"Ignorance of mathematics isn't the cause of stupid laws and policy around technology..."

I agree somewhat but I think ignorance allows bad policy to exists. Some of what you hear coming from hucksters would, IMO, be akin to repealing the laws of gravity or building a warp drive. I am very skeptical of things such as facial recognition, trawling email to stop terrorist attacks, data mining, anything that handles data which is not ACID compliant, missile defense, and AI (AFAIAC it will never truly exist) though reflection is nice to have.

CS and the principles behind it are often so abstract that many people are not even aware of when they are lying.

You do not need electronics to compute or even build computers. You can use water, electrical circuits, wooden blocks, etc. But in any case, the Mathematics does not change. Just the implementation.

is the number of Astroturfer comments. I'd like to see some effort made to find and eliminate them.

because most of the games that came with the consoles were digital copies. This was done because digital copies are cheaper (no disc pressing, and yes, at these volumes it's an expense worth talking about) and there's not second hand market depressing the price of the physical copies in store. Having a pack in game basically tanks the value of the game at retail because of how the used market works.

I would just skip the sort and do a linear search. As a matter of fact I *am* that lazy.

Shell sort was always my favorite in terms of elegance, IMO

But it's web scale! ;)

I feel like I should've known that. Thanks for the correction.

Considering the number of companies available for outsourcing sooner or later it will probably happen, of not already. It would help explain the mish-mash of tools used in the job. Never trust a mercenary.

Not every hunter-gatherer got crushed by a mastodon either - that doesn't mean it wasn't a selective factor in tribes that hunted them.

make movies look like they were shot on a daytime TV cam to me. I saw Braveheart on one of those modern tvs and I suppose the lighting was more natural, but it was considerably less dramatic. It just killed it for me. Also (and this is mostly just me) I can perceive noticeable drops in framerate on those newer tvs. The rate goes up and down like crazy. Drives me nuts.

But it does raise a serious issue - they're studying changes that don't necessarily reflect the selective pressures of present-day life.

Think about it: what are the leading causes of death for people in the prime breeding age (15-34)? Car accidents - by a good margin. So isn't this significant selective pressure to beef up the neck against whiplash, the skull against forehead impact, survival during significant blood loss, etc?

#2 is suicide. I don't know how this rate has changed over time or whether the methods modern humans choose for attempts are more effective than would have been chosen in the past. For example, while men commonly turn to firearms, which are a very effective way to commit suicide, women more often turn to prescription medication overdoses as a method, which overwhelmingly fails.

#3 is poisoning. While humans have always been around poisons, the sheer number that we keep in our houses, most of types that we didn't evolve to, suggests that this may be a stronger selective factor now than it was during our agrarian days, perhaps comparable to that when we were hunter-gatherers or worse.

#4 is homicide. We've definitely gotten a lot better at that, a person is far more likely to die from an intentional gunshot wound than a beating or stabbing. Selective pressures: surviving blood loss, mainly. Stronger, thicker bones may help in against low velocity penetrations.

#5 is other injuries. Again, we're not as likely to suffer from, say "crushed by a mastodon" as an injury, but we've developed plenty of new ways to get killed or maimed in our modern lives.

Then it gets more complicated on the basis that the issue isn't just about survival of the individual, but their social group as a whole, so even nonbreeding members can have a major impact...

To make a political statement? Since when was this "a political statement"? It was an attempt to stop a movie that made fun of the Great Leader. An attempt that mostly succeeded. Which was done after previously threatening Sony about the issue.

What, exactly, is to gain by admitting culpability? Is that usually what criminals do? "Why, yes, officer! I threw the brick through my ex's window to get back at her and scare her. I'm telling you now so that you can go ahead and punish me!"

Because the world is just full of people who would hack a company to blackmail them not to release a movie about Kim Jong Un. Because everyone loves the Great Leader! His family's personality cult^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HVoluntary Praise Actions only take up about 1/3rd of the North Korean budget. And I mean, they totally deserve it. I mean, did you know that his father was the world's greatest golf player who never had to defecate and whose birth was fortold by a swallow and heralded by a new star in the sky?

No, of course it wasn't North Korea. Clearly it was the work of America! Because America wants nothing more than a conflict with North Korea right now. Because clearly Russia and Syria and ISIS aren't enough, no, the US obviously has nothing better to do than to try to stir up things out of the blue with the Hollywood obsessed leader of a cult state whose family has gone so far as to kidnap filmmakers and force them to make movies for him. It all just makes so damn much sense!

Cue the conspiracy theorists in three, two, one...

I know, write? Who gives a flying flip about an app to track a jolly magical man with an eating disorder.

Now, if someone would make an app to track the Yule Cat, Grýla, and her progeny, then that I would have interest in!