Bruce Schneier mostly runs Windows. The NSA uses several different versions of Windows and many different flavors of Unix and Linux. I'm sure they have BSD boxes somewhere in their massive inventory, but it is by no means their primary or secondary computing platform. Why do you suppose that is?

It's because computer security is only a small piece of the security big picture. It doesn't matter how technically secure your systems are if you have a malicious trusted insider carrying sensitive data out, or performing sabotage. How resistant is your entire system to rubber hose cryptanalysis? If a bunch of guys tried to forcibly take control of your data center with machine guns, how secure would your system be? The NSA has offices out there with a bunch of Windows XP boxes - but where they have customized hardware based encryption with at the data entry/exit points, incredibly strict key management policies, TEMPEST shielding, armed users, detailed destruction procedures, and incendiary grenades sitting in the corner.

It's also interesting that some people find this statistic meaningful, given that the Democratic presidential nominee has gotten over 80% of the black vote every cycle since Carter/Ford. Here's the breakdown of Democrat vs Republican share of the black vote, according to The Roper Center at UConn (except 2008 data from CNN exit polls):

1976 - 83 to 17
1980 - 83 to 14
1984 - 91 to 9
1988 - 89 to 10
1992 - 83 to 10
1996 - 84 to 12
2000 - 90 to 9
2004 - 88 to 11
2008 - 95 to 4

Since Obama actually won in 2008, it's fair to say that it's expected that he did better than the average Democratic nominee with most demographic groups. Throw in some Obama waffles and Pat Buchanan, and you start to wonder whether they're more voting FOR the black guy, or against the Republicans. It's not like they came out in support of Michael Steele.

They, uh, didn't bring the case to trial. The prosecutor dropped the case after investigating the evidence. Which is what they're supposed to do.

Pretty sure the parent was referring to the fact that the number 100 was arbitrarily chosen to be the mean. In such a population, IQ would have been defined such that an IQ of 100 is equal to your definition of 693.

Also, as an aside, if IQs above 200 are possible, then so are IQs below 0 (assuming more modern definitions of IQ based on means and standard deviation).

Finally, IQ is a ridiculous metric. Mapping something as mutlidimensional as "intelligence" onto a one-dimensional scale (a single number centered around 100) is unnecessarily crude and inaccurate.

That sounds about right, although I wonder if it will extend to other countries that become as rich as the United States (in terms of per capita GDP).

The U.S. is an anomaly among rich countries though. We're a bit more religious, which may translate to lower rates of birth control (I'm just guessing). And like you said, our infant mortality rate is a bit higher than most rich countries.

Who knows? Maybe the birth rate will drop in response to the lowered infant mortality rate. In any case, since we have positive immigration flow we'll have growth regardless.

I drive a current generation Tacoma with manual transmission, which is covered by the recall.

In my case, the floor mats really do get in the way of the pedals on a regular basis. I noticed it nearly immediately, but loved the truck enough to look the other way. Maybe it's because I drive a manual transmission that I notice it, but the mat OFTEN interferes with the pedals. I just sorta have to reach down and pull it out of the way from time to time.

And I've noticed similar issues with other Toyotas/Lexuses that I've rented/borrowed. Now I'm not saying that these guys in TFA aren't right, but in my case the floormats are a sufficient explanation. Throw in a pushbutton start and an automatic transmission and I understand how accidents could happen.

SteveWoz's concern about Toyota cruise controls - that's something I definitely started noticing in the early 90's. Some models are worse than others, but either way - the speed control is errative and unresponsive in most Toyotas I've driven.

We're a little more complex than that. Survival rates of offspring matter, too, and our species takes a really long time for offspring to be able to survive on their own. It has its benefits, sure, but that also means that the "I'm going to have 15 babies" reproductive strategy isn't actually usually all that great for humans. So that means it'd probably get selected out of the population over the thousands of generations that this has been true./p

I've only seen the print version, and the article has a graph with a line showing that most rich countries, even the ones richer than the "dip" you're referring to, are still under the sustainable rate of 2.1 children per woman. So although it's true that the line trends upwards with wealth in rich countries, it still doesn't mean that rich countries have a net positive growth rate (excluding immigration-based growth). So I wouldn't say the "assumption has now been proven false."

GSM is garbage - the standard is old and outdated, which is why most US carriers, including the CDMA guys, are moving forward to LTE anyways. And they don't need government mandating anything - the industry is moving towards this on its own.

The rest of your post sounds reasonable, although I highly doubt your proposals are politically feasible. I do really like the "no roaming" bit, although I wonder if it will look like utility deregulation, where the benefits to the public never materialize.

If driving a car carried the same level of requirements as flying an airplane, I'd agree. But frankly, pilots need a lot more training and have to obey a lot more rules than drivers do. If getting a drivers license involved as many regulatory hurdles as getting a pilot's license does, then I'm certain we'd have much safer highways.

But it would come with costs that the public is probably unwilling to pay.

Prostitution is stupid. It allows rich people to have sex more.

Wait, you're saying that because more types of people are involved in making movies than video games, there's a step less in the chain? I'm not following. Besides, many movies are published, marketed, and distributed by companies that played no role in the creation. Not every studio is owned by a huge, vertically integrated media corporation.

So which is it? Do movies cost more or less to bring to market? Is it more or less complicated? And does that explain why movies can be sold for $10-20 (or $20-30 for Blu-Ray) while games are sold for $50-60?

Alternatively, we can go with the explanation that nothing you mentioned is relevant to pricing, and that your post's parent was right.

Citation? I was under the impression that states had no jurisdiction over interstate commerce, especially when one of the parties was not either a resident or incorporated in that state.

I'm sick of hearing about how faith in the American dollar is at historic lows. If that were the case, why would the current yields on 30-year Treasury bills be at the lowest rates in recent history?

The market clearly believes that the prospects of inflation or the risk of default over the next 30 years are very low, relative to almost anything else you can put your money into. Just sayin'.

Well, you're the one citing precedent, and I'm explaining that the cases you're citing don't mean exactly what you think they mean, at least under mainstream legal interpretation. And yes, I cited a prominent libertarian law professor for precisely this reason.

I happen to believe in federalism, personally, but I don't think that a constitutional challenge against FCC regulations on the internet would succeed. After all, the traffic being discussed, for the most part, involves commerce and crosses state lines.