OMFG !! and i thought dental pain was the worst pain one could endure !!
- Joel Alenchery
Says the article: "Light is scarce in the soupy deep, but the candirú does not need to see… it can taste the traces of urea and ammonia that are expelled from breathing gills." ummm...i totally got flashbacks of silence of the lambs when i read that. scariness.
- Ginger Makela Riker
Yikes! Can't quite figure out what the 3rd photo is...maybe I don't want to know!
- Yeong-Ping Koh
"Those who suggest that startups should only hire A players are grade inflators. They're calling B players A players. The actual A players are too rare for this to be a practical hiring plan."
- Andrew C (✓)
from Bookmarklet
I can't believe Dubai is still doing so many huge projects!
- Amit Patel
Is land particularly scarce there? One of my elementary school friends is a partner at Fosters and was a main architect for the Index Tower -- one of the tallest buildings in Dubai. Must have some really interesting problems to solve!
- Simon
It doesn't seem like land would be scarce but they seem to act like it. I suspect desirable land, which has a view of water instead of desert, might be scarce…
- Amit Patel
"All public areas will be crystallized by Swarovski," huh. Pretty sure Dubai's skyscrapers are a prestige thing, not driven by economics. The city doesn't look like a dense packed downtown; it looks like medium-rise sprawl with the occasional mega-skyscraper poking out. The emirate of Dubai itself only has a land area around 1500 mi^2.
- ⓞnor
One exception to the rule was "Quora for Intranets" which I really liked until I thought "Why wouldn't Quora offer Quora for Intranets?
- Kevin Fox
I agree in general... but, but, but "Uber for pizza" is a fantastic, unambiguous idea that somebody seriously needs to implement.
- ⓞnor
from Android
Yeah. As I was writing the post I thought about changing the name. Uber for Pizza actually sounds pretty darned good if you're not picky about what style of pizza you get.
- Kevin Fox
They need standardized half-baked pizza on independently operated vans roaming the city. Flash bake them on the way and you have hot fresh pizza in 10 minutes or less.
- Kevin Fox
Okay, the post has been updated to address this controversy.
- Kevin Fox
Dislike! You know that if things don't go well in the first six months, they'll try some weird pivot and next thing you know you've got a taxicab with anchovies.
- Larry Hosken
I don't think it supports my device yet.
- Morton Fox
I tried it on my Galaxy Tab, whose stock browser is pretty weak. Firefox has a better designed UI, but the rendering is a bit chunky, and (more importantly) it was prone to sluggishness and occasional crashes so I eventually uninstalled it. Maybe in another rev?
- ⓞnor
from Android
"Teenager Alice Bonham's life feels crazy after she meets Jack. With his fondness for pink Chuck Taylors and New Wave, he's unlike anyone she knows. Then she meets his brother, Peter. Even though he can't stand the sight of her, she's drawn to him. Falling for two guys isn't even the worst of her problems. Jack and Peter are vampires, and Alice finds herself caught between love and her own blood..." http://www.goodreads.com/book...
- ⓞnor
This is a pretty good summary of why HFT could be destabilizing. The problem isn't with low-latency trade execution -- the problem is that there is a particular business model built on low-latency trade execution, and that model interacts poorly with tail risks. Humans are as usual doing poorly estimating or even understanding tail risks. We need a system where firms making bad decisions can be restarted (with the old bums liquidated) without the restart hurting other innocent people. But we don't have such a system today. "A best bid today isn't a bid to own shares at a price, or even a traditional dealer or market maker's attempt to provide liquidity. As much as 50% of the time it's just a firm trying to scalp a few basis points as quickly as possible. When that scalper's bid is executed, it then becomes an unexploded competitive liquidity demand, with the timer set, as Kirilenko found, at about two minutes, or even less."
- Daniel Dulitz
It doesn't make sense to me. What's a "scalper" supposed to be? Describe "unexploded competitive liquidity demand"? Their unexplained use of connotative terminology seems highly suspect.
- ⓞnor
ⓞnor, there are multiple paragraphs on the definition and connotation of the term "scalper" in the linked article of which this is an excerpt. I do think it's worth reading, and significantly clearer.
- Ruchira S. Datta
"[Adapting Paul Auster's] City of Glass was presumably a labor of love for Mazzucchelli and Paul Karasik [...]. I mean, why else would they adapt a 1980s postmodern noir mystery into comic-book form? I can't think of any other American comics project remotely like this. [...] Very seldom does a cartoonist try his or her hand at a contemporary novel. Whatever possessed Karasik and Mazzucchelli to do this? And then nobody ever did it again."
- Andrew C (✓)
from Bookmarklet
I just read this (Kindle edition!). Have you?
- ⓞnor
from Android
I loved this article and I'm glad to know about both the book and the website. Also Feffer's Tantrum, which I hadn't heard of before. *happy face*
- Marianne
I read the book long ago as a (more) callow youth; I would probably benefit from reading it again now.
- Andrew C (✓)
from Android
I have been aware of this since around the time it came out. I can't believe I don't own it. May have to fix that.
- Steele Lawman
I just found Indy Magazine's spring 2004 issue online - they spotlighted City of Glass with four articles: http://www.indyworld.com/indy... . - the Mazzucchelli interview includes two pages of his original stab at an adaptation, without Karasik, which is pretty interesting as an artifact.
- Andrew C (✓)
As some of you know, Violet's birth was a bit rough. Thankfully, she's all fine, but I thought I'd crunch up some numbers to tell a story about health insurance.
The insurance company paid $44,208 to cover the remaining amount up to their negotiated rate, which was $47,423.
- Tudor Bosman
If we hadn't had insurance, we would have been liable for the hospitals' and doctors' "rack rate", which would have been $157,523.
- Tudor Bosman
So if we hadn't had insurance, not only would we have been on the hook for the full amount, we wouldn't have been able to take advantage of Aetna's negotiated discounts, and we would have had to pay 3.3 times more.
- Tudor Bosman
This would drive most Americans without insurance to bankruptcy. Have a complicated childbirth, declare bankruptcy, and have no money to raise your child.
- Tudor Bosman
I think it would depend on your income level, if a birth would drive you to bankruptcy. I had insurance (PPO-COBRA) with my daughter. I had to pay nearly $8K of the $30K that was billed. Considering, I had no job at that time, it was a struggle. With my son, not only did I not have insurance, but we were broke (on the verge of losing our car and apartment). I was on Medi-Cal when I had him. I paid nothing, even for follow-up visits. The kids were delivered at the same hospital.
- Anika
Technically, even individuals can negotiate somewhat. Not that anyone should have to do that.
- ⓞnor
from Android
But I only learned about this from Thomas Hawk first because of reverse chronological posting. ;-) Had I been reading in the order posted, Kevin Fox would have been my "news source."
- michael silverton
Is there anyway i can mark this as "i don't like this" i feel guilty marking this news as "i like this.
- Adam Jackson
How about just change "Like" to "Bump"?
- Roshan Vyas
Definitely feel bad about "Liking" this. Bump suggestion is good
- mashable
Launched this around my office, and people are suprised about me knowing this already.
- Stephen Lecheler
I think "Like" should be "highlight" instead.
- Richard Lawler
Behold the power of live journalisim. Just got a huge burst of data from Scoble about the plane crash in New York.
- Stephen Lecheler
That Twitpic picture made it on MSNBC and CNN wild.
- Mona Nomura
suyun üzerine düşmesi büyük şans kimse ölmemiş. hatta tv den gördüm az önce bir vatandaş sevinçle çıkıyordu uçaktan.
- Volkan Yılmaz
I found out about this and the Steve Jobs news via Twitter. Change is happening...
- Louis Gray
Crossposted: This is "augmented social cognition" in everyday action -- moniter, moniter, signal spike, relay, relay, process, relay, react, involve, resolve, reset. Rudimentary, yes, but worthy of closer research! http://friendfeed.com/rooms...
- michael silverton
Waiting at PHL for the first US Air flight I've taken in a long time. I'm glad everyone is ok. I was relieved to hear the evacuation was orderly and hope ppl take this as a reminder that once and a while you should actually read the instructions for the emergency exit.
- Sarah Miller
Michael, good point on "source" How news gets propagated from now on is going to get very interesting analytically.
- Melanie Reed
The path that got me the news on this oddly was having TwitterGadget open in Gmail: CNN BreakingNews pushes it to my Desktop slightly faster than NTARC twitters it in my TwitterGadget window. I immediately tweet to my followers and then go to check FF
- Melanie Reed
macro- blogsearch has in general 270 macro blogs on this story ; compared with maybe 100.000 twitters on this, extremely slow as expected ; btw, coincidence that google took down 4 of their services today??? maybe they needed new server space for * this* [did google/nasa crash the hudson plane ?? [cp 2.o theory]...
more...
- ewing2001akaNicomedy2010
^^^ PAGING SPAM KILLER TEAM. Thx.
- Micah
from YouFeed
Kevin, are you talking about the ewing2001akaNicomedy2010 account? I'm still seeing it.
- Rochelle
It's not actually spam. Read the comment: it's on topic. The rest of the account isn't spammy either.
- Akiva
No, we weren't talking about ewing2001. There was a spammer (username suatuigamala) leaving commentspam in the post. It's an unfortunate artifact that Micah's calling-out now points to an innocent commenter after the spam was removed. :-)
- Kevin Fox
Summary: Americans are too stupid to understand the Gini co-efficient, so put up with inequality that generates violent protests in other countries.
- Piaw Na
There's also the "don't oppress the rich, it could be me one day" factor. I still shake my head over the insane statistic that 20% of Americans think they're in the top 1% of wealth (or possibly income, I forget) _and another 19% think they could be one day_.
- Andrew C (✓)
Hmm, top 1% income is $350K; top 1% wealth is (est.) $4.5M... in case you're wondering if you're actually in either category.
- ⓞnor
Seriously, while listening to NPR's interview of a Tunisian describing the how the government kept telling them the economic indicators looked great when so many people were living in poverty and couldn't find a job, I couldn't help but wonder why the same thing wasn't already happening here. Although it is what the Tea Party claims it wants to do…
- Victor Ganata
Is there a comparison of economic mobility between Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and the US? For example, I expect people would rather live in a meritocracy even if it has more inequality. Obviously it's all a matter of degrees though, and I vaguely recall studies that show the US has worse inequality *and* economic mobility than several European nations...
- Simon
I would rather live in a place that's so nice it doesn't have mass uprisings....
- Andrew C (✓)
(and it's been gone for over a day now, so I doubt it's going to spontaneously reappear.)
- Andrew C (✓)
No, I don't use AppBrain. Till now, the Market app had been good enough. Should I?
- Andrew C (✓)
Well, it keeps a back up of your downloads and you can use it to reinstall apps. It came in handy for me this summer, when I had to do a hard reset. There were a few apps not showing in the market, that I knew I had.
- Anika
from Android
It typically only persistently keeps purchased apps. Those are the only ones that follow my phone between ROM installs.
- Gunnyman™
Huh! Until now, anyways, the market app had always kept a record of all apps I'd downloaded from the market, free and purchased. It'd be asinine to do it any other way, considering I hadn't turned on auto-updating for most of my apps...
- Andrew C (✓)
Yeah, most of my apps are free apps and the Market has most of them, but never all of them.
- Anika
History in what sense? Like, has it forgotten which apps you paid for? Can you send me a detailed bug report (offline)?
- ⓞnor
from Android
I worded my previous post badly. I've never paid for an android app, only downloaded free ones. But under 1.5, 1.6, and 2.1, the Market app had always - till maybe a month ago or less - always kept a full list of all apps I'd downloaded in it under the "downloads" button, which was recently renamed "my apps".
- Andrew C (✓)
from iPod
"By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's." -- Paul Krugman in 1998 - http://web.archive.org/web...
What _is_ the Internet's impact on the economy? Also, were fax machines ever a big deal?
- ⓞnor
from Android
The margins in the music industry have been hurt by the internet, arguably. And faxes were a big deal in that they could cut down your mail or courier expenses.
- Andrew C (✓)
from Android
Certainly the washing machine had a bigger impact...=)
- Andrew C (✓)
from Android
while the major record labels have been hurt (and i hope they go on hurting right into their graves), the actual songwriters/musicians have been LIBERATED by it.
- Joe Silence
The net effect might not be that big -- moving money from one place to another, mostly. But the impact feels big if you're a moved-from business or a moved-to business.
- Bruce Lewis
I don't understand why non-Apple laptop makers still insist on a VGA port. It's huge and clunky -- and it's (almost) 2011, most monitors have a HDMI port. (and if yours doesn't, use an external adapter) Also, unless your laptop is of the fit-in-your-pocket variety, you must include an SD card slot.
I think Glen is right -- more people have older, analog monitors than you think. On the flip side, Apple insists on DisplayPort, which requires expensive, powered, and often flaky adapters for dual-link DVI monitors (the vast majority of 30" screens). SD card slot: for camera image transfers? Isn't that better done over USB these days? USB SD readers don't seem like too much of a hassle if you really need to swap the card.
- ⓞnor
Monitors last a long time. I have one from 2001 and one from 2004. They both have DVI + VGA. I have no plans to replace them anytime soon. I might get a new computer every 2–3 years but not new monitors or keyboards.
- Amit Patel
Apart from monitors, I find myself connecting a laptop to a projector most times. I've never used a projector with a DVI or HDMI connection and I work with relatively modern equipment.
- no name
Projectors, projectors, projectors. Those Mac VGA dongles are expensive and easy to lose.
- Philip Z
I hadn't thought about the projector issue. I'm really surprised business projectors don't have HDMI or DVI ports.
- Andrew C (✓)
I use my VGA port all the time. I wouldn't want a laptop without one.
- Gabe
"It’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to “just this once,” based on a marginal cost analysis, as some of my former classmates have done, you’ll regret where you end up." - Clayton Christensen (http://www.anthonyandrew.com/executi...)
Thanks for sharing this. An interesting read so far.
- David Damore
Another great line near the end: "Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people."
- David Damore
"Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success." - thanks for sharing
- Bo Stern
I do wish his example was a little more inspiring than "I had made a personal commitment to God at age 16 that I would never play ball on Sunday."
- ⓞnor
...unless those principles are morally bankrupt or flawed, in which case the two percent could be the gateway to being a better and more successful person! All a question of perspective! Cheers J
- Jan Simmonds
Following on from Jan, principles are important but, given that the ones you pick might actually be misguided or flawed in some way, it's probably also important to know when to modify them based on enough evidence to the contrary. Taken to absurdity: "The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday."
- Simon
ⓞnor that is what makes it inspiring.
- Jason McGowan
Also, that's a lot of queries. It's implied that most of them are machine generated via the API. What are people doing?
- ⓞnor
Every time I open the Echofon app it runs my “saved searches”, even if I don't go into that tab, so I imagine I'm causing lots of automated searches.
- Amit Patel
I learned that the hard way during a crowded house party at night in the US. I saw a light switch just outside the restroom. I ended up turning the hallway lights on and shutting myself in a dark restroom.
- Simon
What's the ideal placement? I'm thinking presence detectors that somehow aren't sucky the way motion detectors usually are. Ideally you shouldn't have to think much about lights at all, right?
- ⓞnor
@e3r ideal is two switches, inside and outside. Same as stair lights in US, which are legally required to have two switches for safety.
- andrei_c
Under what circumstances is it good for the light switch for a room not actually be in the room?
- Gabe
Not sure. Perhaps if a room has no windows and 1) has a self-closing door or 2) is in an area with fairly low ambient light and doesn't let much spill light in, then it can be hard to find the light switch after entering the room. Another reason could be for safety if the room is small and there is wet environment (a sink nearby or lots of condensation).
- Simon
If it's hard to find a light switch in a dark room, the usual solution is to put a little neon lamp inside the switch so it glows when it's off. I believe it's called a "pilot light".
- Gabe
Apparently it's an art piece, not something on a menu. Too bad!
- Andrew C (✓)
from Bookmarklet
"Physical Pizza Networking Theory is meant to address the ontology of the social as material in art. Using mise en abyme to illuminate a relationship between the layers of material and our experience, and meta symbolic experience of pizza as a hearth, as meeting point, as cultural convergence, as party, as sculpture, as gift, as collage, as pie, and individuals as ingredients within...
more...
- ⓞnor
"Or as Pizarro told me on the phone, “The idea is not that people are or are not utilitarian; it’s that they will cite being utilitarian when it behooves them. People are aren’t using these principles and then applying them. They arrive at a judgement and seek a principle.” So we’ll tell a child on one day, as Pizarro’s parents told him, that ends should never justify means, then explain the next day that while it was horrible to bomb Hiroshima, it was morally acceptable because it shortened the war. We act — and then cite whichever moral system fits best, the relative or the absolute. Pizarro says this isn’t necessarily bad. It’s just different. It means we draw not so much on consistent moral principles as on a moral toolbox. And if these studies show we’re not entirely consistent, they also show we’re at least determined — really determined, perhaps, given the gyrations we go through to try to justify our actions — with behaving morally. We may choose from a toolbox — but the tools are clean."
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
Hey! I resemble that remark (whitey)! And I don't wanna die yet.
- Morgan
"I am still an optimist about rationality, and I cling to the one finding that I talked about, which is that when you point out people’s inconsistencies, they really are embarrassed."
- Clare Dibble
It's also interesting to look at the past through modern eyes. The Hiroshima example is an interesting one. From an absolute standpoint the dropping of two atomic bombs saved thousands of lives on both sides compared to a conventional war. Of course I can say that knowing that the war ended. That outcome wasn't guaranteed; the war could have continued despite that. Whatever I do I just try to not be contradictory in my actions and words. Hypocrisy is one of the biggest sins of all.
- George Burgyan
Pizarro and Dan Ariely need to meet, have a few beers, and flesh out these studies together. As an armchair behavioral economist (and fan of Ariely's work), I would interpret the results differently: we don't follow a "moral code" (or several), rather, moral codes follow our actions. Moral codes are rationalizations that we invent in order to feel better about ourselves; they don't guide our actions, they make us sleep better at night.
- Tudor Bosman
Sometimes (a vague, distorted approximation of a messy consensus version of) moral codes become law, and then they become a little more meaningful.
- ⓞnor
"Just as the MPAA is preparing to offer movies to customers at home while they're still in theaters by limiting playback to DRM-protected digital outputs only, the HDCP protocol they rely on may have been cracked wide open. All devices that support HDCP, like Blu-ray players, set-top boxes and displays with HDMI inputs, have their own set of keys to encrypt and decrypt protected data and if keys for a particular device are compromised, they can be revoked by content released in the future which will then refuse to play. Now, posts have been floating around on Twitter about a supposed "master key" which renders that protection unusable since it allows anyone to create their own source and sink keys."
- Tudor Bosman
from Bookmarklet
It's a great explanation as to what's wrong with the way mathematics is taught in school (at least in schools in the United States). Please try to suspend judgment while reading, and -- I'm trying to say this without sounding like a jerk -- if you don't get what the big deal is, or if you're confused by the article, then you're likely a victim of the exact problem described therein.
- Tudor Bosman
It's long-winded and a bit shrill. As far as I can tell, he says that school drills rote arithmetic rather than inculcating a deeper appreciation of mathematical thought. My response is: Well, duh. I'm sympathetic, but I didn't think this article brought much new to the debate.
- ⓞnor
from Android
Yes, coming from someone who has a deeper appreciation of mathematical thought (like you, or me), this seems rather obvious. Maybe the article was particularly interesting to me because I haven't experienced any kind of pre-college schooling in the US, and so I kept wondering "do people actually do this?"
- Tudor Bosman
What's the way out? How can one instill some appreciation for mathematics in a child? Nurture and support her natural interest, if she has one? Tutoring sessions? Private schooling? Look for / hope for teachers who are not yet jaded and are willing to go the extra mile? All of the above?
- Tudor Bosman
(Now that Jeanette and I have a baby, such questions are directly relevant to me.)
- Tudor Bosman
I have no parenting advice, but one thing you didn't mention (and which parents often discount IMHO) is peers. One of the advantages of a "good" school is a set of intellectually engaged (and hopefully not too socially outcast) students. In my own schooling experience that was huge, having friends who enjoyed things like math competitions and getting excited about fractals or whatever the cool thing was. In turn that encourages teachers to bring in more "oh cool" things instead of just teaching a test.
- ⓞnor
from Android
Mostly I think a lot of it boils down to: Live near a good university.
- ⓞnor
from Android
Tudor: A huge percentage of US adults are the equivalent of illiterate for mathematical reasoning (innumerate?). Word problems are out of reach of most. When I get back I'll cite some sources. No advice from me on how to address, though.
- Stephen Mack #TeamMomo
from iPhone
A *lot* of the submissions to the 10^100 project were about solutions for this. Terrible though the death of child is, I voted all of them down because I think the scale of the problem is actually quite small (in terms of number of deaths annually).
- Thaths
I think this kind of death causes more suffering, both for the child and those who knew the child, than other deaths. That should be taken into account in addition to raw numbers.
- Bruce Lewis
from fftogo
@Bruce: Doesn't any accidental death of a child cause intense suffering? What I found strange and interesting was that there were so many people concerned about this specific means of accidental death. Every year there are more children dying from malnutrition and road accidents than from accidentally being left in sweltering cars.
- Thaths
Thaths: Oddly, I think this form of death really does cause more psychological trauma. Something about the several hours during which the child was suffering horribly and a simple act of memory would have saved it really triggers horrified regret. It seems like it might actually make people feel worse than killing your kid because you got into a drunk driving accident, even though the drunk driving ought to cause much, much more regret (since it requires a deliberately irresponsible choice).
- ⓞnor
I'm with you, though, that this is not one of the big problems facing humanity, or even a major child safety issue.
- ⓞnor
@Thaths The article talks a bit about how 'accidental' may be the wrong word, while 'neglect' may also be a misnomer. Deaths in this fashion may cause more anguish because unlike a car crash (even if the parent is at fault) or other cause of premature death, this is one that could have been prevented easily at any moment over a period of several hours. Surely they replay the day in their mind ad infinitum. "I was in that meeting, or laughing at Bill's joke, and my child was slowly dying in the car."
- Kevin Fox
"The child pulled all her hair out before she died."
- Private Sanjeev
Onor, I bet drunk driving (and an ensuing child death) causes just as much regret. Thaths, it's more horrifying to me because I can't imagine myself driving drunk, but I can imagine a scenario where I forget my child (God forbid). I am going to buy the aftermarket device mentioned in the article that sounds an alarm if you leave the car without removing your baby.
- niniane
Sorry to bump this (especially since it's such a horrifying story), but this just won a 2010 Pulitzer http://www.pulitzer.org/citatio.... I guess the fact I not only remember reading it 18 months ago (!!) but where it came from shows the impact the story has.
- Nick Lothian
Because if you're going to throw away money on bad Chinese food, you might as well throw away as little money as possible.
- Piaw Na
@nor - well, no, PF Changs isn't really more pretentious than I can stand - I figure it's the Cheesecake Factory of Chinese food. Maybe it's as simple as what Piaw said.
- Andrew C (✓)
Even as a geek, I love the idea that many cafes are reclaiming their spaces to be areas where -- gasp -- people actually interact in person, vs. trying to become cubicle farms filled with freeloaders. I wish they'd go even further, arranging their space to facilitate and encourage interaction and conversation.
- Adam Lasnik
Let's be clear, Adam -- this isn't about interacting in person, this is about turning over the seating and selling more beverages.
- ⓞnor
from Android
I think it's both. Because it if was simply the latter, cafes could just charge for wireless or put time limits on seating (which in some cases they already do). I think some cafes are sincere in wanting a bit more humanity in their establishment rather than being just a cybercafe.
- Adam Lasnik
I love that JK Rowling's idea of making it big was that she could afford as much coffee as she wanted to sit in coffee houses for as long as she liked. When she was a struggling writer, I've read that this was a struggle for her, as she likes to write there.
- Clare Dibble
I hope she has given some nice tips to those baristas who used to serve her :p
- Adam Lasnik