphical menus. - Bruce Lewis

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” -Bertrand Russell - Eivind

"Meet Andrew Myers, one of the most patient modern-​​day sculp­tors around. This Laguna Beach, California-​​based artist goes through a multi-​​step process to cre­ate incred­i­ble works of art you almost have to see (or touch) to believe." - AJ Batac :) from Bookmarklet

язычники! - 9000

вы уж помягче с нами, пожалуйста - но я не это хотел сказать

"After reading many of the Iraq/Afghan/Cablegate logs I am compelled to inform my fellow citizens that I saw nothing in these logs that could endanger our troops or public servants. Here’s what I did see: I saw Iraq war logs that painted a very bleak picture of the situation there which doesn’t match up with the “improved security” that’s been reported by the “Defense” Department for years. I saw proof of public officials acting dishonestly and abusing their posts. Overall, I saw an out of control government that is in over its head and does more to endanger the lives of its people than any publishing organization ever could. I volunteered to protect this country under the impression that my government followed the will of the American People and adhered to the US Constitution. As it turns out, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were never constitutionally declared and despite public opinion being against the two wars they continue to grow more destructive. My experiences in these wars... more... - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

We're not becoming a plutocracy, we already are one. - Piaw Na

In this page's comments, the paper's author Dan Ariely talks about a significant issue with the "ideal" chart. The question they asked participants was: "imagine that if you joined this [imaginary] nation, you would be randomly assigned to a place in the distribution...". That could strongly skew the answers to a more evenly distribution of wealth since your income will be entirely based on chance, not merit. http://paul.kedrosky.com/archive... - Simon

Another interesting data point mentioned in that discussion: "One thing that we did not include in the original paper is that we also asked professional economists for their estimates of the wealth distribution -- they were more accurate than the general sample of the US population but they too underestimated the inequity of the distribution." - Simon

Congratulations! - RAPatton

It's never too late to say CONGRATULATIONS!! He's a very lucky man, Erica. Best wishes to the both of you. ::) - Harold Cabezas

"But now some of the cables provided by WikiLeaks to Spanish newspaper El Pais confirm that the US government has pushed other countries to adopt measures that go beyond US law, unleashing the fury of Spanish Internet users. A set of cables reported on by El Pais make clear that the US government played a key role in Spain’s controversial website blocking law – the 2009 Sustainable Economy Bill, which the Spanish government is now trying to sneak it through a Committee in a pre-holiday session on 21st December. (Spanish readers, please see Action you can take below). El Pais reports that in February 2008 the US government threatened to put Spain on the annual Special 301 Watch List issued by the Office of the US Trade Representative unless the new Spanish government announced new measures to address Internet piracy, including a law that requires ISPs to terminate the Internet access of subscribers accused three times of file sharing - like the French “HADOPI” Three Strikes law." - Paul Buchheit from Bookmarklet

Fortunately, it looks like Spain rejected the website blocking law. - Gabe

Another fun one: [the morrow] vs [tomorrow] http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph... - Simon

Oh! - Amit Patel

"4TH AMENDMENT UNDERCLOTHES Now there's a way to protest those intrusive TSA X-ray scanners without saying a word. 4th Amendment Metallic ink-printed undershirts and underwear." - April Buchheit from Bookmarklet

Only applies to domestic flights, though. =P - Andrew C (✓)

Some of those blog comments are sickening. :( - Ruchira S. Datta

I feel your pain, but see http://www.eff.org/issues... for a counterpoint. My approach is to allow but moderate anonymous comments (that is, if anyone ever commented on my blog). - Antonio Piccolboni

"Under “civil asset forfeiture” laws, [the police] typically do not have to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that a crime was committed, or even charge anyone with an offence. What is more, the money raised by auctioning seized houses, boats and cars is often used to boost the budgets of the police department that did the seizing. This conflict of interest has predictable consequences. Total federal seizures have exploded from $400m in 2001 to $1.3 billion in 2008. State data are patchier, but the trend appears to be sharply upward. Police and prosecutors deny that the system is widely abused." - Simon from Bookmarklet

The system is not widely abused. If it were, this would be a well-known problem and there would be congressional investigations and such. Instead it is a "deeply abused" system, that is most organizations do not abuse it, but those which do often abuse the system quite heavily. - Gabe

WHAT! This is so beyond ridiculous. I am trying to convince myself The Onion has taken over treehugger. Reading, but can't believe it. Crazy. - Anika

ty mr simon - chaz2b

"Exchange student mugged in alleyway. They grabbed his phone and iPod and kicked him while he lay on the ground. Warriors in full ninja garn scared off thugs. Attack took place outside ninja school." - Simon from Bookmarklet

(un)lucky student :) - Gani Simsek