so when is he announcing his new branch of mathematics

the link the Jon Stewart interview. Two very smart men, one of them is funnier than the other, you can decide :-)

I start wondering (every 4 years when people talk about getting rid of the electoral college) if we still teach United States History in high school. Sure let's reform it, take the rubber stamp "electors" out of the process - but you still have the fundamental "big states vs small states" issue (the reason we have a bicameral legislature) and not to mention some other big problems

Nate Silver deserves all of the plaudits he is receiving, I have nothing bad to say about Mr. Silver. I'm going to hunt up a copy of his book. #prepareToDuckAndRun do you know the difference between Nate Silver and God? Nate Silver wouldn't get booed at the Democratic convention #duckAndRun

This same question gets asked about writers and alcohol.

the question will be stated something like: There have been many incredibly talented writers who also abused alcohol (Hemingway immediately comes to mind - but there is there is a large sample size). Did alcohol make them better writers? Will alcohol make you a better writer?

The popular answer is: "The genius that made them great writers probably contributed to thier drinking, but drinking didn't make them great writers."

Drinking might make people think they are great writers, but simply being a drunk won't improve your writing. the cliche "correlation doesn't imply causality" applies.

Many great programmers may have also used recreational drugs - but recreational drugs didn't make them great programmers.

in both writing and coding there is a lot of hard work involved to become (and stay) "good" at your craft - and addiction (to anything) will interfere.

But remember: Mr Garrison says drugs are bad.

So just say no.

This is your brain: this is your brain on /.

Follow your dreams, but stay in school.

I admit my considerable ignorance of Nate Silver's blog - and humbly ask for pardon. i did not mean to question anyone's integrity and I don't think I was "making up shit" :-)

I question the value of any polling - even if it is well done. example: The Carter/Reagan 1980 election was "too close to call" according to the polling data - and reagan won an electoral college landslide. Of course most /.'s probably remember Gore/Bush and the exit polling brouhaha (and "hanging chads" who could ever forget "hanging chads" I've also heard pollsters complain about the limitations of current methodologies (if you are calling people on landlines then you are using an increasingly smaller portion of the likely voters) - I'm wondering if a "Dewey defeats Truman" event could be in the works ...

Yes, there is polling done on a state by state basis - but that does not seem to be what is being discussed: from the blog, emphasis mine: "And increasingly, it is hard to find leads for Mr. Romney in national surveys — although several of them show a tie."

I'm surprised the NY Times says the race is that close. Even if we throw out the Times' bias and the fact that a bunch of inaccurate/biased polls don't make them more accurate, I disagree with the logic behind the article ...

I have no idea who will win, but "national" polls aren't useful because of the Electoral college (skipping the U.S. history lesson) - I'll wholeheartedly agree that Obama has a 98% chance of winning the popular vote, but the election will come down to a couple "swing states" (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin). Romney could lose the popular vote big in California and New York, therefore lose the popular vote, but win enough of the other (smaller) states to win the required 270 Electoral college votes.

I am also extremely confident in predicting that neither candidate will win a "landslide" of the popular vote, but either candidate could win an electoral college landslide (define "landslide" as 60% or more).

For example: 1984 the popular vote was 58.8% Reagan over 40.6% Mondale, but Mondale only won 13 Electoral college votes to Reagan's 525 ("landslide"). In 2008 the popular vote was 52.9% Obama over 45.7% McCain, the Electoral College result was 365 to 173 ... (landslide in Electoral college, but not in the popular vote)

the only thing that is 97.7% probable is that it will be very close. The "election experts" have been saying for a long time that it will come down to voter turnout, which is 100% true

something about history repeating itself probably applies ...

all this study illustrates is a low level of moral reasoning skills on the part of the reasearchers

isn't this sort of thing covered in introductory statistics classes? How the question is asked will always impact the results of the study. If you are making your living taking polls, it is possible to get the results you want by skewing the sample size/distribution and/or writing biased questions.

BTW: what is the difference between "ethics" and "morality?" If you are a politician (who just got caught cheating on his wife) you might say "Ethics is what I do on the job, morality is what I do in private." What the politician is REALLY saying is that "Whatever I do is right - because I say it is right."

moral relativity is a very dangerous thing which has become the norm in western society (but the other extreme is the Spanish Inquisition - and nobody expects the ...)

I will argue that "ethics" is the day to day interpretation of "morality." for example: do you believe "stealing" is wrong? yes, you shouldn't take other people's stuff - that would be WRONG. ("morality") Is it stealing if I walk off with the bank teller's pen? ("ethics").

you have to wait until 2:15 but here is an interview with Elon Musk/walk-thru of the Tesla factory

you raise an interesting point.

the Apple culture seems to irritate Steve Ballmer, and mystify industry experts. Yes, there is a sizable "Apple fanboy" market (those eagerly waiting to pre-order Apple's next product sight unseen) but that has been built on the fact that Apple has been releasing great products for a long time (but it hasn't ALWAYS been that way - the company went through some lean times once)

Apple is in a position in the tablet market that they once held in the personal computer market (and we all know how that ended).

Is someone really making something better AND cheaper than the iPad? Is the iPad just a $500 status symbol/fashion statement? I'd argue the answer to both question is "no." The iPad is positioned as a productive piece of hardware that happens to be elegant ...

My personal bias: I would like an iPad - but I don't want to pay $500 for one (I love my iPod though) - so I have a Nook color. The Nook color is "nice", only cost me $100, but is just a glorified reading device (although I could watch Netflix with it - which was important in my decision process).

yup, the "iPad Killer" thing is in response to the writeup

education is big business - and positioning a device for "kids" implies an "education niche", not as a general purpose device that is even pretending to compete with the iPad

FTA: "In a nod to kids, the tablet is protected by a drop-safe bumper. And for their parents, specific controls are available to block objectionable Web sites."

and also: "Do children today really need a kids' tablet?"

I'll admit that I responded to the "iPad killer" bait and that this whole posting probably qualifies as advirtisement for a device without a viable marketing plan ... (but if someone comes up with a killer app for a cheap and durable tablet then they might stumble onto something)

my first thought is of someone yelling "developers, developers, developers!" (the success of the platform will be directly related to the amount of useful work that can be accomplished using it)

this has the potential to carve out a niche - but has zero chance of "killing" the iPad - i.e. fundamentally different markets...

it is worth pointing out that Amazon will start COLLECTING sales tax not PAYING sales tax. The consumer is the one who will PAY the tax.

nope, nothing to worry about - unless you happen to like/work for/own stock in RIM. this is just the handset market maturing

two examples of market consolidation:
once upon a time there were a lot of car companies in the United States
I'm sure a lot of /.s remember multiple computer manufacturers from the 1990's that aren't around

RIM might be in a death spiral but I wouldn't write them off yet. As far as I can tell they have the "corporate email" market cornered - which is a nice thing to have, but tiny compared to Apple's iPhone dominance.

I'd like an iPhone 4s myself (and when upgrade time rolls around I'll probably get one - but I'll wait for the prices to drop when Apple releases iPhone 5). Unless my employer requires it I'm not going to get anything from RIM ...

competition is usually good for consumers (drives innovation, lowers prices) but that it also means there will be "winning" and "losing" companies in the marketplace

So once again the "/. question in the subject header == False" - Apple and Samsung are simply making superior products and/or out competing RIM (and/or using the patent system better)