Why do we level the playing field between rural and urban, but not along any other axes? There are plenty of demographics that are disenfranchised by their relative size, and they would gain important safeguards against oppression by having a louder voice. But we don't, for example, count black people's votes eight times to put them on a level playing field with whites. The electoral college doesn't make the whole system more fair, it just tips the scale in one particular direction.

Also, the idea that if you don't like a state you can just move is meaningless in this case -- we're talking about the results of a federal election. You can't move anywhere to escape those, so that suggestion doesn't weigh on electoral college considerations.

Yes, the goal of the electoral college was to make sure that sparse rural areas weren't disenfranchised. However, if we really wanted to follow that logic through then we'd have to re-enfranchise other minorities that might get overrun in a pure one-person-one-vote democracy: why don't we count each black vote as eight, for example? That seems another important safeguard. The answer seems to be that we're not seeking to equalize the playing field, but to tip it in a particular direction. I think we'd be better off with a straight popular vote.

For my dollars, I'd much rather work directly with people who are a committed part of a team. It's tough enough to achieve that with direct hires; I don't think you can do it with outsourcing.

I think part of this relates to the nature of software. People always talk about writing software - but that's the easy part. The hard part is *expanding* and *maintaining* software. And generally speaking people who have a history with the code are going to do a better job of it: faster, and more precise. You can also have a much tighter development loop between developers, testers, and users if you have them all in-house. I used to have my developers spend some time using the tools they built with the people who actually used them for the job (I did this myself as well). You learn practical details that are hard to communicate any other way. And speaking of communication: I had a few outsourced workers (forced on me by upper management) and communication was always inferior.

I'm not saying that there's no use for outsourcing, or that it's always the wrong choice. But my experience is that proximity matters. And history matters. And personal familiarity matters. So one needs to factor all that in when making the choice. And yeah, I think I got about 4x the quality and productivity out of my in-house people as my outsourced people.

Wow, thanks so much for mentioning RACHEL and World Possible. I've been working with them for a several years as a volunteer and recently joined as VP of Tech. It's such a satisfying project -- to see the stuff we put together being used in classrooms around the world a few weeks later -- and the Pi makes it all possible. Thanks for making such an amazing and useful piece of hardware :)

I like how everyone assumes people make carefully considered, rational decisions in a high-speed crisis.

People probably choose to veer away from hitting people because they don't realize they might kill themselves - they just see what is in front of them and sure to happen, and don't have the time or wherewithall to consider the unknown consequences.

People will reach out to catch a falling knife, too, but that doesn't mean that they thought about the implications.

I'm afraid you're living under the delusion that people use new information to adjust their worldview. Sadly, no matter what happens to GB, most people will find ways to twist the information to justify their socioeconomic dogma.

There's a reason why Mississippi continues with their policies despite having the example of 49 other states on how you can do it better. Individuals here and there may learn a thing or two, but large scale social learning is phenomenally rare.

You misunderstand the goal of public education. The goal is to provide a basic level of education in the cases where parents will drop the ball. This is exactly as needed with social values as it is with academics. If you are a good, educated, socially conscientious parent, then public school will be relatively easy for your kid and you'll supplement what they don't teach with regular life lessons at home. But sadly there are a huge number of kids that get little to nothing in the way of lessons at home, and a significant number that get bad lessons at home. Public education gives these kids a tiny something in the way of outside influence to counter their bad luck at being born to a struggling family.

I'm sure some people will call out that our schools are doing a bad job at academics so why expect them to do a good job at social values? To counter that let me give a bit of advice: never judge anything without a comparison point. If you think the schools are doing a bad job at providing a base level education for a huge, diverse population without turning anyone away, please tell me what you're comparing it to. Private schools that can select their pupils? Magnets schools that only get kids from families that are concerned about education? Home schooling that is well beyond the means of most families? These are all better options, but they are only options to a minority of children. The rest need public education and most of those need social value education in addition to academics.

Based on my personal experience, that's not quite how it works. Programmers don't usually stay long hours because they're told to - they stay long hours because they are into what they're doing. There are crunch-time exceptions, of course, but if the company is making people stay long hours regularly and they don't care about what they're doing, they'll burn out and leave. So to some degree, people staying late at work regularly has some correlation with work engagement, which for coders is a good thing.

Personally, if I'm sucking at code, I'll try to escape earlier. If I'm deep in flow, I'll be coding until 2AM. And that's when I do my best work.

YMMV, of course.

Sure it's legal for a semi with four tanks to drive around, but is it legal (and reasonably safe) for them to pump gas back out of those tanks? With what equipment? Is it legal to sell whatever is in theses tanks as x-octane gasoline in precise quantities? Isn't this asking for rampant fraud?

Well the simple path would be to make it totally free for all users like Apple does.

And then stop making it worse every version (which Apple also sadly does).

You know, I came here to say that I actually like the Windows phone. But it's true I don't own one - I had to use one when abroad for a month last year. But by the time I was done I thought it was actually a more-well-thought-out UI than my iPhone. I didn't scrap my iPhone though. Friends of mine that have tried them have said the same thing. But none of them have switched either. So what you're saying is true, even without paid shills: there are more people that "like" Windows phone than use it. I guess the question is why? My answer is that the hardware is not very sexy and I'm afraid to switch over to a platform that might be dying, whether I like it or not. Back in the day I stuck with the Amiga way too long, and got bit by Be OS as it came and went. So even though I kind of want one, I'm hesitant.

I guess I'm just saying that sometimes there can be good products that languish for reasons unrelated to the quality of the product. I'd say Windows phone is one of those things. Call me a shill if you must.

> If nuclear was far superior, we'd be installing more of it.

Right. The world is completely rational and efficient.

Yes, but oftentimes they protect some people's rights by infringing on other people's rights. It's only as simple as you make it sound when there's no conflicting interests. Which there are lots and lots of in any decent sized and reasonably diverse group.

Or, you know, interpret the second amendment as written and require gun owners to be part of a well regulated militia. Which would be far more restrictive than any of the restrictions currently proposed by even the more liberal folks. But just go ahead and keep believing it says something it clearly doesn't say. It's your God given right to be delusional as well.

The problem is that not everyone is on an unlimited broadband. I don't expect Microsoft to cater primarily to the millions upon millions of people who still have slow and/or metered connections, but it would be nice if they didn't go out of their way to make our life hell.