http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDnYB61o1EU

Chappelle's skit.

Excellent explanations. It is completely understandable if the student puts in the time to understand it. It requires almost no outside knowledge.

I would have loved it if someone showed me this book earlier.

Well, try proving to me why I can't use my hairdryer in the bathtub without assuming I have had classes in electrical engineering. You'll have a hard time. These warning stickers work by brainwashing us into thinking it is obvious that hairdryers and bathtubs don't go well together. These warning labels exist for the newbies in this world, like the people who use hairdryers for the first time. Once these labels are seen a couple of times, they have served their purpose, but there are still more newbies along the way. Just because someone hasn't seen as many hairdryer stickers than you does not make them 'tards.

Anyways, that said, I'll agree with you on some warning stickers, like those on knives and such.

I've always heard about these but I've never encountered one myself. I usually stay in the more technical areas like board games, science, math, etc. and I do not see any of these.

I guess it is only when you want to go to the big controversial issues that no one, even in the real world, would agree on, that I suppose you get these troubles. Deep down, I feel that these controversial things like abortion, scientology, religion, etc. aren't really issues. There is no clear right/wrong so don't waste your time arguing them.

Instead, go to the science/technology/etc. and provide information there. Lots of them need information and those information won't be controversial. There is only one right answer. Let the English and Philosophy people argue out which of their taste buds are more accurate. Go for truths, go for technical.

Probability only works with stupidity and virus makers are far from stupid. Probability only works when viruses are made randomly by churning out combinations of syntax and variables. Only then do you the 90%/10% virus market.

Instead, virus makers try to get the biggest bang for the buck. Why spend a year writing code that affects only 10% of the population when you can write code that affects 90% of the population? Thus, almost 100% of reasonable virus makers choose to infect Windows.

OS X and Linux do not necessarily have to be more secure than Windows to not be infected. They just have to be secure enough so that to infect it, hackers need to work more than 9 times as hard to write a similar virus for Windows.

The above is for personal computers people run at home.

Servers are a different playing field. I believe there are very few viruses. Servers are run by people who know what they are doing. I don't know my statistics but I find it unlikely that even Microsoft servers are infected with viruses.

Water is not designed to flow out of it at a constant rate. Instead, it is the height of the water left in the water clock that is designed to decrease at a constant rate.

In fact, it is impossible for the water to flow out at a constant rate (without keeping the water level constant by adding more water).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toricelli's_law

When the water tank is y=x^4, x=y^1/4. The change in volume for each change in y is the Area lost=pi*(y^1/4)^2=pi*y^1/2

Toricelli's law says that the flow rate is proportional to y^1/2 so it works out nicely.

Why is Windows 7 not a service pack for Vista?

"Unlike its predecessor, Windows 7 is intended to be an incremental upgrade with the goal of being fully compatible with existing device drivers, applications, and hardware." - Wikipedia

It seems Vista users should be given these incremental upgrades for free. I mean, when people bought Vista, they bought 1, 2, and 3, not 1, 2, and 3 with some bugs and incompatibilities. Is it reasonable to assume that the buyers expected Microsoft to fix the bugs and incompatibilities?

It seems now, Microsoft comes out with Windows 7 that has the same 1, 2, and 3 as Vista but with fewer bugs and better compatibility. It isn't fair that Vista users have to pay money again just to use the same 1, 2, and 3 that they were promised in Vista.

How much should a piece of software change before a company is justified to charge users hundreds of dollars again to upgrade?

The problem is not that people think BitTorrent solves all problems. The problem is that people did not know it was the registration servers that caused the bottleneck.

The operating system file causing the delays is actually a reasonable inference from what is provided because it is so big.

A single number is able to describe everything. In the future, you can either get wealthier or get poorer. It only sounds bad because it sounds as if you're basing your net worth on a mere number, but that mere number is a result of decades of research. It is not a mere number as the 35.123 I just pulled from my butt, but it has logical backing and that makes it much more than just a "single number".

Close your eyes and block out all the extraneous info. At the end of the day, at the very core of everything, your net worth either goes up or goes down. And the algorithms for calculating the probability of it going up or going down in this hectic world are as good as we can get. The returned probability is a mere "single number" but it has logic and reasoning behind it.

The reason why these banks are failing is because these algorithms are not good enough. They do not take into account enough variables, and they probably never will because this would require taking into account the neurons going through the brains of a lot of people, such as world leaders.

However, the problem here is not that the number is merely a "single number". You're placing the blame on the wrong thing. It is the algorithms that are not accurate enough. In a perfect world with as much computational power as needed and quantum mechanics to be proven false, the future CAN be reduced to a "single number" and that single number will be successful in getting people rich. However, when that happens, everyone would be using the "single number" and no one will get rich.

You should not believe something is faulty on the _mere observation_ that it is a "single number". A "single number" is just the tip of the iceberg. There is plenty of logic in the method of calculating that number.

Yes, but within all the graphics editing programs that can save in jpeg and bmp, the one with the simplest interface wins. A graphics editing program that can save in only jpeg may have a simpler interface, but it does not even compete because it was _disqualified_ for not being able to "save in jpeg and bmp" as the rules of the competition state.

The article is comparing toy cars with real cars. Lively the toy car is nearly useless while WoW the real car is not useless. However, the article skips over this point and says that people would rather have the real car than the toy car because the real car is red while the toy car is blue. Therefore, red is better than blue. QED

While the chess clock's appearance may be simple, the morse code is part of the "interface" so it should be seen as a complex interface. A simple interface should be one without a large learning curve.

Good (useful) interactions, simple interface=Apple's Ipod- to sleep it took a minute to figure out, but otherwise, it was good; www.google.com is pretty good too

Good interactions, complex interface=your chess clock

Bad (worthless) interactions, simple interface=Lively

Bad interactions, complex interface=

The argument's flawed. Lively had a simple interface and it failed, so let's blame it on the simple interface!

Given _a_ program, there is a direct relationship between the simplicity of the interface and quality. In the set of all programs that allows for the same set of interactions, the program with the simplest interface wins.

The problem with Lively is that its set of interactions was not large enough. Its problem was not the interface that delivers these interactions. It's like saying the monitor isn't working when your program doesn't compile.

He probably has another one but. Separation of Job and Home.

He knows that Anonymous Cowards aren't taken seriously so he at least knows a bit of culture.

Interesting observation.

The ER in bravERy and I,TE,RITY in integrity have already been used in fidelty, brav, etc., so they have to skip those, so that they would have a one to one relationship between ABC, and FID. The rest is just the letters that haven't been used before.

Easy way to create a one to one relationship for the substitution cipher. Just remember the key.