If you look at many measures of humans killing humans (including war deaths), we have been improving continuously since world war 2.

There is reason for hope if we get past 2100 without another major war.

I don't know about the eskimos but if you think native american indians didn't kill for entertainment you are sadly mistaken.

Native americans tortured captives for sport long before europeans landed in the americas.

Native americans practiced human sacrifice, infanticide, rape, as well as leisurely and creative torture such as roasting people alive and stopping to wait for victims to recover consciousness before continuing. They didn't do it because they were angry or evil (in their context)-- they did it because they enjoyed doing it. It was entertaining. It was fun.

They were no better- nor any worse- than the Europeans. Europeans also had a long history of enjoying torture- watching bears being torn apart by dogs- watching humans being "drawn and quartered" or burned alive. The religious ones were especially creative towards heretics and homosexuals.

Some particular tribes were friendlier than other tribes and didn't practice torture or practiced it less. Here I venture into speculation and speculate that they were less common. There's ample evidence that most native american tribes were constantly at war with other native american tribes.

I'm not dissing them- I have choctaw and cherokee blood. I'm just relating reality.

oh absolutely- I'm just giving my mangled recollection of an article on how to bet on races and have a better average outcome.

What you say fits tho. It sounds like too many people bet on the "long shot" so the payoff ratio is less than the win ratio.
Other bets are imbalanced the other way and have a better payoff.

If you can get 10:1 and the horse has a 3% chance of winning- that's a terrible bet.

If you can get 10:1 and the horse has a 9% or better chance of winning then it's not as bad a bet.

For your example: Say the odds were 9:1 with the 9 bets but the actual odds of the horse winning (or placing or showing) was only 5%. You'd lose a lot over time.

I don't think I'll ever bet on a horse race in my life tho.

This pharoah thing is a good example. A lot of people bet on it to win even tho the professional odds makers thought the odds of it winning were very low due to many rational reasons. Given how unlikely the win was, the payoff wasn't all that good due to too many people betting on it to winc (and probably irrationally or emotionally.to boot).

Locking scope ruthlessly*, use a process,and to produce builds on a timeboxed basis.

The RUP process encouraged proving all risky items would work before starting on the easy/non risky items to avoid wasting a ton of work on a new project which then turned out to be impossible (you see 100 million dollar failures in this area).

Status reports with percentage of completion are loathed by developers but necessary for all but a small percentage of developers.

Having a project plan and a schedule is helpful.

*Any additional scope should always require a new time estimation and executive approval before being allowed. The cost of "just adding this little feature" should be shown to be "another week- and we need you to sign off on the schedule change."

There are much better bets available. I don't gamble but apparently "place" and "show" are better odds relative to the chance of those occurring.

Normally the long shot is terrible odds apparently. Something like 30:1 if you win but 100:1 or much worse the horse will win.

Looks like they did not get good odds. So I guess the "wisdom of crowds" correctly pegged American Pharoah's odds of winning were pretty good.

http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/b...
"Fans betting on American Pharoah to be horse racingâ(TM)s first Triple Crown winner since 1978 might see some history if he finishes first in the Belmont Stakes. But they arenâ(TM)t likely to see big profits. The coltâ(TM)s 3-5 odds mean horse players would earn 60 cents for each dollar bet, a stingy prize in the racing world."

Well, let's hope so anyway, right? :-)

OTH...

https://www.scottsdaleins.com/...

"This truck driver did not see the car in his blind spot and pinched the car into the concrete median barrier when changing into the left lane. "

You're probably right. 20/20 hindsite but useful going forward.

Even tho the driver was ticketed and they paid for my car, I could have been killed.

However, I fail to see how going on the left would have protected me from an unsignaled lane change to the left. Would you then be advising me to have gone to the right or is there something different about an unsignaled lane change to the left over a car in the left lane vs an unsignaled lane change to the right over a car in the lane?

At best, a percentage game, correct? If the driver of the 18 wheeler isn't paying attention or is tired and doesn't see you, all you can do to be completely safe is to not pass them.

Even then I knew you don't stay next to an 18 wheeler an instant longer than you have to. Given one accident where my car was actually moving in close to 40 years of driving, I think I'm a reasonably safe driver.

Of course not, that would be nuts.

I agree.. but then again, what can you do when they are driving below the speed limit in the middle lane?

What else could I say except "never stop at red lights". :-)

That's a little mangled. Three of 5 were being hit from behind while stopped at a red light. 1 out of 5 was from being hit from the front while stopped at a red light. And one was the truck changing lanes into me.

1 was halloween night and they literally drinking in the truck...
1 was on the way to work and the lady just thought the light had changed.
1 was on the way to work and two high schoolers caravaning to close hit each other exiting the freeway- the air bag stunned one and she just continued careened on blind and slammed into the back of my car. I saw her about 60' back and tried to get out of the way but no luck. Got the collision speed down to under 20mph relative tho. Another 3' and i would have been out of the lane. As it was I was sandwiched between her truck and the suburban ahead of me (who ... turned out to be one of her teachers) and the I-beam in the suburban speared thru my engine compartment at an angle and totaled the car.

One other piece of advice if you are hit-- got and get muscle relaxers the same day. It will greatly reduce the likelihood that your muscles will go into spasm.

Driving a little bit erratically will stop about 80% of that without increasing your own accident risk (as long as you are doing it intentionally).

Nothing major- just drift back and forth and side to side a few inches so your position is not completely certain.

But if they need to change lanes (because they just noticed they were missing it), then there is not much you can do.

I've been driving about 36 years and four of my five accidents were being hit from behind while stopped at a red light. In one case, the truck in front of me put it in reverse and floored it backwards into me (lol. what are you going to do, right?).

The fifth case was an 18 wheeler changing lanes into me without signaling as I was passing it on the right. I'm very defensive about 18 wheelers these days. Even if you are right, you might come out of a positional conflict dead.

I no but there is know way to tell other than context. A human who didn't no wayz would make the same mistake until someone told them about wayz.

One approach would be for software developers to register their words with the voice app so when they were installed on a device their importance rose. And on the device its still contextual when you start it's programs vs sending a text message or email. To even take a guess in a text or email, you'd have to know the context was driving otherwise you might be using the word in other ways.

Hey... if U.S. workers could buy movies, development software, medicine, clothing, etc. at indian prices they might be able to compete. Even if those things were simply bought there at local prices and imported to the U.S. at a profit.

But it's illegal. So u.s. workers pay 8 to 100 times as much for the same products.

Will be happy to see the free market without controlled sales regions.. when it gets here a decade or two after I'm dead.